Anyone use TikTok (BookTok) to market an ebook?

[Pierre Lawrence]

An excellent and highly recommended C-SPAN interview with NYT book reporter Elizabeth Harris (link below) piqued my interest, particularly Elizabeth’s response to Peter Slen’s question as to whether a review or a video on BookTok, a hashtag of TikTok, would be a more effective marketing tool, to which she unhesitatingly replied in favor of the BookTok video (that mirrors my own experience; a review, if positive make you feel good but does not increase sales). Another point she made is that of all the social media sites, BookTok is by far the most effective in producing sales.


In that TikTok’s appeal is to teenagers and younger, I first thought my writing would not be of interest to that demographic, so why list, but changed my mind, thinking the listing is free, and expanding the potential market for your material (TikTok has about a billion users) can’t hurt.


Alas, upon uploading the video to the TikTok site I found that the watermark TikTok adds to the video overwrote some of the text, and pulled the video while seeking a fix. An online search suggested several ways to remove the watermark after downloading the video, but not how to remove it from the uploaded video, which evidently can be done, as evidenced by several videos on the TikTok site that do not have the watermark. Anyone know how?

https://www.c-span.org/video/?523493...impact-booktok

[Quoth]

Unless an account with a big following anything on Social Media is worthless.
You are the product, not your book, on any SM outlet.

[Pierre Lawrence]

I share Quoth’s sentiment that a TikTok posting is unlikely to be productive, a view I held at first with respect to listing on Google Play, which despite its reach, produces no or insignificant sales. In both cases I changed my mind, thinking that the platforms are free, and it can’t hurt to expand your potential market.

By way of an update on the TikTok logo/watermark overwrite problem I’ve found a workaround, a second-best solution while continuing to seek a fix that would eliminate the problem from an uploaded video altogether. When your video is clicked on, the logo (as well as your TikTok ID) comes on momentarily, about in the middle of the page (screen) on the left hand side, then jumps to the bottom right-hand corner where it sits quivering for the duration of the video. My video was the cover of my ebook, followed by pages of text (essentially the ebook’s blurb), concluded by a page indicating the major online sites where the ebook could be purchased. The problem was, the TikTok logo overwrote the text, and for now I have solved it by reducing the number of and repositioning the words on the text pages such that they escape being overwritten.

The TikTok site is lightening fast (your video is available for viewing instantaneously) but provides no editing capability once your video is uploaded. On my first attempt, I neglected to add the hashtag, “BookTok,” and correcting the omission required deleting the video and repeating the upload from scratch. Visually the site is spare, but flawlessly functional.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Pierre Lawrence

I share Quoth’s sentiment that a TikTok posting is unlikely to be productive, a view I held at first with respect to listing on Google Play, which despite its reach, produces no or insignificant sales. In both cases I changed my mind, thinking that the platforms are free, and it can’t hurt to expand your potential market.

By way of an update on the TikTok logo/watermark overwrite problem I’ve found a workaround, a second-best solution while continuing to seek a fix that would eliminate the problem from an uploaded video altogether. When your video is clicked on, the logo (as well as your TikTok ID) comes on momentarily, about in the middle of the page (screen) on the left hand side, then jumps to the bottom right-hand corner where it sits quivering for the duration of the video. My video was the cover of my ebook, followed by pages of text (essentially the ebook’s blurb), concluded by a page indicating the major online sites where the ebook could be purchased. The problem was, the TikTok logo overwrote the text, and for now I have solved it by reducing the number of and repositioning the words on the text pages such that they escape being overwritten.

The TikTok site is lightening fast (your video is available for viewing instantaneously) but provides no editing capability once your video is uploaded. On my first attempt, I neglected to add the hashtag, “BookTok,” and correcting the omission required deleting the video and repeating the upload from scratch. Visually the site is spare, but flawlessly functional.

Okay and what have the discernible resulting increased sales been? If the marketing is effective--what's been the effect?

Hitch

[Pierre Lawrence]

Disappointing so far, but not unexpected. The video has been up for about two weeks, and with no promotion (e.g., to family and friends) has garnered 17 views, none of which has resulted in a sale. In addition to the paucity of views, the likelihood of a sale is diminished by the lack of links to sites where the ebook can be purchased (Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo were listed in the video).

To see how much of a hurdle this presents for a prospective buyer I searched for the ebook on each site, Apple excepted, whose closed system requires an Apple device to access, which I do not have.

Amazon is by far the most important platform, and after selecting “Books” in the search bar’s drop-down menu I entered the ebook’s title, expecting ideally an exact match. The search however returns results for all references to the words in the searched-for title among Amazon’s book listings, in this case, about 1,200 (75 pages of 16 listings per page). My title appeared as the thirty-third listing, on page three, meaning a prospective buyer would have to scroll at least that far to find the ebook. Next I searched by author, which produced 442 results (26 pages of 17 listings per page), of which I was listed fifth.

