Paula Rizzo and Meral Sattar discuss how authors can use TikTok to promote books. They cover hooks, trending sounds, and analytics, plus examples like Colleen Hoover and indie authors who went viral on BookTok.
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Hey there, welcome to Inside Scoop. I'm Paula Rizzo. So good to have you here. Today we're talking about books, one of my favorite topics. And you know, it's not enough to just write the book, and I get that that's a big, big deal to actually get the book out of you, but then you have to promote it, you have to talk about it, you have to get people to buy it. It's a whole other job, and there's a lot of great tools out there, some that work, some that don't. And we're going to talk about one specifically today that I know works really well, TikTok. You might not be thinking about TikTok for books, but there's a whole side subculture called BookTok that we're going to talk about. I have an expert joining me today who's going to give us the lowdown on what you need to know both as an author and as a reader to be able to support your favorite authors there. So we'll get to that in a minute. And this is something that of course is near and dear to my heart as the author of two books, Listful Thinking and Listful Full Living, which I have created a little empire around lists and sharing them. So I myself am guilty of not doing TikTok. So this episode is as much for me as it is for you, I have to say. And I do have a little freebie for you because my background is a TV producer. I know that media really does help to get the word out there. So I have a checklist to become a go-to media expert. If you go to paularizzo.com/checklist, you can check it out there. And we do have a QR code as well if you're into the QR code thing. But you can go ahead and get that freebie there. And I have a class coming up that is for authors. It's called Media Ready Author: Speak in Soundbites, Set Up Your Virtual Studio, and Sell More Books. Everyone wants that, right? The bulk of the work that I do is working with authors to be able to talk about their books and make sure that they are putting their best face forward and giving their book the best chance it possibly has to be able to sell books. Honestly change people's lives. So I'm doing this live training. If you go to media— media-ready-author.com, media-ready-author.com, uh, or check out that QR code, I would love to have you there. There's a bunch of fiction and nonfiction authors joining us and a couple of literary agents too. I have to say they've snuck in, uh, and some publicists as well, because these things that I'm going to teach you works for everybody, works for whatever it is that you're talking about. Throughout this, if you're watching the replay with us, I would love to hear from you if you have questions for my guest, uh, all about book talk, how to sell books, how start, you know, your own TikTok account, all of those things. So leave us some questions below and share this if you know somebody who maybe has a book coming out or is interested in this kind of thing. Tag them, tag them below and let them join in the conversation with us here. So without further ado, I'm going to bring my guest on, who's a woman that I've known for a very long time. Her name is Muriel— I'm so sorry, Meral Sattar. And I've known her for years because we belong to Women's Media Group in New York City together. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me, Paula. I'm so excited.
It's so fun to chat. So I've known you for years as a publishing consultant, and now you are a TikTok booktok star. So you have to give us all the lowdown.
Well, I mean, I know that I think I started becoming interested in TikTok in 2020, I guess, when everyone else did. And I think that's when it really took off. I mean, I don't know if you guys know this, but just a fun little stat. So TikTok author Colleen Hoover is actually outselling the Bible, which is a wild fact.
This is insane. Insane. So here's the thing. We're going to talk about two things today. We're going to talk about as an author, what you can do to promote your book on TikTok, BookTok, and then also what has happened to other authors who have just gone viral. I mean, this is what happened to Colleen Hoover, who you were talking about, who is an author who has many, many, many books. And all of a sudden, what's the story there? What happened with her? Someone shared it and it's been going viral?
So she actually had been out for a few years. She was traditionally published and she joined TikTok and she started making videos about her books. And then the way TikTok works is in the beginning, it doesn't matter who your following is, how many people you have. They always show it to a small sample of people. And then if enough people finish watching that video, they show it to more people and then more people. So every video on TikTok has a chance to go viral because of their algorithms. And then there are things that you could do to kind of fine-tune the algorithms and you can kind of really hone down your audience on TikTok and leverage it to sell books. And I don't know if you've been in a bookstore recently, but I take my kids to Barnes Noble all the time, and there is a BookTok table at Barnes Noble. And yeah, and it's—
it's—
I always pick up a book for about, like, feature book. I was like, okay, it must be good if it's on BookTok, which, I mean, which sometimes it's not always the case, but 99% of the time, if it's on the BookTok table, then I will most likely pick up a book. I'm like, oh, this is This is good.
Yeah. And BookTok, I mean, it's just TikTok but for books, right? I mean, there's no separate app, there's nothing else going on. It's just—
do you use the hashtag?
Like, how do people engage?
So BookTok is kind of a subculture within TikTok where people make TikToks about books. And the hashtag, I think when I first— when I did a talk about TikTok in July, the hashtag had about 60 billion views. And I just checked it right before a few minutes ago, and the BookTok hashtag has 80 billion views right now. So wow, it's really helping up drive the sale of print books. And I think last year people bought over 825 million print books in the US in 2021 alone.
Wow.
And that's more than any since records began in like 2004. And I'm pretty sure those numbers are not 100% accurate because That's by NDP BookScan, but those are just the ones with ISBNs. But I know tons of people sell training materials that are downloadable. So I'm sure it's a lot more than that.
Right. Workbooks, that kind of thing. You've been in the publishing game for a very, very long time. And so you know what works, what doesn't work as far as selling books. I mean, and as a TV producer for years, look, people want to be on TV. I get it. You want to be on GMA, you want to be on Today Show, all the big ones because that's exciting, but that does not sell books. Books, right? There's, there's more that you can do that will actually help to sell books. Media is good for building credibility, getting the word out there, but it doesn't necessarily convert to buyers. Podcasts are very good for that. And now, uh, you know, TikTok. So what about for, for authors who are interested in, you know, getting their own book out into the world? What do you suggest that people do? Because you've been doing a lot on TikTok since the beginning to push out some really great content?
Yeah, so I joined TikTok to push out my fairy tales podcast for children and also to promote inclusive children's books. And I feel like all the traffic from my podcast has come mostly from TikTok and it got featured on Apple a month ago.
Awesome.
And I got a lot of downloads, so I feel like my strategy is working and I have not spent any money on advertising on the podcast. For books, I feel like it's a different— you do need to spend money on books. So I'll have people who come to me and say, oh, can you do all my TikToks for me? And I'll say, well, I think for TikTok, I can show you and I can train you on how to be on TikTok and how to use it. But you should take— you should read this or you should take this class here and then kind of learn how to do it yourself because for TikTok, the person has to be comfortable on camera. And in the beginning when I was doing my TikToks, I would get like 10 views, 20 views, and I was posting all the wrong things. I didn't realize that there was an algorithm that gets trained. I was, I was watching a lot of like puppy videos and cat videos.
I do, I watch puppies and I look at recipes. That's really it.
I need to— so if you notice when you log on to TikTok, that's what TikTok shows you. Yes, because you've kind of trained that when you look at stuff, you kind of train the algorithm to show you. But if you start looking at, um, nonfi— if you start looking for certain topics and just start following readers there and then engaging with authors on there, then TikTok will start showing you that.
Yeah. And do you find with fiction and nonfiction it's sort of similar, or is it harder for nonfiction or for fiction to get some traction on TikTok?
So I do experiments a lot, right? So one of the experiments that I did is my daughter and I, we published a children's inventions journal together, and I just started posting videos on TikTok. And I think we sold— and it was a fun activity that we had done because she wanted to make her own inventions book. And then I put it up. Online. I distributed it, and the first few weeks we sold like 500 copies, and I was like, oh, okay, wow. And then, wow. And then I said, you can pick any, um, you can pick any charity that you want, and then we'll donate all the proceeds to that. Because I, I didn't, I didn't want, I, I didn't want it to become like a money-making thing for her. Totally. So yeah, so I just kind of, I just, it was kind of like, it was an education project.
It's a good mom. That's a good lesson right there. That's very good. But just for perspective, I mean, most books truly do not sell more than like, what is it, like 250 copies or something insane? Like very, very low amount. It's—
it— what— so a few years ago I went to this Library of Congress event and they said the average book sells less than 250 copies a year, and the average, uh, the average traditionally published book sells 250 titles a year, and the average self-published book sells less than 150. And that was maybe like 8 years ago, and I feel like I saw a stat recently that said way less than that.
