📲 The Grid: June's round up of useful things for your book marketing
Seven post formats for you to try, need to know Instagram updates, and more useful things that will help you with your book marketing ❤️
Hello! Welcome to this month’s edition of The Grid where I round up a bunch of useful things to help you promote your work and get more readers. I’d love to hear from you in the comments if there’s something you find surprising or especially useful.
👀 In case you missed it…
I’ve updated the directory post so it now contains links to the most recent resources and essays I’ve published, including the latest in the Reel-y Simple Reels series of tutorials. You can browse the whole post here:
📍Pinned posts
Some useful content from across the internet 🧠
read this by
for the number of books an editor might be working on at any given moment and more insights into what editors are jugglinghere are some super useful and actionable tips for book marketing from
I loved this interview with
, owner of South London book shop, Backstory - it’s a super-interesting peek behind the scenes of how bookshops choose books and what authors can do to help! Thanks to for publishing it.a question that often sits under author anxiety around marketing is, how many sales is enough sales? This piece from
gave me more of a sense of how variable the answer to this question is and why so many authors receive so little marketing support.
💬 Need-To-Know Instagram Updates
reorder your posts with this new grid feature (I don’t have it yet but it’s currently rolling out). How to: go to your grid and hold your finger down on a post that you want to move. Tap on the option to ‘Edit Grid’ and you will be able to swap the position of posts (it won’t work for pinned posts so make sure you unpin them first) 😉
Instagram are now providing monthly summaries in the Insights of Business and Creator accounts. Tap on your Professional Dashboard then look for the Monthly recap option under Your Tools. The summary will show how your content performed with personalised tips for how to improve. The tips are pretty high level so I’ll leave you to decide how useful they are but they offer somewhere to begin.
if you haven’t yet made use of Trial Reels yet (I’ll be honest, I keep forgetting!) Instagram are reporting that creators using them are seeing better performance than when they post Reels to their grid. Something for you to try out in July, perhaps?
And finally, for anyone who struggles with talk-to-camera videos, Instagram has added a Teleprompter tool to it’s video editing app, Edits. Read more about it here.
PSSST… if you’re looking for realistic Instagram book marketing support that understands the challenges writers and authors face, check out my 121 services!
I can support you as you build a platform on Instagram to strengthen a book proposal, or show you how to use Instagram to make sure you’re not launching your book into the void.
I’m releasing the details of my updated 121 services on 1st July but you can find out more now by booking a free 30 minute Discovery Call. I’m now taking bookings for September but I have one spot available for July if you’re in a hurry! I look forward to hearing from you❤️
💐 Flowers for authors…
Come and collect your flowers…
Cynthia Anderson’s WWII historical novel, The Pilot’s Wife, is a heartbreaking story about three generations of women kept apart by a devastating secret from WWII. Set in Switzerland, it offers a fresh perspective on neutrality, resistance and the healing power of love.
Indie romance author Hillary Bowen has announced her debut WW1 historical romance novel, Out With Lanterns, is now available in paperback ❤️ ‘A newly independent woman. A man severed from all his anchors. A love that will remake their world’: find out more on Hillary’s website.
💡Seven post formats for you to try in July
If you click through on any of these posts, please engage (like, comment, save, send) with the post to send a signal to the algorithm that this post is valuable, and as a way to say thanks to the creator who made them ❤️
You said___, I heard ___ show you understand your audience by presenting them with your perspective on something they often think or say
Turn the comments into a ___ group chat: think about what your ideal reader would be invested in and make the group chat as specific as you can e.g a romance reader’s group chat; a Hunger Games group chat; a frustrated poet’s group chat etc.
My mum said we can ___ if it’s ok with your mum permission slips. Think about what your ideal audience member might want to hear/ say/ do but daren’t say out loud.
almost forgot this is the whole point this trend is a good one to showcase what else makes you tick beyond your writing or your book(s)
newbie ___ advice I’d give if I wasn’t worried about hurting your feelings this trend is a good one for non-fiction writers especially but fiction writers, you could also tweak it to say newbie advice I’d give to readers of _[insert genre]__ if I wasn’t worried about hurting your feelings.
I mean I could but why would I want to lip-sync to the audio if you’re feeling brave, and on the screen add some text that is something you get told to stop doing. Bonus points if it’s something your ideal reader will relate to.
does *everyone* have trial reels? I keep looking for it (under audience, I think) and I don't see the setting, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place? just not sure if it's universally available and I'm missing it, or if it's a feature they're rolling out slowly.