People publish books for different reasons. If you published a book for fun, for charity, or to give copies away to your church, fraternity, friends, or family, this might not apply to you.
Who this post is for:
This post is for Indie Authors who wrote their books to grow an existing business, expand their expertise, increase visibility, attract clients, or create new revenue streams through bulk book sales, workshops, coaching, and more.
- Before I go on, let me say that I am writing this as someone who has been publishing my own books for over ten years and successfully getting them into bookstores (including B&N), libraries, and schools.
- I say this as someone with over 80,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, with videos that have reached over a million views and have often been reposted by people like Killer Mike, Jennifer Lewis, Larenze Tate, Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, Ben Crump, and others.
- I am writing this as someone who has sold books fairly well using social media.
In February of 2024, Tareasa M. Johnson, known professionally as Reesa Teesa, decided to share a mind-blowing story with her TikTok community about her relationship. Her decision to share the whirlwind of abuse from her chaotic marriage to a man who fabricated pretty much every part of his life garnered more than 500 million views in its 50-part series (a total of 8 hours) on TikTok.
Reesa Teesa titled the series “Who TF Did I Marry?” and people watched every episode as if it were a new soap opera.
What came out of the series was a book deal (“What TF Do I Do Now?”), talent representation with Creative Arts Agency (CAA), acquired rights for a series adaptation from Natasha Rothwell (Insecure, The White Lotus), and loads of media attention, podcast features, and interviews.
It used to be that new movies came out in theatres. Now, most of them come out on Netflix.
We are in a new era.
If there was ever a time to be an independent artist, it’s now.
Content creators are interviewing people on red carpets, and Hollywood is watching TikTok and YouTube to spot their next star.
If you are consistent enough on social media (and I mean you bring consistent value), you can not only build a community of people who are interested in and aware of your platform but also secure paid opportunities.
You can literally go from making jokes on your Instagram page to selling out full stadiums of people who now get to laugh with you on stage. Just ask Mojo Brooks.
You can go from putting on your own skits to hosting Saturday Night Live. Just ask Druski.
Though I’m not a fan, he is still a great example of how much social media has changed. While Quinta Brunson has also hosted, Druski is considered the first content creator and social media influencer to host Saturday Night Live who built his platform primarily on social media.
David Oyelowo and Nate Parker are other examples. Their company, Mansa Studios, has partnered with Macro Television Studios to produce vertical series on social media. They are hiring real actors to act in professionally shot short films that you can stream on platforms like TikTok straight from your phone.
The power and impact of social media in 2026 is very clear for anyone paying attention.
Business owners who think social media is just for updating Facebook, gossiping, and posting cute pictures are still using it like it’s 2007.
All of this said, as powerful as it is, social media posts still do not automatically convert into consistent book buyers, mainly because, to quote marketing strategist Jenn dePaula:
“Social media was never designed to sell things. It was designed to create attention and connection.”
This attention and connection are what led people like Reesa Teesa, Druski, Mojo Brooks, and even Issa Rae (who started her comedy series The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl on YouTube, which later evolved into the HBO comedy-drama Insecure) to succeed.
But these creators didn’t just post to social media, and that’s the part of content creation many people, namely authors, miss.
It’s never just been about social media.
Social media posts alone do not influence the entire book buying process. Closing the gap does.
The gap between posting and converting.
There is a saying, “the deals go down in the DM’s.”
It means the conversations that happen behind the scenes, even in DMs, are where the real magic happens. The engagement gets attention, but where that attention goes next (if it goes anywhere) is where the real work begins.
In other words, if you are trying to convert followers into book buyers and attention into book sales, you need to consider where attention goes after you post.
We’ll explore this in the next part…
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