So that is just like, if you stopped listening, come back to us because this is like startling, you know, Maral and her daughter wrote a book, put it on TikTok and sold 500 copies like this. That is more than most books sell in their lifetime, right? I mean, that's crazy. Wow.
And then, so then I started experimenting with different genres. So, I mean, most of my, TikToks are about children's books, like inclusive children's books. And I did one video and, and I've had a bunch of videos go viral. My most viral video had maybe like 5 million views, but I didn't really understand how TikTok worked, so it didn't sell anything for me because I had the formula wrong.
So what is— what should we do? Because I want to show one of your videos in a moment because I know it did very well with The author did really well because you mentioned your book. So I want to show that in a minute, but what should people do? Like what, what now have you learned that we can do as far as having a call to action, telling people to do something after they watch the video? How, how should we work that algorithm?
So, so TikTok lets you have analytics. So you can see, um, it tells you like the best posting times, how many people have finished watching your video. And for me, I found the magic, uh, number was like 7 to 9 seconds. And a lot of people, what they'll do on TikTok, they'll be like, hi, I'm Meral, or like, hey guys, what's going on? And then you've already lost them. So you need to hook them in right away with an engaging picture or a question or something really interesting. So, and then you need to have a call to action, which is something that they could do to engage with your posts. And then for all the books that I recommend, I put a, uh, I put in the comments and I pin it the name of the title and how to find it. And then for every podcast episode that I'm promoting, I will put in the comments, I'll pin it, and I'll put the name of the podcast episode and how to find it. So because people who want are on TikTok want to go to your content and they want to find your book, you just have to direct them. And, and I always pick like one link It could be Amazon, it could be bookshop, could be anything. But just don't say in your video, my book is available everywhere.
Yeah. Or just Google it. No one will ever do that. This is never happening. So to be very kind to the audience, they only have, what would you say, 7 to 9 seconds?
I would say, well, you need to hook them in right away.
Totally. Yeah. I mean, the preamble in the beginning, you just got to get to it. This is kind of media training 101. I should be media training on BookTok. It's amazing. But so to able to have that call to action. So call to action could be what? Like, buy the book, uh, follow my podcast, leave a comment below, uh, let me know if you like the book, something like that. Yeah.
Or follow me for more inclusive recs. If you love this book, follow me for more inclusive recs. Uh, if you love children's books, just drop a, drop a black heart. Or if you love— or drop a green heart. Um, just something that will get them. Or comment with your favorite, uh, book. I mean, there is one TikTok that I did about books that creeped me out as a kid that I read as an adult, and I asked people to duet it with theirs, and then they added their— then they started dueting it and adding theirs. Oh, I love that.
That's nice. It's like starting a conversation in a way. And now, how do you then— because this is what people will want to know— how do you then convert them obviously to book sales? You have the link there so they can do it right there. But what if you want to get them onto your email list? Do you find that that also works, or are people a little averse to that?
So if you have, if you're like, I've seen it working with coaches and people who actually train TikTok. I've seen people, I actually bought a training from somebody where she actually did an audit of my account and then she told me all the things that I was doing wrong and I was like, okay, and then I fixed it and then I immediately saw my followers go up and, and so there's a link So I use the Milkshake app and I like it better than Linktree. I find it a little easier to use and it's free and it's this little link that you hyperlink in your TikTok profile and people will usually, most people unless you tell. So there's certain things that TikTok doesn't like, right? It doesn't like certain words. I just found out recently that there was a code word and it meant something very racy that they kind of banned but it, oh, accountant or something like that and you're not left. If you use that word, they're not going to show it to anybody because it meant something totally different.
Wow.
