Social media marketing is extremely important for anyone interested in making internet their income source. But what does it look like for Bookstagrammers?
Getting free books or even review contracts is a reality. Yes. How, you ask? Scroll down for the money making tips.
Brand deals, ARC reviews and promotions are the three most important words on this post. Without one of these strategies your marketing strategy is as good as null.
The thing is that in bookstagram these contracts are super rare and even if you come by one the competition is on fire. But don't worry, here are some tips on getting gigs on bookstagram:
1.Brand deals
Bookstagram is rich on all types of bookish products that make up the biggest chunk on the possibilities for getting money or free stuff. Which the latter is more common.
These products include "bookmarks, candles, book sleeves, enamel pins, mugs and stickers", Ayse, who is a spokesperson for a brand called Ruthless Heroines, said.
A common brand deals is being a brand representative, which Catarina who is a 3K bookstagrammer has tried for in the past.
But what is a brand representative?
It is a basically a bookstagrammer that receives regular packages of goods for free so they can promote the products on Instagram. The contracts can be varied but you will have to post photos with the products or make un-boxings of the packages.
As mentioned earlier the competition is intense to say the least. The normal approach is to search for brands that you identify with and then participate on their rep searches. Mini tip: search for the hashtag #repsearch.
Let's look at the above example, for a rep search you are often asked to describe yourself in the description and to make a custom photo with examples of your work.
But how do you get this brand deals?
“Try to know what you want from a brand before talking to then, if it’s a book ask for that specific book. Engagement and quality of your posts are also very important, it’s not that easy", Catarina said.
Engagement and content are very important but what about followers number?
Ruthless Heroines is a UK based company that makes candles inspired in books, and their spokesperson, Ayse, said:
"Followers are partially important, as someone with less than 100 followers isn't really raising a lot of awareness of our brand. However, someone with more than 100 or someone who has a few hundred followers can raise just as much awareness of our brand as someone with thousands if their pictures are good and they are very active on Instagram".
2.Author Contracts
Another way to gain money or free products on bookstagram are author contracts, where a self-published author and/or a literary agent reach out to you for a review or for promotion.
Author promotions are not that rare but less and less payed.
Reviewing is seen as a free service. The book is often given to the reviewer and this is what makes it impossible to ask for any monetary compensation from author/publishers.
But it can still be achievable. One way to do it is to actively search the author community in Instagram and reach out to some authors yourself.
But be concise: say what book you want; how many posts do you plan on making with it and how many stories; do you want to be payed? Is it a review or a promotion?
Another way is to wait for the authors to come to you, private messaging in Instagram has a feature which hides new message from people not following you, so be alert for any requests for messages.
REAL LIFE EXAMPLE: An author contacted me for a promotion for his novel. I did three posts and three stories featuring his book and was paid £75 pounds. This is the message I sent to the author for the price:
"I have an average of 500 reach per post, and it can obviously be lower or higher and I do my prices with that in mind. For a normal post with 500 reach its £15, if it gets higher or lower the price can be adjusted accordingly but the higher I have gotten would be 2500 and if it gets to that it would be £25 and in the same vibe, it its less than 500 reach its £10. For a story post I do it £10. I never do only one post, I normally do 2 to 3 normal posts: one before reading the book; other during reading it and another in the end I also do a story post with each normal post because it would boost the reach of the post itself. I always use different original photos and different captions/ hashtags.I receive the first half of the pay before the promotion and the rest after the promotion!"
I had less than 600 followers at the time.
3.Arc reviews
A book that is in its finishing stages but its not published is an ARC. These are the first copies that publishers and authors give to a few lucky reviewers with the intent of boosting their marketing and sales.
How to you usually get this?
A big chunk of these copies are often delivered to booksellers and reviewers, others are then sent out to book-bloggers, booktubers and bookstagrammers.
But it is important to understand that some of these copies are UNREQUESTED. When this happens the person that receives the ARC does not need to review it on any platform.
Do not think that this will happen to you! Most ARC's are requested. This means that you will need to contact the publisher and ask for the book to be sent to you.
Here is a list of some publishers:
Now, what do I say when I email any of these publishers?
1. What book do you want: Choose a book you are really interested on reading and that it is being published in 2-3 months.
2.Find out the publisher and their email: Google *book title Publisher* and see if the email is up above the list!
3.Figure out if ARCs for that book have already been sent: This can be often found in the publishing team of the publisher’s twitter.
4.Compose an email like this:
