Notes: reels, reviews, keyword ads

August 20, 2024

Reels
One of the sessions I watched at the recent virtual conference I attended was about creating reels on Instagram to help market our books. How to Strategically Craft Reels to Promote Your Book was presented by Erin Lee, an elementary school teacher whose fun reels have gone viral. There was too much information to take in within the span of the presentation but we can watch sessions again through Sept. 10, 2024. If you’re interested, you have until Aug. 31 to sign up on the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators website to watch any/all of the presentations in that same timeframe (for a fee). There’s a plethora of really helpful, interesting, great information and insights to help aspiring and experienced writers and illustrators for children.

Last week, I made my first two reels and shared them on Instagram. I shared the first one on Facebook and Twitter, too, to see how they’d perform. It’s still too early to tell and I’ll have to keep creating them regularly. On Instagram and Facebook, there are hundreds of views and a number of positive comments and reactions, which is nice to see. I don’t receive much attention on Twitter but that’s how it goes. There haven’t been any additional sales. These efforts take time to build, at least that’s what I’m telling myself. It’s only been a week after all.

If you’re on any of these social media platforms, you can watch my reels there. So far, I’ve been reading single pages of my book. A marketing friend suggested tying my reels in with something topical, which is a great idea. That’s been a bit of a challenge, especially since reels are ideally extremely short, but I’ll work on that. The advice varies, but I’ve seen that a length of 7 - 15 seconds is best for maximum engagement. Some people say 2 - 7 seconds! Average attention spans are short (about 8 seconds)! Another tip I’ve read is to ask a question or something similar to elicit engagement. Apparently, comments on your reel that use text (rather than just emojis) help reels’ visibility based on Instagram’s algorithm (whatever that really means!)

Unless you have a product that you’re selling directly through Instagram, as of now, you can’t have a live link within a reel. What I found out is that you can have a sticker on the reel that tells viewers how/where to find your link, such as “link in bio.” Some stickers flash or change color and such to draw attention. I’m trying to include catchy text (and other stickers) to entice potential viewers to click on and watch my reel. 

So far, my videographer has very kindly (if not always entirely patiently) been Tim. I’m divulging this here but he doesn’t want videographer credit on the reels. I asked. He’s incognito. I need to play around with setting my phone up so I can do these myself. He is a good sport about it overall! I’m working on some different ideas, in addition to reading pages. But since each page stands on its own and they’re short, it’s a perfect fit. I’ve realized that I need to read faster. And if I decide to do something topical, that will have to be all, no reading. My reels have been 20 to 30 seconds long so far.

Breaking news: I was looking for a stock photo to use in this post and came across photos of ring lights with a cell phone holder built in. Sounds just right for my budding videography career. 

Reviews
Did you know that one of the greatest gifts you can give an author is to review their book on your favorite site? Hint hint. I have the most reviews (10) on Amazon. If you’re one of those exceptional people — THANK YOU! I’m also listed on bookshop.org, Goodreads, other bookstore sites and library sites. Reviews help with visibility of our books and let people know when a book is worth paying attention to (or maybe not). A review can be as simple as choosing how many stars you think a book is worth (usually from 1 - 5 with 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest). Better yet, in addition to a star rating, you can leave a short comment about the book. This might take only a few minutes, especially for a picture book, if you don’t overthink it (ha). Reviews are more likely to be posted/impactful when the site you’re reviewing on can verify you as a buyer (if it’s a book seller, that is). But that’s not required. You can leave reviews anonymously, but I believe you will have to be logged in. 

Ads, keywords
I recently analyzed my Amazon ads to see which keywords are performing the best. I’ve taken a look at the data that Amazon provides about the keywords I added to various ads to see which have impressions (meaning someone saw it, i.e., it came up as a result of their search), clicks, and sales. It’s kind of fun to see how various words perform and helps inform future ads and future keyword creation. There are tactics regarding how to come up with keywords that Bryan Cohen teaches as part of the Author Ad School (Best Page Forward). This key information is part of his free week-long introduction class that’s offered several times throughout the year. I’ve written about this in a previous post so I won’t go into it here. Keywords can even be other authors names, if their books are similar to your own in some way. In fact, two of my keywords that resulted in sales are other author’s names. 

I’ve taken the keywords that had impressions, impressions and clicks, impressions, clicks and sales and created a new ad with only my best keywords. My next step is to keep creating ads with totally new keywords and going through the same process until I have some really effective keywords. This means that when people search for a book like mine, my book will appear in their search and ultimately, that some of them click on my book AND buy it. I’m not creating nearly as many ads as quickly as they recommend in Ad School, but I’m creating more ads slowly but surely. 

On Thursday of this week I’ll do my first public reading of my picture book at Coreander’s Children’s Bookshoppe, Grosse Pointe Park. I’ve done readings on Zoom for a couple of elementary classrooms in High Point, NC at a school where my niece is the curriculum coordinator. And I’ve done two book readings at Brick Elementary in Ypsilanti. I’m excited for this event and looking forward to it (and a little nervous, naturally). There were originally 15 tickets available on Eventbrite and last I looked, there were only 2 left, so that’s encouraging. I look forward to telling you how the event goes. I’ve asked my incognito videographer to record the reading. 

Here’s to finding balance in our many activities and giving ourselves the time and space we need to do what’s important to us in the right time (the timing that works for us)! And just as importantly, to have fun along the way. AKA enjoy the journey, which is really the goal, isn’t it? 

Image above: Gail reading at Reading in the Park event (moved into the gym due to heat). Credit: Michelle Cox