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.
Certainly, some genres — like romance and fantasy — perform better than others on TikTok. But I’m going to show you the strategies I used to build that audience in about seven months, even before I had a published book. TikTok isn’t just lip-synching and dancing videos — it’s a powerful tool to sell books and connect with readers who will love them. I had virtually zero social media presence before I started my author journey. If I can do it, you can too.
How to promote your book on TikTok: The basics
If you’re just getting started, there are a few fundamentals you need to understand about how TikTok pushes content. Viewing time, comments, likes, and shares all increase reach. That’s why every video or carousel should follow the same basic framework: hook, story, and call to action.
Beyond that, three factors play a major role in how TikTok distributes content on a more technical level — and if you understand them, you can use them to your advantage.
1. The algorithm
Did you read that word like it was a spooky villain in a sci-fi horror movie? “The Algorithm.” Don’t feel bad — you’re not alone. The algorithm doesn’t hate you. It just looks for consistency between your account and the accounts it wants to connect yours to.
If your feed is filled with cozy fantasy, TikTok shows your posts to viewers who like cozy fantasy. If it’s adorable turtles eating strawberries… well, those are the people seeing your author content instead.
Don’t worry — you can retrain your algorithm. More on that in a minute.
2. Trending audio
If your feed is properly curated and you’re on the right side of BookTok, scroll your feed for 10 minutes. If you hear the same music or voice-over or goofy audio sound bite multiple times, you’ve likely found a trend going around the bookish sphere.
Trending audio has influenced reach since TikTok’s early days. Even playing it quietly under spoken content can help. To use it, you can tap the sound in the bottom-right corner and select Use sound. It’s that simple.
3. TikTok Shop
TikTok makes money through TikTok Shop — which is why content with attached products gets an extra boost. If sellers sell more, TikTok makes more. Simple math.
Part 1: Building your BookTok presence
We’ll look more closely at TikTok Shop later, but with these basics in mind, let’s consider how to promote your book on TikTok effectively with a few starter tasks:
Task #1: Train your algorithm
To retrain your algorithm to get your bookish posts in front of more bookish users, start by setting up your bio with relevant keywords in your genre. Use keywords in your bio, in your posts, and even in comments to help TikTok understand what your account is about. Keep it simple and clean. Here’s mine, for example:
Next, search within your niche and engage with that content. For example, if I want to focus on sword-and-sorcery fantasy like Stone & Sky, I’ll search terms like sword and sorcery books, epic fantasy books, old school fantasy books, etc. Watching, liking, and commenting helps TikTok learn who to show your posts to.
Finally, follow authors and bookish creators in your niche. Engage with them. Not only will you build relationships, but the algorithm will start associating your accounts and showing your content to similar audiences.
Task #2: Strategize
As you retrain your algorithm, take notes. Learn from authors and creators in your genre. If I’m trying to be in the cozy fantasy space where I can talk about Guard in the Garden — which has a little grumpy/sunshine sweet romance in it — but I’m taking notes from creators in spicy romance, I need to go back to Task #1 and continue to retrain my algorithm. A strategy that works for one genre won’t necessarily work for yours.
Task #3: Post and interact
Now that you’ve got a good idea of what others in your space are doing and some ideas of your own to try, it’s time to start posting. And consistency does matter. I aim for at least once a day, but when your account is in growth mode and you’re seeing good engagement, that’s when you ramp up to three times a day.
I know that sounds like a lot, but more posts mean more chances at virality, and what makes it manageable is batch-creating content. It’s really hard to create something every day. Set aside an afternoon, set up the lights, grab a stack of shirts, and make a bunch of videos and carousels you can post throughout the week.
I film everything with my phone. You don’t need fancy equipment — just a tripod and a light or two. There are decent cheap lights out there, so no need to blow the budget. The big key with lighting is that the majority of your light should be in front of you (or off at an angle, but still lighting the front of you). You can have accent lights in the background, but always prioritize lighting your subject. Don’t stand with an open window behind you!
Another helpful trick: Film somewhere that visually signals “books” right away — maybe a library or a stack of books on the table next to you. Make it easy for people to guess what you’re about the instant they see the video.
