[TfTi] Using TikTok as Your Bookseller

A newsletter email came in this week from Derek Doepker with the subject line “40k in book sales thanks to this.” I wasn’t sure if the 40k meant dollars or copies, but either way he grabbed my attention.

Turns out he meant dollars and he referred to an article by fantasy author Z. S. Diamanti on the BookBub blog, titled “How to Promote Your Book on TikTok (I Made $40k at Launch).”

It’s a long post, but well worth it, so I’m just going to highlight a few points that may help you decide whether to invest your time. Here’s how he opened his post:

“When my first book was published, my family had $32 in the bank and a maxed-out credit card. I didn’t have money left, but what I did have was 27,000 followers on TikTok. When Stone & Sky released, we grossed over $40,000 in the first three months, and we’ve never looked back.”

In the very next paragraph, he reminds us of the effort needed to gather those followers on TikTok (or any other social platform):

“… I’m going to show you the strategies I used to build that audience in about seven months.”

Yes. Once again, there’s no such thing as overnight success.

How to Build an Audience (Before You Launch)

One of his tips is to “train your algorithm.” Instead of thinking of it as TikTok’s algorithm, he explains how it really should be yours, because TikTok feeds you more of what you spend time interacting with.

He shows how to use the search function to find your book niche and then,

“… engage with that content. … Watching, liking, and commenting helps TikTok learn who to show your posts to.”

He treats the task of training your algorithm seriously, taking notes about what other authors in your niche do and what seems to be working. And he warns that you need to keep doing so, because what’s working today may not be in a few weeks or months.

His section called “Post and Interact” could apply to most social platforms. But because TikTok is so video and audio heavy, he provides good tips for creating in those media, from equipment (your phone) to setting (“somewhere that that visually signals ‘books’ right away”).

He recommends a daily routine and suggests three time windows he thinks are most effective.

What to Post

Here, the advice is similar to other platforms: be social. As we’ve always told clients, half of your time should be spent creating and posting your content, and the other half liking and commenting on others’ content — including conversing with other commenters. Be friendly and generous with what you know. Ask questions about what they’re doing and what they know.

But a big one that may help you get started, you don’t have to be on camera. At least not all the time.

“Faceless content means you never have to show your face on a post — whether that means page flips, B‑roll, or carousels with music and text. There are faceless accounts out there that absolutely dominate.”

As part of your ongoing research in your niche, you’ll get a feel for whether getting on camera may be more effective for you.

Selling Books via the TikTok Shop

This is what you came for, right? Perhaps you already knew TikTok has a store, but I did not.

Diamanti goes into detail about:

• how to set up a separate TikTok account for your publishing entity
• become a TikTok affiliate for an extra revenue stream
• set up your “product(s)” in TikTok Shop
• and the thorny question of fulfillment (getting your books to customers)

He does fulfillment himself. His description of how much effort he, and his family, and his best friend put in may turn you off, though the opportunity to interact directly with your readers and surprise and delight them as he does provides a good incentive.

But wait! TikTok has its own fulfillment service that you can use, called “Fulfilled by TikTok” (FBT). Among the advantages — besides not having to store, pack, and ship boxes of books yourself — your customers get free 3-day delivery. And you get to brag about that in your promotions.

FBT also claims that you could save 20%-35% on the cost of shipping. FBT also provides 60 days of free storage for books you send them to keep them “in stock” (after wandering in their Terms of Service, I’m still not sure what they charge after 60 days). Here’s a TikTok article describing how FBT works.

The one question about FBT that I did not see addressed is how do you get books to their warehouse. Now, I have not used any of this so I’m guessing on this point, but if you publish your book on Amazon KDP, you should be able to order books as “author copies” and have them shipped directly to FBT, just like we do for bulk orders being shipped, for example, to an author’s keynote speaking venue.

So what do you think? Ready to open another sales channel for your books?