Ebooks have continued to grow as a popular entertainment choice, particularly among younger generations, and with help from the rise of ebook apps and online communities (like BookTok).
This month, we compiled a guide of over 100 ebook statistics, which we recommend flicking through if you’re an author. But to give you a brief rundown? Estimates suggest 300 million or 1.25 billion dollars worth of self-published books are sold yearly. The opportunity this affords authors is clear, with the number of self-published books increasing by 264% in the last five years.
These numbers are all rather promising if you’re an aspiring ebook author. Maybe you’ve already published ebooks, but you weren’t aware of the earning potential and possibility for exposure.
You might be wondering where the best place is to market and sell your ebooks. Well, you’ve come to the right place.
Why Should You Sell Ebooks on TikTok?
If you’re wondering if TikTok can help you sell your ebooks, the answer is yes! A dedicated sub-community continues to thrive on TikTok, and we’re talking about BookTok.
BookTok is a vast online community obsessed with all things books – both physical, digital, and even audio. A 2023 survey found that 48% of TikTok US-based users and 53% of Canadian users were reading more because of the influence of BookTok. In fact, over 62% of American TikTok users have read at least one book based on recommendations from their BookTok algorithm. If you’re an author, this is pretty promising news.
Whether you’ve already written ebooks and are looking for a new way to leverage your income stream or just getting started, selling your ebooks via TikTok makes total sense, given the opportunities for exposure, audience building, and sales.
Let's take a look at how you can sell ebooks on TikTok.
5 Tips to Start Selling Ebooks on TikTok
While BookTok is a thriving community, you’ll need to establish yourself as an author on TikTok before gaining real footing with other users.
As with any social media platform, there are certain do’s and don’ts when building a professional presence and creating trust. And like most algorithms, TikTok is ready to promote you to the right people, so long as you know what you’re doing. So, let's go through how to start selling books on TikTok and our top tips for success.
1. Create Your TikTok Account
While the chances are that you already have a TikTok account if you’ve landed here, you may be an ebook author who hasn’t entirely realized the power of TikTok when selling your work.
If this is you, you can start by signing up for a TikTok account. It’s quick, free, and straightforward. Then, tweak your profile with your username and a bio communicating your writing style and personality.
2. Set Up a TikTok Business Account
Once you’ve created your account (or if you already have one), you’ll want to switch to a business account. Doing this unlocks features like audience insights, which are handy for creators with a particular niche. You can also add a clickable link in your bio to direct your viewers to purchase from your storefront (like Whop).
Switching your account over is easy: head to your settings, find the "Account" section, and look for "Switch to Business Account." From there, you can choose the category that best describes you.
3. Create Your BookTok Content
Once your account is set up, optimized, and ready to go, it’s time to start creating the content that attracts your target audience and gets your name out there. If this sounds overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. By checking out what other authors are up to and what content seems to be performing well under specific search terms, you’ll get an idea of what to post.
A few general ‘golden’ rules will apply when posting on TikTok: content needs to be short-form, engaging, and on-trend.
A bonus tip? When searching trends on BookTok, look for videos with the “Top Liked” label, as shown below. This will show you key trends to capitalize on while they’re hot.
4. Take Advantage of TikTok Trends
As we mentioned above, taking advantage of BookTok trends is a surefire way to grow as an author on the platform and help showcase a little of your personality and style.
The whole point is for it to be fun! Plus, if you’re camera-shy? Most trends on BookTok don’t require you to show your face. If you jump on TikTok and scroll through the top videos under the search term “BookTok Trends,” you’ll see all kinds of engaging content, from imagining which celebrities would play famous characters to rating your collection of paperbacks.
The point here is to create content that isn’t necessarily sales-focused but aims to foster an online community, followers, and fans of your brand.
5. Take Part in Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing works for every community, and BookTok is no different.
BookTok influencers, such as Delaney Lynne Smith (featured above), routinely deal with authors, agencies, and other book-related businesses. The key to influencer marketing? Find out which BookTok influencers represent your work and have the right audience to leverage. If you’re into writing fantasy, choose an influencer whose niche aligns with that, not finance or self-help.
And remember, when we’re looking at audience power, bigger isn’t always better. Instead of looking for influencers with a huge following, consider creators with a smaller and more intimately connected audience. A 2021 survey indicated that 90% of marketers wanted to work with micro-influencers, and this has only risen.
Can I Sell Ebooks on Tiktok Shop?
By now, we’re sure the question is whether you can sell your ebooks directly on TikTok shop. Unfortunately, the answer here is no (at least for now). While TikTok shop allows you to sell physical products, it hasn’t entirely caught up to the digital product boom.