In the TikTok world. So they were not showing things, or if you're trying to sell stuff actively in your videos, it won't. So if you say like, oh, go to my profile and download the link, they don't like it. So, and they're not, they're not going to show it. So there are certain language that you can use. I mean, I mean, I don't ever use the word, like once you're within book talk and you're following people, you, you get the—
you kind of can see it. So that's the thing, it's like you have to kind of get the lay of the land. It's like a whole other world. It really seems like it's a different— it's a different universe here. You have to speak the language, you have to know like what's the appropriate etiquette and all these things. I want to show a video that you did because you obviously pick, you know, books that are, that are great for children, um, and, and, uh, diversity, and you want to make sure to, you know, include everyone in the conversation. And so these are the books that you pick. So you picked a book, um you did a TikTok about it, and then I want to show it, and then I want to hear what happened afterwards.
Can we skip to the good part?
Oh, I love it. Cute book. Okay, so you were in the bookstore, you picked this book, you did a TikTok about it, and then what?
I love this book. So one of my fairy tales is about Brown Rapunzel. So I and also about like fairy tale traditions and how one company doesn't have the rights to all these stories. So that one actually got a lot of trolling comments because people are like, well, you can't change Rapunzel's hair, it's blonde. So, so the comments were going a little wild with that, but then that was maybe 10% of the comments, but 90% of the people just loved the COVID and then they loved that I had zoomed in on the favorite page and my favorite part. So my issue, like, I think I spoke to parents about what was so wrong, or I hit a nerve with parents, right, is fairy tales just teach your children to fall in love and, you know, and that's the end. But in this book, the page that I loved was they talked for hours and he listened. And that, that resonated. So if you look at the comments, I don't remember how many comments I had, but I had like hundreds of comments and everyone was like, oh my God, this is the best, this is the best part, this is my favorite part. And then what— and then they were like, how do I find this book? How do I find this book? And then I didn't realize that you need to— so what I did is I put the bookshop link, I put the Amazon affiliate link in my profile, Milkshake profile, and on the top I just linked that book. And, um, and then also in the pinned comments I said search, uh, search for the name of the title, and then, um, that's how people found the book. But then I noticed that the author got like several thousand sales as a result of that one video, and then I noticed that she went to number one because then other people started sharing the book too. Wow.
So that's— so this is just an example of, hey, I loved this book, I talked about it on, on BookTok, and it led to thousands and thousands people buying the book, or at least 1,000.
Yeah.
And then I— incredible.
Yeah. And it was, it was really fun, and it was really nice to see because it wasn't published recently. It was published a while ago. I just happened to find it in my, in my hunt and my research.
Yeah, I love it. I mean, and that is what's happening. I mean, we talked at the beginning about Colleen Hoover. I mean, she's had books for a very long time. She has multiple books, and, you know, maybe they did well, but they never did this well. It wasn't until this happened. And you have another example too of a, of a poet, because this can work for all kinds of genres. You know, we that, you know, sometimes the racy stuff, right, the romance novels do a little bit better, but poets are also having some, some luck. What's your example for that?
So, uh, that's Shel— she's a woman I follow, um, she's amazing. Her name is Shelby Lee and she has, oh, almost half a million followers, and she has just used TikTok to sell her poetry books. And I think the number that she shared recently was she's sold like maybe like 6 60+ thousand books just through TikTok. And she's, she's, um, and then now she teaches everyone else how to do it too.
Wow. That's amazing. I mean, you know, we were talking, there's, there are men who are doing this really well, you know, sci-fi writers, right? You have another example for, for that too. Uh, someone that you, you follow, what was his name? AP?
Oh yeah. AP Beswick. So he's in a Facebook group that I'm, uh, a TikTok Facebook group that I'm in. And then he posted and he was like, 'Hey, this video, I've been using this trending sound.' And so when you're on BookTok, you kind of need to know what the trending sounds are that all the other book people are using for your genre. And he used this trending sound, he applied it to his video.
What do you mean, like an, like an audio sound?
Yeah, like an audio sound. So, um, because so some people, when I tell them about BookTok, they're like, 'Oh, can I just take any sound from any movie?' And I said, 'No, they have a library.' library of audio, and then Instagram has a library of audio too. And what I do is I repost the same things on both accounts, but I change it up a little. I say you can't, you can't just take your TikTok video and post it on Instagram. You have to change it up, remove the music, remove the watermark, and then add new music because the live, the music is only approved for that platform.
