Getting creative and researching the book industry on Instagram can help grow your audience and your platform

Instagram has always illuded me as an author.

Why? Because I have trouble creating eye-catching images for posts that gain attention. So I began digging in and researching different ways and techniques to post engaging content on Instagram as an author.

But first, here are some things to consider:

• What are the trends on Instagram? (Keywords, hashtags, tropes, and challenges)

• Genre (what color schemes, typical posts, and vocab do they expect)

• What can you expand on?

• What props can you use to add more to your posts when creating an image?

• Are there bookstagmrammers or authors in your genre that you can get ideas from?

Ideas that work for lots of genres

Book Rainbow

This is when you choose books from your personal library and arrange them into a rainbow, separating them by color.

I tried my hand at this but found that many of my books are the same colors.

Another way to achieve this will be to arrange the books with their spines up if you have more colors and more books. Or if you are handy with an application such as Canva.com, you could take book cover images and arrange them into a rainbow arch.

When you post this, Instagram has a character limit of 2,200 words. So, be sure to list the book titles and save room for hashtags.

Blind Date with a Book

This is another great one that can be used for any genre because you can change the background color to match your genre.

Pair that with an image of a brown paper-wrapped book, add some arrows and keywords to clue readers into the theme of the book and you have a solid engagement piece.

By placing the text at the bottom of my image that the title is in the description, I then followed up with the title and the author as well as the book description.

My hope is that this will create enough intrigue to make them want to know more.

Book Photoshoot

This is where you can experiment and have some fun.

Make sure before you do this you have:

• Good lighting

• More than one prop to work with

• A nice area

Remember that we need to use our creativity in a new way to make these interesting to our target audience.

For example, one of my young adult books, Anywhere Else, has:

• Coffee inspiration

• A beach trip

• An old truck

• Season: Summer

So, knowing these things, I need to figure out how I can use them in a photo.

Which may look like a photo of my book at the beach (I mean, who doesn’t love a trip for bookish reasons once in a while), or my book in a coffee shop next to a cup of coffee. Or maybe, I lay my book in a patch of nice grass, lay a coffee cup next to it, and scatter some seashells, and a pair of sunglasses.

Here is an example of a super simple photo I took, but the takeaways are:

• nice lighting

• fake flower prop that relates to the book

• a nice wood backdrop

My main focus was not to just promote the book here, but if it had been, I would have added:

• gardening gloves

• seed packet

• bundle of flowers

Book with a Playlist

Bonus or additional content you create for your book can just be reused as a great marketing tool.

Whether this be maps, character mockups, or even a playlist, use it to your advantage.

But with the focus on a playlist, you can:

• Share an image with the cover images for the songs alongside the cover of your book

• Create a playlist on Spotify and pair it with a QR code that readers can scan to take them directly to the music

Here are just some examples of what I put together for mine.

Authors are also readers

To think that authors don’t also read is crazy…so why not put your reading to good use?

As an Indie Author, I know the value of a book review. So, I review every book I read, leaving reviews on BookBub, Goodreads, StoryGraph, the platform I got it from, and across my author platform. And it just so happens that sharing these on Instagram can be another great way to build engagement.

My blog book review images look like this, and until now, I have been sharing them on Instagram…but it’s a little…boring.

So, I decided that it was time to start making more eye-catching images for my book review.

My author friend, Katherine Dyson, created this and I thought this was a great example of what you would want to create for a book review.

As for the description of my book review, I post my book review in the description with my star rating and some hashtags.

In addition to this, I also share a recap of what I’ve read and a roadmap of my to-be-read list.

Fun Book Marketing Content

The perk of having an application like Canva.com is that they have tons of templates available, book mockup options, and stock images to help you create some great images for social media.

When creating these images, you need to think about your target reader and what is going to pull them in. You also need to think of different ways to present the same idea without being repetitive.

Here are some examples of mine:

Don’t be afraid to look at other authors or bookstagrammers to find inspiration or to get ideas. And don’t be afraid to play around and see what you can create.

Thankfully there are lots of places to look for inspiration and ideas.

Take a chance and put yourself in the reader’s shoes. Ask yourself what would catch your eye and try to create it.

If done right, creating posts on Instagram can do a lot for you and grow your audience.