On the Barnes & Noble site my ebook was listed fourth of 36 results when searched for by title under “ebooks and NOOK”, and first of five when searched for by author. A search under “ebooks” on the Kobo site listed my ebook first of 33 results when searched for by title and first of 11,620 (?) results when searched for by author (Kobo’s was the most visually pleasing (uncluttered) of the sites, and had the added plus of including the blurb with the ebook listing).

I encountered another problem in pursuing this project, namely the choice of background music for the video. I hired a seller found through Fivver to create the video (a guy from Bangladesh, who I was highly pleased with), and with respect to the music, instructed him to use the theme from the Twilight Zone if we could (meaning, but not explicitly stating, without infringing the copyright); otherwise similarly sounding music was to be used. Predictably, I guess, the video came back with the theme from the original TV series employed, and although you might get by by limiting the use of copyrighted material to 10 seconds or so and restricting it to personal use, the theme runs for the full 30 seconds of the video and is employed for a commercial purpose (advertising a product for sale). Thus it looks like I will have to replace it with a license-free substitute.

[Quoth]

You probably need 1000s of views/clicks on any SM platform per sale. Ultimately the SM platforms make the most money from adverts on them, not the sellers.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Pierre Lawrence

Amazon is by far the most important platform, and after selecting “Books” in the search bar’s drop-down menu I entered the ebook’s title, expecting ideally an exact match. The search however returns results for all references to the words in the searched-for title among Amazon’s book listings, in this case, about 1,200 (75 pages of 16 listings per page). My title appeared as the thirty-third listing, on page three, meaning a prospective buyer would have to scroll at least that far to find the ebook. Next I searched by author, which produced 442 results (26 pages of 17 listings per page), of which I was listed fifth.

What happens if you search in "kindle store" instead of "books"?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Pierre Lawrence

Disappointing so far, but not unexpected. The video has been up for about two weeks, and with no promotion (e.g., to family and friends) has garnered 17 views, none of which has resulted in a sale. In addition to the paucity of views, the likelihood of a sale is diminished by the lack of links to sites where the ebook can be purchased (Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo were listed in the video).

To see how much of a hurdle this presents for a prospective buyer I searched for the ebook on each site, Apple excepted, whose closed system requires an Apple device to access, which I do not have.

Amazon is by far the most important platform, and after selecting “Books” in the search bar’s drop-down menu I entered the ebook’s title, expecting ideally an exact match. The search however returns results for all references to the words in the searched-for title among Amazon’s book listings, in this case, about 1,200 (75 pages of 16 listings per page). My title appeared as the thirty-third listing, on page three, meaning a prospective buyer would have to scroll at least that far to find the ebook. Next I searched by author, which produced 442 results (26 pages of 17 listings per page), of which I was listed fifth.

Well...I don't care if it's Amazon or Google. search engines all work the same way. They return a search result based upon how many people searched for something like it, similar to it and what the actual result was for which they sought. The actual, looked-for result is what will be first, (what was clicked the most, IOW) then the next-most-sought second, and so on. The fewer people that searched for your book, the further back in the results will be your book. That's why yours is 1200th or whatever it is. That's just how that works.

On the Barnes & Noble site my ebook was listed fourth of 36 results when searched for by title under “ebooks and NOOK”, and first of five when searched for by author. A search under “ebooks” on the Kobo site listed my ebook first of 33 results when searched for by title and first of 11,620 (?) results when searched for by author (Kobo’s was the most visually pleasing (uncluttered) of the sites, and had the added plus of including the blurb with the ebook listing).

Well, the good/bad news there is, NookPress's results will be higher to the top, simply because they have fewer books (and fewer buyers). Thus, you show up closer to the top, hooray in one way, not-so-hooray in the other.

I encountered another problem in pursuing this project, namely the choice of background music for the video. I hired a seller found through Fivver to create the video (a guy from Bangladesh, who I was highly pleased with), and with respect to the music, instructed him to use the theme from the Twilight Zone if we could (meaning, but not explicitly stating, without infringing the copyright); otherwise similarly sounding music was to be used. Predictably, I guess, the video came back with the theme from the original TV series employed, and although you might get by by limiting the use of copyrighted material to 10 seconds or so and restricting it to personal use, the theme runs for the full 30 seconds of the video and is employed for a commercial purpose (advertising a product for sale). Thus it looks like I will have to replace it with a license-free substitute.

Yeah, well, we don't need no stinkin' copyright permissions, eh?