I say, so you can't just double dip and just put the same thing everywhere.
No. And then what people usually do sometimes, uh, especially on BookTok or for trending sounds, is they click on the sound and then they can see all the videos that are using— yeah, so, so you don't always want to create like original audio. You— it's, it's just another way to get, get searched and discovered.
I see. So it could be songs or it could be sounds or it could be whatever. Yeah, already in the— on the platform, something that's in the library to use. Oh, that's interesting. These are like tricky, tricky little things I wouldn't have thought are the, you know, the way, the way of, of BookTok.
Yeah, and they're, they're called trending sounds. So, uh, and the key is you don't want to use something that already has like a million people using it. You want to use something that like less than 50,000 people or less than 20,000 people are using it because it also goes back to teaching, um, authors how to do SEO and discoverability. So TikTok is actually spending a lot of time on optimizing, so they increase their little description box, their hashtags. They're kind of trying to turn it into a little search engine too. And I don't know if you noticed, but Instagram Instagram and YouTube Shorts are all actively trying to compete with TikTok. And TikTok, yeah, they market themselves as an entertainment platform. So I find that there's two ways to succeed on TikTok. You entertain or you inform. And then you could, like, I see a lot of parents on TikTok and then they're just sharing. Comedians are on there or they want to inform or they want to teach. Other people about something, and you just need to make sure that you're consistent and that you're sharing a consistent message the whole time, and that you have a strategy.
Do you think publishers are looking now to BookTok to find authors and to find, you know, voices that may have not, you know, risen to the top before, and now they're able to see, you know, some diversity?
I definitely think so. One, one of the authors that I follow, she actually started doing TikTok. She self-published, and then she got like a 6 or 7-figure publishing deal, and she is an author of color, and her name is Aparna Writes, and I follow her, and I love her stuff, and I read her book, and, and now she has a series coming out with a big, big publisher, and it's also, it's like when something goes right, when an author goes viral on TikTok, everybody knows. And then a lot of the publishers are on there too. What I'll see is like some publishers will send galleys to authors. Uh, I mean, I'm not like a big influencer, but I'm a micro influencer.
And you do have a crown. Let's just— let's show our crown, please.
This is my TikTok crown for my, for my book talks.
I love it.
I actually— do you want to see one of the boxes?
Yeah, let's see. Yeah, yeah.
So the Rebels and Royals people just sent me this and it's like a cute little box and they— it's, it's, it's designed for unboxing. So a lot of the marketing material is designed for unboxing. So because people want to see this on online and see it.
Yeah. Well, that's exciting. I mean, you really have made, made a name for yourself on TikTok and elsewhere. Tell me about your podcast, because I know the podcast is the project that you're trying to get people to you know, listen to and engage with. And so it's Barely Bare is the podcast.
Yeah, it's called Barely Bare Reimagined Fairy Tales, and it's traditional fairy tales rewritten for modern times. And they feature like Rapunzel. She's a brown Rapunzel. My Snow White is actually from Ethiopia. The 12 Dancing Princesses are the 12 Dancing Ronnies, and Apple featured them a couple of months ago. So it was really exciting. I like, I love storytelling in all its forms, and I feel like it's just so important. And the podcast is free, so I just want more people to listen to it.
I love it. We have a QR code there so you can click there and get to the podcast. Well, Meral, thank you very much for being here. This has been very enlightening. I feel like I have a lot of homework to do. I need to like actually watch some of these talks and really see the people who are doing it well. So thank you for the good examples and for your own experience, and you have earned the crown, I would say.
Thank you. It was so much fun having me. Thanks again, Paula.
Of course, of course. And, uh, thank you all for watching. If you have questions, continue to leave those in the chat boxes below. We would love to answer those. And, uh, you know, once again, I do have a free gift for you. If you go to paularizzo.com/checklist, you can grab my checklist for becoming a go-to media expert. And I would love to see you in my class, Media Ready Author, all about media training, right? So how to speak in soundbites, how to set up your virtual studio, and how to sell more books, because that's what we want at the end of the day. So thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.
