If you get a million views on a social media post, how many books will you sell?
The truth about going viral, book sales, and an alternative approach
When author Karen DeBonis tweeted about her no-show book talk in November 2023 she didn’t imagine for a second that it would be viewed over 1.2 million times.
Her vulnerability about the ego-bruising reality of being a non-celebrity author garnered support from all corners of the internet and, as she explained recently to
on her podcast Read and Write With Natasha, it was a largely positive experience that connected her with people from places and walks of life that she might otherwise never have reached.As a book marketer though, I couldn’t help myself thinking, ok, but how many books did you sell?
This matters to me because…
The dominant view of the role social media platforms have to play in book marketing is that the raw numbers - of views, or likes, or followers - will make or break the success of our social media book marketing.
In my view though this is a reductive misunderstanding of the power these platforms can wield.
My theory is this:
People buy from people. But not just any people. They buy from people who they can relate to, who make them feel seen, heard, and understood. They buy because they feel like they can trust you when you say, however hesitantly, ‘hey I’ve created this thing, and I think it’s perfect for you’.
The key element in this dynamic is TRUST and to build that trust, rather than creating posts that look like ads for the thing you want people to buy, at least 80% of your social media content should centre your prospective reader. When you talk to them about the things you care about, that they care about too, they start to understand why they should buy your book; how it is going to benefit them, however fleetingly; and how it is going to make their life better.
Effective social media book marketing is as much - if not more - about building relationships as it is about driving transactions. As such, I often tell writers and authors that going viral - as appealing as it might sound - is not The Answer to their marketing struggles, trust is.
But, am I right?! Would DeBonis’s experience bear my theory out?
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So, how many books does 1.2 million views sell?
Well, according to DeBonis, 44.
Yep. That’s not a typo - that’s FORTY-FOUR books.
Even I was shocked.
Some of you may be horrified - if 1.2 million views only shifts 44 books, what chance do you have when your posts are rarely seen by more than your family and real-life friends?
But perhaps I can offer an alternative way of framing it: if going viral only sells 44 books then maybe you can stop obsessing over it, or second guessing yourself, and instead focus on showing up in ways that suit you, rather than the algorithms.
The inconvenient truth is that relatively few people go viral on the internet; even fewer writers and authors go viral; AND even for those who do there is no guarantee that a viral post will convert to large number of books sales.
An analysis of why this viral tweet didn’t lead to book sales
platform relevance - Twitter has always been notoriously bad at shifting books. Before it swung over to the dark-side it was great for networking, brand awareness and staying informed about current affairs, but less effective as a driver of sales. Turning virality into off-platform action is a challenge across all social media platforms but really never seemed to work on Twitter; choosing the right platform for your book, where your ideal readers also spend time, is therefore a key factor in the success of your social media book marketing.
post relevance - the tweet is about the book event, not the book, and doesn’t include a link to where people can buy the book. DeBonis didn’t know her tweet was going to go viral so it’s understandable that she didn’t include a link, but it does mean the usefulness of the virility is limited.
audience relevance - it’s also likely that the audience who viewed DeBonis’s tweet were not the right audience for her book. There’s no way of knowing this for sure, but I think people most likely to interact with this kind of post will be other writers, and other sympathetic people, rather than specifically people who would be interested in reading a story about ‘a mother's journey of perseverance and personal growth after her son is diagnosed with a brain tumour.’
audience relationship - having said that, when a tweet reaches over a million people, surely some of them would have been interested in DeBonis’ story, so why didn’t more of them buy her book? This is where the strength of the relationship between the author and the audience comes into play. It’s actually much harder than you might think to get someone to click on a link that moves them from the place they have chosen to be - the social media app - to somewhere you want them to go - the sales page for your book. If there’s no existing relationship with the author, seeing a random tweet once is unlikely to be enough to motivate someone to click through and buy the book.
number of touch points - one ‘touch’ is rarely enough to get someone to impulse buy a book. Books might be relatively inexpensive to buy but they require a significant investment of time to read - even prolific book buyers and readers are reasonably judicious with their book buys and will often need to be ‘touched’ more than a handful of times before they understand why this book is for them, and why they should invest their time in reading it. NB: a weakness of my analysis is that some of the people who saw the tweet may have followed DeBonis, saw more of her tweets, and eventually bought the book. These sales would not be directly attributable to the viral tweet however. For the most part though, I’d imagine that this tweet was the only time DeBonis’s posts ‘touched’ most of the people who viewed it.
Four actions to take instead of hoping to go viral
Writers and authors often want your posts to go viral because it feels like it will mean you no longer have to market their books for yourselves.
We’ve all seen how social media has driven book sales for writers like Colleen Hoover and Rebecca Yarros, and we dream of our own books making it into the hands of thousands of readers with very little effort required from us. It should however be noted that the virility of many books is driven by social media book reviewers - Booktokkers and Bookstagrammers - rather than the authors themselves.
Expecting yourself to create content that is going to go viral and lead to thousands of books sales is an extraordinarily high bar to set, and could easily lead to you becoming demoralised and demotivated so you don’t show up at all.
So, rather than getting hung up on going viral, here are four other ways you can use the same amount - or less - energy, which are also more likely to deliver results:
Let go of the idea of going viral - it might happen, it probably won’t. Nine out of ten people who go viral will tell you it was an accident - it’s really difficult to predict and plan for so focus on the things you can control.
Work out who your ideal reader is. What are they interested in? What do they like? What gets them engaged? Post content that will help them connect to you, the author as well as to your book. If you need help defining your ideal reader, members of Too Much Instagram have access to this workshop.
Upgrade your subscription to become a member:
Post content that you care about and find fun to create. You’re far more likely to show up consistently, and therefore see results, if you show up in a way that suits you. I wrote about this for
here:
Behave like a community member. We talk a lot about the importance of the right social media content, but not enough about how nurturing an active online network can help you with your book promotion.
Example: one of my 1-2-1 clients was able to reach over 26k people with her book’s launch post, even though her audience was under 1k at the time. She did this by enlisting the support of numerous ‘digital surrogates’ who shared her book far and wide across the internet. In the first two weeks after launch she sold 1k copies of her middle-grade novel even though she was a long way from ‘going viral’.
The power of the network effect is why, if I was to choose a place to start, I’d always begin with building relationships, rather than chasing lots of followers.
Strong relationships mean people are more likely to share what you do with their own networks which makes it much easier to build from that foundation rather than trying to do it all alone.
Community > virality all day long ❤️
Have your say…
I’m thinking of creating a series of posts about how you can use Instagram to grow your network and build community, like this series about GROWTH, but focused on NURTURE instead. This would be for TMI members only - would it be something that would be worth upgrading your subscription for?
Shocking numbers – such high views translating into little sales – and love your reframe of just showing up in a way that works for us not the algorithm. That's definitely hard because often the work invested doesn't pay off (the algorithm is powerful...) but there's so much to be said for trying anyway in a way that works for each of us and being smart about it, too. Thanks for another great post Nicola.
So interesting……