A Bookstagrammer at Last?

I never started posting on Instagram in order to lure readers. That just doesn't work, sorry. At least not for me. I would never use social media at all if not for the need to market my novel. No, my goal was to attract the attention of bookstagrammers. It hasn't gone well.

Experts (who tell you all the things a self-published author must do to sell books, except none of those things work) say it's really easy to get 'grammers to review your book.

I began by typing "bookstagram" in the search bar, but even that was hit or miss. Anyone who tags a post with that word is going to show up in the results. Shoot, I've even used it myself. Soon I gave up. My next move was to post my own stories, such as they were (Canva-created), hoping a reviewer might see one and be intrigued enough to contact me.

 

 

From there on out I just posted; no reason, just because it didn't cost me anything and I had nothing else going on. It doesn't take much to gain followers on Instagram. I'm now getting about ten new follows a day, and I'm nobody. I think new users of the app want to get their follower counts up, so they're not picky about who they choose to follow. The majority of people will always follow back; it's the polite thing to do. If you post at least semi-regularly, you'll get followers. Don't let it inflate your ego; it's not you, per se. 

 

Occasionally I'd run across an "engagement boost" post, which asks people to follow/like a fixed number of accounts, and I was glad to play along. A lot of those were created by bookstagrammers, so what the heck. It didn't work out well. I never get more than one or two re-follows, and those were other authors. So much for politeness.

 

If you're looking to attract the attention of book reviewers on Instagram, here's a Reddit post by an actual one, with mostly "don'ts" and a few "do's". I like hearing from people who are actually in the trenches, as opposed to so-called experts.

 

To address one of her don'ts, I never have and never will approach a bookstagrammer and ask her to review my book. How mortifying. I don't even like asking for ARC readers.

 

Every day I log on to Instagram, re-follow all my new followers, then scan my DM's. Generally my messages are either from random (male) strangers who apparently just want to say hi, to see if any female users respond. (I don't.) The rest of the messages come from either book trailer creators, cover designers, or people who want to charge me to slap up a couple of Instagram posts about my book. Well, that I can do myself!  

 

A few DM's are from people who want to review my book, so I naturally view their profiles. A tip: if their profile picture is AI-generated, you probably want to avoid doing business with them. I also look at their posts, and they're never good. An image of a book and...well, that's it.

 

Today, at last, I heard from a real person. Her profile picture is real, her posts are of her holding the books she's reviewed. While her following is in the mid-five thousands, so not super-popular nor unsuper-popular, she sounds right up my alley. I'm going to take her up on it. Why not? I literally have nothing to lose at this point. If I managed to get two sales out of the deal, it would bring my total sales all the way up to 16. (Damn! Shooting for 20!)

 

It only took me four and a half months of almost daily posting to accomplish this. I'm on a roll, I tell ya!