How to Promote Your Non-Fiction Book on Social Media
3 unique ways to sell your book through social media platforms
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
Have an audience on social media but need some creative ideas to sell your nonfiction book?
Here are three ideas you can begin implementing today that will engage your followers, personalize your brand, and garner interest in your books.
Let’s get started.
1. Engage your followers with a game
This technique accomplishes two things: helps you promote your book and gets your followers engaged.
Here’s an example.
Recently, I asked my followers to pick a number from 2 to 113, and told them I would share my favorite line from the corresponding page of my book.
Screenshot of Instagram provided by author.
I posted this on my Instagram story, and quickly got over 100 responses!
Then, as promised, I shared my favorite quotes on my Instagram story. After doing about 15 (because 100 is a lot to do in a short time frame, and I didn’t want to give away every page of my book!), I thanked everyone for participating and included a link to purchase the book.
Multiple followers reached out and said they loved both the game aspect and getting an inside look at the book.
There are many ways to get creative with this! Instead of sharing your favorite line from that specific page, you can also share details like what that particular chapter or section is about.
This idea doesn’t need to be limited to just the Instagram platform. The Question feature on Instagram Stories (pictured above) is great for things like this; however, you can also post the question on Twitter or Facebook!
Try this idea to get your followers engaged and interested in your book. They’ll feel like you’re personally responding to them, which humanizes the experience of buying a book.
(Pro tip: if you can, reach out to everyone who participates and thank them! This will spark a conversation that might lead to a sale.)
2. Give your followers an inside look
Promoting your book is about promoting yourself.
Take a step back from doing post after post of your book.
People are following you because they know you’re a writer and want to know more about your process.
Tell them why you’re passionate about the topic of your book. Give them a behind-the-scenes of your writing process, how you got published, and the history behind what you’re writing.
Calls-to-action are great (and necessary!), but every single post doesn’t need to include a link to buy your book. Give your followers the inside look they want. Get personal.
3. Encourage user-generated content through a contest
User-generated content is content created by users (in this case, your social media followers) rather than the brand (in this case, you, the author).
It’s a great way to be authentic, and it lessens the time you have to spend creating graphics and taking pretty pictures for social media.
One way to get user-generated content is by hosting a contest.
Promoting a non-fiction book about history? Run a contest where your followers have to share one fact they already know about the historical event, or share why they’re interested in learning more about it. Ask them to tweet their answer and use a unique hashtag, or tag you.
Retweet their answers and reply with your knowledge on the subject. This is a great way to be seen as a thought leader on the topic of your book.
Promoting a memoir? Host a quiz about yourself on your Instagram story (use the Question feature) or Twitter (use the Poll feature). Your followers can see how much they already know about you, and you can entice them with surprising facts that they can learn more about in the book.
You can give a prize to the person who answered the most questions correctly, or use the quiz results to create content for social media. (“63% of you thought I only had one long-lost sister, but you’re wrong! Learn the truth in my memoir…”)
Not my best example, but you get the idea.
Other simple types of user-generated content that are great for authors:
Share pictures of your book that your readers post on social media
Make graphics of your reader’s reviews
I hope these three ideas get your brain thinking creatively about the many ways you can promote your book on social media. Let me know if you plan to try any of these!
Interested in working with me on your author marketing strategy? Click here.