What sites have you tried, for similar-enough music? I found music that was dead similar to, (enough to be evocative of, but not similar-enough to be infringing) the Mission Impossible Lalo Schifrin theme, for something that I did about...5 years ago, give or take.

Hitch

[Pierre Lawrence]

My thanks to j.p.s. for suggesting a search in Amazon’s “Kindle Store” on the drop-down menu, as opposed to “Books” – I hadn’t thought of that. It does narrow the search, moving my title up to twenty-second of 192 total results, as compared to thirty-third of 1,200. It also led me to see what would come up from a search on Google or Bing, and clearly this is the way to go to most conveniently enable a potential purchaser to find your ebook absent a link – provided, importantly, the word “ebook” is added after the title in performing the search. Thus I plan to revise the last page of the TikTok video, which currently reads, “Available as an ebook on Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other online sites,” to read, “To read more or purchase a copy, on Google or Bing, search for [title of the ebook], ebook.” Of the two search engines, Bing, by showing Amazon first of the entries that come up, along with the ebook’s blurb, produces the best result.

With respect to eliminating the TikTok watermark from an uploaded video, in a previous post I said this evidently could be done, but I believe I was wrong on this, as a random search of several videos reveals all had the annoying watermark, but with differing placements.

Finally, as Hitch points out, there are music clips available to get around the infringement issue. TikTok itself, for example, has several hundred thousand to choose from.

[hildea]

About the search issue: You could show the address of your website on the video, that would make things very easy for people who watch the video and decide they want to check out your book. (The website should have easy-to-find info about your books and links to buy them, I assume you have that.)

My impression from reading about publishing (in other words no experience, just secondhand info ) is that social media works best for advertising if that's not the main thing you use it for. So, if you use a social medium to post about all kinds of things which interest you, and to read about things which interest you, and to follow interesting and likeminded people, then you posts about books you've written are more likely to gain traction.

[Pierre Lawrence]

Agree that having a web site would solve the search problem, but my modest literary efforts (a short story in addition to the novella) wouldn’t justify it. Tapping into the captive market of family and friends via social media is not an option either, as my wife’s criticism of my driving skills and hounding me about getting a GPS prompted the novella (“Pierre Lawrence” is a pseudonym). On the plus side, I’m happy to report that the video is getting a bit of traction – we’re up to a whopping 23 views now.

[Quoth]

But you'd need about 100x that per book sale.

[Pierre Lawrence]

I was right the first time on the TikTok watermark – it is possible to eliminate it from an uploaded video, although most have it (go to the TikTok site, click on “Following,” and browse the videos that come up to see the relative proportions). Its placement is also as described in my first post, appearing first on the left of the screen in the middle, then jumping to the bottom right-hand corner where it sits quivering for the duration of the video.

How to eliminate a watermark might soon extend beyond TikTok, as the possibility of adding one to works created by ChatGBT has apparently been proposed as a means of preventing their submission as term papers and the like – in the case of authors such as ourselves, ChatGBT could potentially reduce fiction writing to a commodity product producible by anyone. Should a watermark be implemented to identify ChatGBT as the source of the product, we can be sure applications to remove it would follow, thereby negating its effectiveness, and leaving the commodity product problem still a threat to authors.

[Quoth]

ChatGBT could potentially reduce fiction writing to a commodity product producible by anyone.

Like so called AI art it's recycling scraped content, often copyright, never credited and do a montage.
You might replace illustrations and text in rubbish publications with "AI", but it's not going to replace good writing or good art.
Plagiarising parasites (the companies producing these tools).
The economic model may be to sell you tools to detect it.

BREAKING: BeelzebubFeed to increase plausible lies content of news by 1000% using ChatGPT.

Share price of the CEO of the Flies soars. —Charlie Stross

Q: What is machine learning?
A: A process by which deterministic computers use information scraped from the Internet to undermine some previously functional aspect of human life —Based on an uncredited image on Mastodon

[Pierre Lawrence]

Hope you’re right about ChatGBT not replacing good art or writing, at least for now, but I’m not sure going forward. Though not strictly comparable, I’m reminded of Big Blue’s chess matches with Garry Kasparov, a one-time grand master and courageous opponent of Putin, in the 1990s. Kasparov defeated Big Blue in the first match, but even so, a computer for the first time won a chess game (actually two) against a human opponent. Big Blue won the rematch a year later, with Garry resigning in disgust and stomping out of the room, if I remember correctly. A Google version of Big Blue subsequently defeated human champions in Go, a Chinese game that apparently has many more possible outcomes than chess, and requires more nuanced AI, i.e., neural networks and reinforcement learning, according to Wikipedia, as opposed to the brute force employed by Big Blue to win.