Tease the cover reveal
Show off your professional book design by building anticipation around the cover. Share weekly or even daily posts leading up to the reveal, creating a countdown on Instagram Stories. Every day could show a small section of the cover or a hint about the book's theme. Not only does this keep followers involved, it helps pique their curiosity and makes sure they're tuned in for the final cover reveal.
When it's time to reveal the final cover, don't hesitate to go all out with your big showcase! Choose a high-quality image or video to show the cover, or create a series of carousel posts to show it at various angles. Encourage followers to share the design with other fans of the genre or others who are looking forward to your book's launch!
Go beyond the scenes with your process
One of the best ways to promote your Instagram book launch is through behind-the-scenes content. People love seeing the process and getting a sneak peek at what happens to make the big reveal come together, so you can be creative in how you decide to show this! Some ideas might include showing snapshots of your writing space, initial cover drafts, or your manuscript editing process./p>
Keep in mind this doesn't have to be a massive undertaking. You could simply show a stack of pre-release copies that you plan to give out. This helps heighten the excitement of your book launch and create a community around you as an author.
Take advantage of interactive features
Instagram is an excellent platform for gathering feedback and ideas from your followers. By using interactive engagement tools like polls and questions, you can learn what your visitors would like more of, and create content accordingly. Showcase a few images and have them guess where the story takes place, for example.
The more followers that interact with your stories, the more Instagram's algorithm will share your posts with a larger audience, helping to increase visibility of your book launch!
Choose your color scheme
Having a consistent visual theme to “tie together” your book launch is a great way to build your brand as an author and get more exposure for your book launch. Choose colors and filters that work well with the mood of your book and the emotions you're looking to convey.
For example, if you've written a mystery novel, choose dark, earthy tones. Lighter pastel shades work well for romance novels. Instagram's own built-in filters let you apply these effects consistently across posts, with no graphic design experience needed. Just click and publish!
Create branded templates
One of the best ways to create a cohesive, branded “look” for your Instagram page is to create a set of branded templates. You can then use these templates for announcements, quotes from your book, event countdowns, and more. Even if you don't have any prior graphic design knowledge, do-it-yourself tools like Adobe Spark or Canva make this process incredibly easy and intuitive.
These branded templates also help make your feed look professional, and over time, will make your posts recognizable as uniquely your own.
Design poignant quote graphics
We mentioned quote graphics briefly above, but these little snippets are a fantastic way to make your book even more attractive to your reading audience. Poignant quotes are a great way to give your readers a taste of your book's tone while intriguing them as to what comes next.
Imagine a suspenseful excerpt from a thriller, or a practical strategy from a business book. These types of quotes have a tendency to take on a life of their own and get shared from fans of that particular genre. It's a great way to build up your audience over time.
Craft mini video teasers
Add a touch of drama and excitement to your book launch with mini video teasers. These short animations feature excerpts or visuals related to the book. You can also film yourself reading them if you feel comfortable in front of the camera.
Reach out to influencers and bookstagrammers
Bookstagrammers often review and announce new book launches to their fans, and it's highly likely that there are several well-known influencers in your genre as well. Look for fellow book lovers or even micro-influencers who specialize in your specific book topic niche to collaborate together. These influencers can review and post about your book, bringing it to their own audience.
Many influencers have very large, engaged, and interested audiences so their recommendation of your book can help boost your own credibility and reach as an author.
Host live discussions
Live discussion sessions with a fellow author or bookstagrammer is another great way to spread the word about your book launch. You can discuss your writing process, your favorite characters, the inspiration behind the book, and so much more. Because these discussions are hosted in real time, readers can tune in to watch and feel a deeper connection with you and with your book.
Plan your preorder campaign
As part of your Instagram book launch, it's a good idea to plan out your preorder campaign strategy. One of the best ways to do that is by offering unique bonuses like posters and bookmarks, downloadable content, or access to an exclusive Q & A. Mention these perks in several posts and in Instagram stories leading up to the launch to create FOMO (fear of missing out) and urgency.
Letting followers have early access or something exclusive for preordering can help drive sales and generate excitement for the launch.
Share preorder milestones
Another great way to drum up excitement for your launch is by highlighting preorder milestones. Announcing when you've hit a certain number of preorders is like a spark that encourages more followers to preorder. People can't resist the momentum that's building around a book!
