Social codes don’t come naturally to me but only recently have I realised just how much energy I devote to decoding social situations and flicking through a mental Rolodex of appropriate behaviours to apply to whatever context I find myself in.
The best case scenario is that I get to think about my greeting/ questions/ exits in advance but inevitably there are times when events happen too fast and my mental Rolodex freezes or fails me*, so I’m not without sympathy for people who are unsure about, or mis-step in, their online interactions.
*like the time I hugged a builder in the street because I knew him from work we had done on our flat and my conscious brain didn’t kick in quickly enough to remember that he wasn’t in the ‘hug to greet’ category. Awkward.
That said, communicating at the distance of a screen sometimes makes people behave in ways that they never would dream of in real life and, while the most extreme example is online trolling, it often shows up in more innocuous and accidental ways when people don’t apply what they know about real-life human interaction to their online presence.
A good rule of thumb for any online interaction is to ask yourself whether it would be considered appropriate if the person was stood in front of you. If the answer is no, then it’s probably not appropriate online either!
Who else has experienced the strange phenomenon of a total stranger popping up in the comments of your post with an invitation to read/ watch/ listen to their book/ video/ podcast on a related (or sometimes not!) topic, which surely must be the online equivalent to seeing two strangers mid-conversation, walking over, and saying, ‘Yeh yeh that sounds great, but have you seen this xyz by me?’
To help you safeguard against such faux pas, and to give you some guidance about how you can work successfully with Bookstagramers, today I hosted a conversation with Bookstagramer, Tilly Fitzgerald.
Tilly (tillylovesbooks on Instagram) is a Bookstagramer who has amassed an audience of over 129k since 2020 by sharing her reviews and roundups across multiple genres, including women’s fiction, historical fiction, romance and fantasy. She’s recently started taking on paid partnership work, partnering with publishers to spread the word about selected titles, but for years she was doing this work purely as a passion project.
Over our hour together, we talked about the strengths of Bookstagram, how much Bookstagramers are earning from their accounts, how paid partnerships with publishers work, the different types of ‘feature’ that a Bookstagramers can offer, how she decides what to read and review, the importance of doing your research as an author looking to collaborate with Bookstagramers, what to look for in a Bookstagramer to make sure you choose the right one for you, where to start that process, and more!
It was a super-valuable hour and I’m SO grateful to Tilly for taking the time out of her day to answer my questions, as well as questions from the Too Much community.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments about your main takeaways from the chat, or whether you have any follow up questions.
Be sure to scroll down to the timestamps below if you’re looking for something specific from our chat.
This ‘Ask Me Anything’ conversation was free to watch live as a gift to all readers of Too Much. As a bonus for members of Too Much Instagram, a replay is also available.
You can become a member of TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM for £12/$15 month (or £120/$150 year). I regularly host guest speakers who share their experiences of writing and marketing books from different perspectives, and members also have access to a range of other benefits including weekly content advice, monthly clinics, exclusive written posts, and video tutorials. Have a scroll down this list to see what members have access to.
✨ Available to all readers of Too Much is this post from Bookstagramer and Book Blogger, :
Links to Tilly’s other work
You can find Tilly’s Instagram account here where you can join in with her bookish conversations, and find out more about some special offers she has running with Bookbeat and Readly.
⏳Time stamps
⏳00.01 Introduction to Tilly
⏳03.10 the strengths of Bookstagram
⏳06.28 how often do Bookstagramers get paid to feature books, and how do those partnerships work?
⏳11.33 how many books are you sent each month, and how do you make decisions about what you are going to read and feature on your account?
⏳13.52 what are the different ways authors can expect their books to be featured and how is this affected by the size of the Bookstagram account, and the relationship between the Bookstagramer and author or marketing team at the publishing house?
⏳16.24 do you ever work in collaboration with an author, or do you have creative freedom over what you post?
⏳19.15 Tilly’s best piece of advice for authors looking to work with Bookstagramers
⏳23.06 what not to do when approaching Bookstagramers.
⏳27.20 a book-related project that Tilly loved working on
⏳29.10 one more piece of crucial advice for authors looking to connect with Bookstagramers
⏳31.52 member question from Zofia: can you recommend any accounts who feature non-fiction books as Bookstagram appears to skew heavily towards fiction PLUS a generous offer from Tilly which I will follow up on and share the results of…
⏳34.22 collaboration opportunities beyond Bookstagram for non-fiction writers
⏳35.36 member question from Alison: how common is it for Bookstagramers to review books that have already been out for a while?
⏳37.05 the strengths of smaller, or newer, Bookstagram accounts
⏳43.25 Tilly asked me a question (!) about the nature of the writers and authors I work with in the membership and my 1-2-1 services
⏳46.18 question from the audience: what do you do if you don’t like a book?
⏳48.22 getting over DNF-ing a book: how long do you give a book before you stop reading it?
⏳52.20 thank yous and goodbye!
Once again I’d like to extend my HUGE thanks to Tilly, and invite those of you who came along live, or who’ve watched back on replay, to let me know what your main takeaways were, or if you have any follow-up questions. Thanks for watching/ listening/ reading!
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Too Much by Nicola Washington to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
