Having a good social media following, and landing a book deal go hand in hand nowadays. This is because publishers view followers as potential customers. 

However, the number of followers you have won’t matter if they aren’t willing to purchase your book.

Therefore, one must create a following who is interested in buying their book in order to appeal to publishers, resulting in landing a book deal. 

This article will be discussing how you can build a following on social media, and how you can keep them engaged and interested in buying your book! 

How To Find Your Followers 

Finding and attracting followers does take some worth, but the end result will be completely worth it if it ends up landing you your own book deal. 

You can begin by creating accounts to do with your literary career on all social networks, and make sure they are connected.

Then, use the followers you already have, such as your friends, family, and anyone interested in your writing career. 

Ask them to follow your new accounts, and share them with their followers. This will create a snowball effect, and will definitely land you some new followers. 

As this is growing, begin to follow all the accounts you can find that are similar to yours, interact with their posts and videos, and respond to comments. 

Once you have created a good amount of quality content on your accounts, you can begin to offer to write guest posts for other bloggers, and have them do the same.

This will allow you to gain access to a new group of followers and will attract them to your site. 

You should also consider creating an engaging blog. This can build engagement with people who are interested in what you’re writing about and can also help you promote your future book.

This is also a great way to build an email list, which will be very important once your book is published. 

How To Create Engagement With Your Followers 

As mentioned earlier, publishers aren’t just interested in the number of followers you have, they are interested in how many of them engage with your content. 

Therefore, in order to attract engagement from your followers, you’ll need a fabulous website. This website will host your blogs and all of your other content. 

You should also include an ‘about’ page, where your followers can learn more about you, where you came from, and how you started on this journey.

It is important to be transparent in this section, as people are more likely to engage with you if they feel you are relatable. 

There should also be a contact information section, where your followers can sign up to your email list, and where they can access your social media accounts. 

Including samples of your writing on your website will also allow your followers to see what your writing style is like and whether they want to keep reading more of your material. 

Many aspiring authors include a ‘shop’ section on their websites.

While it is best to wait until you have landed a book deal and have something to sell, you could use it to sell different chapters as a somewhat teaser trailer for what is to come. 

If someone leaves a comment on one of your posts or your blog, then engage with them.

This could start an online conversation, and once other followers can see that you are responding to comments, it may encourage them to engage with you also. 

How To Get Your Followers Interested

In order to keep your followers engaged, and attract new followers, you’ll need to pique their interest, and this also applies if you have already published a book. 

You should ensure that you are posting a lot of visuals and video footage on your socials. As we already mentioned earlier, your followers are more likely to engage with you if they feel you are relatable, and get a look at your inside life. 

Therefore, you could give them a video tour of your workspace, you could show them your pets, or even take photos and videos of places that have inspired the writing for your books. 

You should also show them what it is like being in your position as a writer. Take them with you via photos and videos to any literary festivals, writer’s workshops, or book signings. If you take part in any charity work, show them that side of your life also. 

Hosting giveaways through your social media accounts is also a great way to keep your followers interested. You should have some discounts on signed copies of your books, or even offer a giveaway on some unseen chapters of your next novel! 

Ensuring you post interactive content is also a great way to keep engagement levels up. You can do this by posting polls or live streams on Instagram where followers can directly interact with you.

You could set up Q&A boxes, so they can ask you questions about your life, and also about your book. 

Does The Number Of Followers You Have Matter? 

Landing a book deal will not depend on the number of followers you have. However, you are more likely to land one if you have a good amount of followers that are interested in reading and buying your future books, as they are the people who will make up your sales. 

The thing that is of ultimate importance when it comes to landing a book deal, however, is the written manuscript. If this manuscript is not well written and does not have an engaging storyline, then it will not matter how many followers you have. 

Final Thoughts 

To conclude, the amount of followers one has does not always determine whether one will end up landing a book deal or not. 

What matters to publishers is whether those followers will be interested in buying their book, as they are going to be potential customers. 

While the quality of the manuscript is of the utmost importance, the amount of engagement the potential author has online is also very important. 

We hope this article has provided you with enough information on why having a following on social media is important in the world of publishing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is The Difference Between Self-Publishing And Traditional Publishing? 

The main difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing is that the author owns the rights and royalties to their book if they have self-published it. 

When it comes to traditional publishing, the publishing company owns the rights and royalties. 

With self-publishing, you control all the marketing, and you have creative control of your story.

However, with traditional publishing, the publishing company has complete control over your marketing (which isn’t always a bad thing), and they have the right to steer your book in another direction if they feel that is what is going to sell. 

However, traditional publishers do offer an advance payment before the book is written, and this can sometimes be as high as $100,000. 

There’s also more of a chance that the book will get popular, as they have all of the right tools, and connections.