5 Practical Tips for Authors Marketing on TikTok
When I self-published my first poetry book in 2016, I sold 2 copies in the first week. I had been posting my poems on Tumblr anonymously before that (I was so afraid of what people would think if they found out the poet was me), and then I put a whole book into the world and almost nobody noticed.
I kept going anyway, and a decade later I teach authors and artists how to market their work without dreading it. TikTok is one of the platforms I get asked about most, so here are the 5 things I would have you do on TikTok this week. Every one of them comes from selling my own books, and from watching my students sell theirs.
1. Let people see some part of you
So many authors ask me whether they have to show their face (I started out anonymous myself, so I understand the question). The answer is no. You can technically go faceless on TikTok and still do well, and I want to be honest about that. But in a world filling up with AI slop, showing something human makes your content perform better. People want to connect with people.
The bar for this is lower than most authors assume. Your hands flipping through your paperback counts, and so does your voice over a shot of your notebook, or your desk in the middle of a drafting session. I would rather you post a video of your own hands holding your book than another silent piece of text on a screen that could have come from anybody.
2. Keep talking about the same book for longer than feels normal
I did NOT stop talking about my second book for 3 years. I knew readers were connecting with it, so I kept marketing that one book long after most authors would have moved along to the next one, and the opportunities that changed my career came out of those 3 years, my traditional publishing deal included.
What I see instead is a book coming out, the first few months going quiet, and the author moving on before that first book has had a chance to find its readers. Please give that book a chance. You can keep writing the next one while you do (I certainly was), and TikTok makes this easier than it sounds, because a video about a book you released a while ago is brand new to the person scrolling tonight.
3. Separate the posts that bring new people in from the posts that sell
The posts that reach new readers are rarely the posts that sell books. That is why I teach a mix of 3 kinds of content, which I call show, sell and storytell. The show posts let people see you and the work, and the sell posts ask for the sale plainly. Storytell posts give people the story behind the book, or behind you (this is the one authors are already good at, because you write for a living).
This one matters even more on TikTok. One video can put you in front of thousands of people who have never heard your name, and a brand new viewer is NOT ready to buy a book from a stranger. If every post you make asks for the sale, you are selling to the same handful of people over and over, and if none of them ever ask, nobody gets invited to buy at all.
4. Start before you have an audience
Desiree came to me with no audience on TikTok, and no big following anywhere else to borrow from either. A few months later she had hit 1,000 organic followers, and she told me she went into her launch far more confident than she had been under her previous pen name.
I tell you about Desiree because she started from zero on that platform, and she did it recently, on the TikTok that exists now. She did not wait until she felt ready, and she did not have a head start. Waiting until you have a following before you start posting has the order backwards. The posting is what builds the following!
5. Give it longer than you think
Marketing and brand-building take time (more time than any of us want them to take). If you are measuring your first weeks on TikTok against an author who looks like an overnight success, you are wrecking your own confidence and how you show up, and the content you make while feeling that way is never your best work.
Remember where I started: 2 copies in week one, and I kept posting anyway. Give TikTok longer than feels comfortable before you decide the platform is not for you.
Bringing it all together
Show something human. Keep talking about the book you already have, mix the posts that reach with the posts that sell, start before you feel ready, and give yourself more time than you want to. None of the 5 needs a following, a budget or a trend to work.
Which of the 5 are you trying first? Tell me in the comments, I read them all!
And if you want the whole plan for selling books on TikTok, walked through step by step, that is what I built The BookTok Blueprint for: https://marketingbyshelby.com/the-booktok-blueprint 💛