📲 The Grid: March round up
post formats to try, need-to-know updates, and a round up of the best bookish marketing insights I've found on the internet this week
It’s that time of the month already! 🙈 🤪
👀In case you missed it…
This month I created a ‘directory’ style round-up of almost all of the essays and videos that I’ve published over the last year and a bit. It’s organised into different categories such as For when you’re getting started, and For when you’re launching a book that will hopefully make it easy to find what you’re looking for, and I’ll continue to add to it as we go:
For anyone who’s moving towards publication date and is wondering how other authors approach their marketing and promotion, this chat with Susan Cahill is free for all to watch and full of some absolute gems of insights:
If you find any of the free content I create helpful, but you’re not in the position to become a paid subscriber, you can support me by sharing this post with your networks and/or liking/ leaving a comment. Thank you 😊
📍Pinned posts
Author,
shares some thoughtful insights with about what it has been like to market her book: Your Book Needs More Marketing Than You ThinkThis must-listen podcast episode from
and whose book, We Need Your Art: stop messing around and make something is out now!OHMYGOD these stats 😭: Query Stats and Hacks, thanks to
for pulling them togetherOn a more encouraging note,
shares how she placed companion pieces, excerpts, podcasts, and interviews when promoting her bookAnd finally, in defiance of the Age Of The Influencer, I’d like to shout out
and her piece On Being an Unglamorous Female Author 👏🏼
💬 Need-To-Know Instagram Updates
Want your Reels to get in front of more people? Pay attention to WATCH TIME. Instagram have clarified that it doesn’t matter if someone watches the entirety of a 10 second video, or 10 seconds of a 60 second Reel, it’s the overall time spent that counts, not the % viewed.
Related, Instagram is explicitly pushing videos up to 3 minutes. Their focus on total watch time offers a clear directive for how to create your Reels. Create compelling mid-length narratives that sustain engagement throughout and say goodbye to those annoying 1 second Reels that claimed to ‘hack’ the algorithm last year. Longer videos in and of themselves won’t guarantee more reach. 2 seconds of a long video is still 2 seconds!
Get bored easily, especially when watching those longer Reels? Instagram are rolling out an option to watch Reels at 2x speed ‘to help give people a new way to improve their Reels experience’. To use the feature when you get it, you’ll need to long press on the right or left edge of the screen, and the reel will play at 2x speed until you release. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on view retention/ watch time stats (and yes, a race to the bottom on attention spans seems to be the general vibe 🙃)
If you cringe or cry inside every time Reels are mentioned, I’m running a series called Reel-y Simple Reels over the next few weeks in the TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM membership. This is the introduction post to that series. Upgrade your subscription to become a member and receive all of the resources in the series.
🔦Client Spotlight
Calling all parents of sporty kids! Jim - a writer - and Simon - a top Sports Psychologist - are two fantastic dads who’ve started an Instagram account to help parents and coaches better support our kids from the sideline and at home. They’re working on a book and have recently started using Instagram to build their audience.
You can expect tips and insights into how to help your child with match day nerves, what to say when things don’t go to plan, and how to manage your own emotions (!). I’ve already learned loads and you can find them here: trainyourbrain__sport
💡Five post formats to try in April
Who would you cast if your book was made into a Netflix series?
how do you store your books? Go as feral/ straight as you like
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 ❤️
If you find what I do helpful and want to help me keep it going, you can now fuel it by buying me a coffee👇🏼
Thank you for this!
Thank you so much for linking to my query stats post - still hideous to look back on, even though I clawed my way out of the trenches and have come out the other side!