No need to worry, though. While TikTok doesn’t give you a direct way to sell, it does allow you to drive traffic to your online storefront, where they can purchase your ebook(s). Earlier, we mentioned the importance of switching your TikTok account from personal to business and why, partially because your clickable link-in-bio will be your customer gateway.
To get audiences to click, follow the above steps and create compelling content. Those videos gain followers and act as advertising for your brand and ebooks. Once you hook viewers with a taste of your story, its characters, or a particularly intriguing plot point? They're curious for more.
With the right content strategy and a growing follower count, you can begin to direct your audience to your bio link for the whole experience – or your ebook purchase page. This could be your website, an online bookstore like Amazon KDP, or a platform like Whop (which we'll discuss later).
While it can be frustrating to direct traffic off TikTok and onto a designated purchasing platform, there is one positive: more power in your hands. This is because TikTok is known to take steep cuts from creators and advertisers. The key to maintaining trust is ensuring a smooth transition from TikTok to your selling point. So, make sure the page you link to is representative of your brand, user-friendly, and optimized for mobile devices.
Even without a TikTok storefront, engaging content, a strategic call to action, and a user-friendly landing page can still leverage TikTok's power to convert your audience.
So, How Can I Sell Ebooks with TikTok?
Simply put, you can sell ebooks with TikTok by following the steps outlined above and directing your growing audience regularly to your ebook storefront (wherever this may be).
Ensure your link-in-bio is set up correctly and your bio communicates that this is where to go for the good stuff.
Now that we’ve covered how to use TikTok to build an audience and generate some serious interest, let's discuss the actual selling part of the equation.
Where’s the Best Place to Sell Ebooks?
We’ve created a list of our top places to sell ebooks online, but we’ll summarise that information below, highlighting some popular marketplace choices.
All platforms have their pros and cons, and certain ones will suit you more than others based on these. You want to consider maximum revenue caps, pricing, and popularity. With all that in mind, here are a few popular ebook marketplaces:
Apple Books for Authors
Apple offers a user-friendly platform for authors to publish their ebooks in the EPUB format. With this platform, you gain access to a user-friendly platform; however, it lacks marketing capabilities and takes a 30% cut of all sales regardless of cost. Apple has millions of users, but whether your audience uses it for their ebooks is something to consider.
- Pros: Access to a worldwide market and a simple platform, readers can access eBooks across different devices.
- Cons: It lacks advanced marketing and analytics tools, has a highly competitive market, and has an enclosed ecosystem that can limit potential growth.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KPD)
Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (or Amazon KDP) allows you to self-publish for free and reach a massive audience, but there are inevitable trade-offs. Royalties range from 35% to 70%, and Amazon handles everything from store management to sales, which can be comforting for newcomers. Consider KDP for reach and ease of use, but be aware of limitations.
- Pros: Exposure to a worldwide market, easy to set up and manage your account, and free publication of your books.
- Cons: The structure of royalties can limit growth, and additional services like Kindle Unlimited require exclusivity.
Whop
And this brings us to Whop.
Whop is a rapidly growing all-in-one platform that allows you to sell your ebooks alongside other digital products, like courses, all under one roof. With Whop, you get free signup, are charged low fees, and are given growth tools to help you flourish as an author. While not exclusive to ebooks, Whop offers a one-stop shop for ebook creators, from building your store, to creating a community around your ebooks, selling an online course, and even having access to business analytics and dispute resolution.
- Pros: Whop has a huge marketplace with millions of customers (must apply to marketplace), several features and apps for business growth, easy-to-use API with 24/7 customer support.
- Cons: Not a platform exclusive to ebook sales, yet still a popular choice among authors.
Why Sell Ebooks with Whop?
As you can see, choosing an ebook publishing platform has a few considerations. Perhaps the most important? Costs and fees associated with selling your work – which is why many authors choose Whop to publish and sell their ebooks online.
With Whop, creating an account and uploading your ebook takes minutes so that you can sell within the hour. Our 3% transaction fees mean more money in your pocket. Plus, there's no need for monthly subscriptions – you only pay when you make a sale. And the critical point? Our platform works hand in hand with your TikTok strategy to build a brand, not just a storefront.
While other platforms have limited (or zero) built-in marketing capabilities, Whop gives you all the tools to create a captivating storefront, engage with your readers, and position yourself toward the right audiences. When you create your whop hub you can sell ebooks, create a community, host giveaways, create a forum, sell online courses and more - all from one place.
Sell Your Ebooks with TikTok and Whop Today
We’ve broken down how to become an author on TikTok, and getting started on Whop is just as simple, if not simpler.
Whop empowers authors to go beyond selling ebooks. We’re a platform designed to nurture your career path, with the ability to sell courses, tutorials, and access to private paid communities.
So, what are you waiting for? Start your Whop journey today.
