Book review: SECRETS TO SELLING BOOKS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Associate links, which means if you click on them and make a purchase, I will receive a couple of pennies (at no extra charge to you). 

While one of my missions is to help authors see that there’s more to book marketing than social media, I realize that many (if not most) use it as their primary marketing tool.

So if you’re going to focus on social media, you might as well use it effectively, right?

With that in mind, I read Secrets to Selling Books on Social Media: Social Media Marketing for Writers – How to Get Readers to Buy Your Book by Bethany Atazadeh and Mandi Lynn. Both are novelists who also offer products and programs for writers.

It’s the fourth in their five-book Marketing for Authors series of short, how-to guides on important book marketing topics.

What you’ll learn about selling books on social media

Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, this book offers you a framework for social media activity.

You’ll learn a few essential marketing principles. One is why quality is more important than quantity with your social media connections. Another is why you must focus your social media time on where it will do the most good.

And, if you’re a nonfiction author, you’ll learn about why your audience needs to know, like, and trust you.

What I absolutely love about this book is its specificity with regards to what you should post and how to create that content. It includes:

• Three sales formulas you can use to create posts
• Templates for your postings
• Instructions for creating a content calendar

You’ll find the formulas, templates, and examples in the second half of the book so if you’re something of a social media power user already, you can skip right to that.

A few things to be aware of

Some of what’s in this book made me think, “Hmmmm….”

Selecting the right network for selling books on social media

The authors recommend that you put your effort into mastering and using a single social network. I’ve offered that same advice here and elsewhere many times.

In my course on how to figure out and find your target audience, you learn how to uncover details about your target audience. With that information, you use audience and social network demographics to determine which platforms they use. The course provides demographic information about  each network’s users.

This book mentions in passing that younger readers use Instagram and TikTok and aren’t on Facebook. But other than that, they don’t directly recommend comparing your reader’s characteristics with each social network’s users.

Instead, they recommend selecting the social network you’ll focus on based on what you enjoy doing.

That’s a big part of success, of course. You’ll spend more time on any platform that’s inherently easier for you to use. But if you head to TikTok because you love making videos, you won’t accomplish much for your books if your readers aren’t there.

You want to find the intersection between your skills and the platform most used by your readers.

Social media income

The authors suggest that authors who learn how to sell books using social media will earn more money than social media influencers.

Referring to authors as “entrepreneurs,” the book says that “Entrepreneurs have it slightly easier [than influencers], because the profit margin is naturally a lot larger than affiliate sales would be, since they’re the creator of the product.”

I’m not sure that logic applies to “entrepreneur” authors selling e-books, the least expensive book format.

In addition, the co-authors sell training programs and other products to writers. I think their work to build a following on social media among writers rather than readers skews things a bit.

Fact is, legitimate (vs. wannabe) Instagram influencers make money in a variety of ways that include sponsorships and affiliate marketing. A recent Wall Street Journal article features a 19-year-old college student who earns as much as $30,000 a month as a TikTok influencer, thanks to brand sponsorships and TikTok’s Creator Fund.

BusinessInsider reports that one Instagram influencer with more than one million followers charges $1,000 for a sponsored story. Another “micro influencer” with a smaller audience earns $100 for the same.

How many books would you have to sell to earn $1,000 in royalties from an Instagram story? Or $100 worth? And will you earn that much from most of your stories?

Sure, some social media influencers earn next to nothing. You can say that about lots of authors, too.

The personal touch

This book offers excellent guidance on how to craft a social media post that will help you sell in a non-salesy way.

At the same time, I got the impression that the authors think you should be focused on selling 100% of the time.

Even when the selling is subtle, I don’t recommend that you sell in all of your posts. I think it works better when you fold in some slice-of-life content, too.

But if you do follow their advice, consider having two accounts for your chosen network – one for your author career and another for your personal life.

Your book is key

Secrets to Selling Books on Social Media doesn’t mention the elephant in the room, either – a book’s quality.

Their advice will help you write persuasive social media posts, but if readers are turned off by an amateurish cover or other flaws, you’ll struggle to sell books.

I recommend Secrets to Selling Books on Social Media

I realize I’ve covered several downsides to the book, but the upsides outweigh what I see as missing or flawed content.

I can’t think of a single author who wouldn’t appreciate the sales formulas, post templates, and sample posts. For those alone, I think this book is a great investment for your book marketing library.

Learn more about Secrets to Selling Books on Social Media: Social Media Marketing for Writers – How to Get Readers to Buy Your Book and the other books in the series on its Amazon sales page.

What’s your favorite book marketing book or course? Please tell us in a comment.