When it’s time to post, schedule your posts for when people are more likely to be on their phones scrolling:
- 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., while taking a lunch break
- 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., after picking up the kids and before dinner
- 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., when winding down for the evening
Use reminders or a scheduler — there are many out there, but a few author friends have recommended Vista Social.
Another thing to consider: If you find something that works, do it again. And if it works again, double down, triple down, and keep going! It might surprise you what works.
A little content encouragement
Tons of authors tell me they hate showing their face on camera, so TikTok could never work for them. I always ask them the same thing: Have you heard of faceless content?
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. I myself run a fully faceless publishing account, @goldengriffinpress.
Compare that with my author account, @zsdiamanti, where I’m on camera almost every time.
Now, you might be thinking, “But Zac, two accounts?”
Yes. And that brings us to TikTok Shop.
Part 2: Monetizing with TikTok Shop
Task #1: Create a separate account
When setting up TikTok Shop, don’t attach your author account. Whatever account you attach to the shop will automatically become a business account and lose access to most trending audio, making it way harder to grow — remember, trending audio is one of the big three for increasing reach.
Instead, create a second account for the shop, as I did with @goldengriffinpress. Then make your author account an affiliate creator for the shop, so you can still use trending sounds. Yay!
The one caveat to this approach is that affiliate accounts require 5,000 followers. But once you hit 1,000, you can already link your shop in your bio.
In task #3 below, I’ll tell you why you want to get to that affiliate level sooner rather than later.
Task #2: Develop your product
The second thing you’ll want is a great product. Now, if you’re selling books elsewhere, you know how important it is to have solid covers, taglines, pitches, and blurbs. Same with TikTok Shop.
But on TikTok Shop, you’ll be selling signed copies you have to fulfill yourself (or through TikTok fulfillment). I suggest starting with signed copies because you can get creative with them and add bookmarks and other goodies to make the experience fun for the reader. If you make the product special and shareable, readers will post about it, and what author doesn’t want someone else to market their books for them?
For Guard in the Garden, we include a sticker, a bookmark, an in-world certificate of authenticity, and even recipes from the book. A little bit of creativity goes a long way to make your product shareable.
@zsdiamanti Signing copies of my fantasy books to send out to readers doesn’t always go according to plan, but it sure is fun! 🤣 #fantasyreads #fantasybooks #cozyfantasybooks #booktok
Task #3: Post and connect the product
If you’ve set up your author account as an affiliate for your shop, you can add a product widget directly to your videos, allowing viewers to buy your book instantly without leaving the app. No more hoping they remember your title, search for it elsewhere, and complete the purchase without getting distracted.
Adding the product to your post is easy:
When prepping your post, click Add Link > Product. Select your book by clicking Add, and you’re done.
Task #4: Fulfillment
Fulfillment is where a lot of people get hung up on TikTok Shop. Don’t you have to pack and ship the books within two days? Yes. But let me encourage you with a few thoughts.
First, labels are generated automatically and paid for from your shop balance before you ever see it anyway. Makes life simple.
Second, even though the volume will fluctuate from day to day, just like any other retailer, you can set a maximum number of daily orders. I might have 400 copies of Stone & Sky in stock but limit orders to 30 per day. I have four children, and they all help with fulfillment, but we try our best to avoid fulfilling hundreds of orders in a single day unless they’re new releases.
You’ll have to decide what you’re willing and able to accomplish. We pack boxes of books each evening and drop them at the post office the next morning. A good friend of mine packs up at lunch and drops off at night when he’s done with his day job.
With the tools for managing inventory and maximum fulfillment levels, you should be able to find a solution that works for you, so you can capitalize on all that TikTok Shop has to offer.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, TikTok (just like every other social media platform) is a tool for you to use. It’s designed to help you find new readers who are looking for the vibe your books bring to the table. I hope this encourages you to take TikTok seriously as part of your author strategy. It’s changed my life, and I’ve seen it change many author friends’ lives who’ve started to implement these strategies for themselves.
You’ve got this. And if you’re in the fantasy space, maybe I’ll see you in the BookTok comments.
Until then, ever onward!