Make use of niche and branded hashtags
Take advantage of niche hashtags to make your Instagram book launch even more widespread. There are common hashtags across every book launch, including #booklaunch, #newrelease, and others. Also, look into which hashtags perform best for your specific genre so that you can target readers who follow books in that particular category, such as #scifibooks or #fantasyreads.
In a similar vein, creating a unique “branded” hashtag for yourself, like “#YourBookTitle” or “#AuthorName” can make it easier for followers to track all of the posts related to your book launch. This also makes it easier for readers to engage with you beyond the book launch itself, such as during promotions or contests.
Host a giveaway or contest
Another proven way to build momentum around your book launch and beyond is through the use of giveaways and contests. This is also an ideal way to take advantage of UGC (user-generated content). Encourage your followers to tag their friends, share your posts, or follow your account, as well as take photos with your book. This shares your launch with others who may not have seen it otherwise. You can offer advance copies of your book, merchandise, or other items as prizes to help increase interest.
To encourage even more interest in your book and generate future content for your Instagram, consider running a contest that puts UGC front and center. For example, if you have a travel-themed book, you could ask users to share photos of locations that are reminiscent of your book's setting. This again creates excitement around your launch and, when used with your branded hashtags, as well as more general hashtags, is a great way to enlist others to spread the word.
Share reactions and reviews
Nothing gets people to act quite like reactions and reviews. Even after the launch is over, keep the momentum going by sharing reader feedback, reviews, and tagged posts. This demonstrates that your book is popular and well-loved by readers. Create a graphic template that highlights testimonials and reader quotes and add a link to your book in your bio to help boost sales.
Keep the conversation going
Share book-related discussions and insights, including behind-the-scenes details, inspiration, themes, and character motivations to keep the story going. Use Instagram's Q & A features to encourage reader questions, discuss the plot and share their thoughts.
By following these tips, you'll be well-positioned to launch your book on Instagram, attract and retain followers, and generate excitement about your book well beyond its actual launch. However, even beyond these strategies, there are several other ways to quickly create excitement and announce your book to potential new fans.
Running ads on Instagram
Ads on Instagram let you target readers by a variety of demographics, including age, interest, book genre, and more. This gives you a truly cost-effective way to reach new potential readers through a combination of eye-catching quotes, visuals, or video teasers. You can optionally choose, rather than create an ad from scratch, to boost your most-popular, highest-performing posts.
If you'd rather not create your own ads or handle the management of your ad campaign, the good news is that you don't have to. BookBaby's own Instagram (and Facebook) ad management gives you the freedom to set your weekly budget, decide how long you want your ads to run, and more.
This process also includes professional metadata review, expert ad creation, and custom audience targeting, as well as professional copy creation for a complete, expert-crafted campaign. Before your ad goes live, you'll approve it, and we'll schedule it on your behalf to appear on your audience's Facebook and Instagram feeds.
You can view the progress of your campaign at any time through your ad management dashboard, which shows you how many times your ad has been seen, how many people clicked on your ad, and more.
We offer a free quote service that can have you up and running with Instagram ads in just a couple of days. Get a quote directly online or browse prior campaigns we've created to get a better idea of what you can expect from our dedicated team of social media marketing specialists.
Going beyond Instagram with book marketing and consulting services
Beyond these strategies and direct Instagram advertising, you can also take advantage of BookBaby's marketing and consultation services. We offer three different tracks to help you better market your book, one of which is social media book promotion.
Together with one of our hand-picked social media experts, you will work together to optimize your Instagram profile. If you'd rather play a more hands-on role in the launch and promotion of your book, this consultation service is the perfect way to do just that.
You'll learn:
- Instagram's “rules of engagement” for authors
- How to create, budget, and target promotional ads for maximum impact
- How to plan and manage resources to post on social media without getting burned out
- How to track your campaign's effectiveness and your progress with social media analytics
As part of this package, you'll get your own dedicated expert, a one-hour consultation phone call, all course guides and materials, and an actionable game plan custom made for you.
You also have the option to choose a platform other than Instagram to concentrate on if you wish. Other social media options include Facebook, Goodreads, LinkedIn, and X.
Helpful free downloads for self-published authors
Last, but certainly not least, we also offer a variety of helpful free guides that can help self-published authors market their books more effectively. These include:
Promote Then Publish
Learn the strategies that successful authors use to promote their book launches. While we've given you Instagram-specific tips up until this point, Promote Then Publish is much more broad and focuses on using search engine optimization (SEO) as well as other online tactics to build momentum toward a successful book launch.
In the guide, we also show aspiring authors how to build up their presence online and network with potential readers in a way that isn't salesy but natural. Our own BookBaby authors use these very same tactics and strategies for their own successful book launches, and now they're sharing them with you!
The Do's and Don'ts of Planning a Book Launch
Even outside of Instagram, it's important to prepare for and plan your book launch. Before you start promoting and posting everything in the hopes that some of it might reach your potential readers, download this guide first. The Do's and Don'ts of Planning a Book Launch shows you how to build up and ride the momentum of your launch, as well as how to keep interest and excitement going strong after the launch itself.
Here again, we've covered a number of Instagram-specific tactics on this page, but this free guide goes much broader. It covers how to plan ahead, how to use your Amazon author page to get more exposure to Amazon's massive reader network, how to make sure you're doing your launch right, how to connect with your readers, and much more.
Other free guides
BookBaby offers a number of other free guides that detail other important steps in the self-publishing process, including a Six Month Publishing Plan, How to Publish on Amazon, and much more. You can view all of our most-recent guides and download them at no cost.
Your next steps as an author on Instagram
Even if you're not launching your book just yet, Instagram can seem overwhelming. Success or failure depends on its own set of rules, and the platform itself isn't always good at teaching beginners what those rules are. Here are a few tips to help you get acclimated to the world of book launches on Instagram:
Be authentic with your readers
The best thing you can do to promote your book, and yourself, on Instagram is to go beyond just posting content. Be authentic with your readers. That means responding to comments, liking posts, and interacting with others. If someone tags you in their posts or shares your book, acknowledge and thank them!
Simple gestures like this may seem small, but they are incredibly meaningful and can be your first step toward creating lifelong fans who feel valued and are more than happy to spread the word.
Create a compelling author bio
Your Instagram bio is like prime real estate. It's also your direct link to helping visitors to your Instagram page understand instantly who you are and what your book is about. A short, well-crafted bio can include information such as “author of (Title of Your Book) — out now!” From there, you can add a link to your Bookshop page if you're publishing your book through BookBaby and guide users to your page where you can make sales directly.
In short, this bio is like an elevator pitch and you want to make it as compelling as possible so that readers will click through and learn more about you and your book.
Share your personality through reels and stories
Instagram reels and stories are the perfect format for sharing quick, interactive, and engaging content. Reels in particular are designed to reach a broader audience. This makes them the perfect “canvas” to share interesting facts about your book, or explanations about your characters, plot, and more.
Stories, on the other hand, are better for day-to-day updates, sharing new milestones, or answering follower questions live. No matter whether you decide to use one or the other (or both), be sure to let your personality shine through!
Take advantage of Instagram insights
Instagram insights are detailed analytics on how your posts are performing. Through Instagram insights, you can see what type of content best resonates with your audience. These details include things like post reach, engagement rates, and follower demographics.
This information gives you the perfect recipe to help you tailor future content for better engagement well after your book launch itself is over. For example, Instagram Insights might tell you that your quote posts are the best-performing type, which means you'll want to make more of them.
Plan your content around key moments in your book launch
One of the best steps you can take to promote your book on Instagram, even after the official launch itself, is to create a content calendar. This will help you space out your posts more evenly and avoid overwhelming potential readers. To help you get started:
- Two months before launch: Create initial teasers and behind-the-scenes posts
- One month before launch: Start a countdown
- Two weeks before launch: Announce preorder perks
- Post-launch: Share reader reviews and reactions
This not only spaces out your posts and gives each one some breathing room, but it also lets readers really absorb what you're sharing and generate more meaningful engagement.
Work with dedicated publishing professionals
Announcing and managing a book launch is no small feat. It requires you to wear a number of hats: as author, social media manager, advertising expert, genre fan, and much more, all while keeping a finger on the pulse of how your posts are performing. It's a lot to juggle — but that doesn't mean you have to do it all alone!
BookBaby is here to help you every step of the way. From formatting and polishing up your manuscript with professional editing, to designing your book cover, to marketing and launching your book, every service we offer is designed to help you realize your vision of becoming a self-published author.
These Instagram strategies are designed to generate excitement and engagement around your book, but Instagram is one social platform out of many. Contact us today to learn more about our full suite of marketing and promotion services, as well as how our professional team of publishing experts can help you give your book the premium treatment it deserves!