8 Instagram Post Ideas to Promote Your Romance Novel Before And After Release
Promoting your romance novel on Instagram is one of the best ways to connect with readers, build excitement for your new book release and should be an integral part of every romance book marketing strategy. But what kind of posts do readers expect and which can help you drive sales and build an audience?
Here are eight effective Instagram post ideas to promote your romance novel on social media.
1. Meet The Characters
Introduce your readers to your female and make character of your romance novel. Help readers visualize your characters with character profiles, use free stock photos that resemble them or, if possible, hire an artist for character art.
Get your potential readers invested into your characters by sharing some fun facts, snippets of their backstories or giving a sneak peek at their motivations and what the dynamic between characters looks like.
Introducing side characters can be fun as well! Does one of the main characters have a dog that plays an integral part to the story? Introduce them as well to engage with readers who might have a dog themselves!
2. Reveals
Make a reveal post for every new information about your romance book that you choose to share with your readers. It gives your followers the opportunity to focus on the one thing you’re announcing and share their excitement and thoughts with you. Some examples for reveals are:
Title/Release Date reveal
Make a post to announce your new book to your followers with the most important info - the title and release date. These are the information you will repeat over and over so they will stick with your followers.
Cover reveals
Accompany it with a tease beforehand, where you only show parts of your new cover, then make another post where you show the whole image.
Do you have a second cover for your book as well? For example a discrete or model cover additionally to the initial one? Announce it in its own post to give it the attention it deserves!
Blurb reveal
Once you have your synopsis, make your own post to reveal what your book is about. Accompany it with a picture collage or share your cover once more.
Trope reveal
Announce your tropes in their own post. It drives attention to this strong marketing tool and gives your followers the opportunity to share it on their own pages.
This strategy is key to romance book marketing—repetition helps build familiarity, so keep showcasing these elements, especially your cover, throughout your promotional period.
3. Quotes
Sharing sneak peeks and snippets of key quotes from your romance book is a great way to spark a potential readers curiosity!
Pair your quote with images and graphics that fit your books vibe and convey more about the story. Make sure the writing is in readable font and a high contrast color to the background so it’s easily discernable if viewers see your post on your grid.
But what kinds of quotes tend to work?
Readers want to swoon over book boyfriends, so you could use romantic quotes from their love declaration, dirty talk during spicy scenes or snippets where the FMC swoons over the male character in her own POV.
Still unsure? Check out my author services and marketing support! If you’ve reached the book-blindness point where you are not sure anymore which scenes are great marketing material, you can hire me to create a marketing bible, outlining the best quotes and scenes, as well as creating hooks to draw readers in!
4. Picture Collages
Images are not only a great way to introduce your characters, but also a wonderful way to visualize plotlines and the vibes of your book.
Do your characters have cute dates? Give your readers a little sneak peek of them with pictures.
Make sure your collages align with your overall branding and social media aesthetic for cohesive romance book marketing, so readers know at first glance which book they are for.
5. Playlist
Did you create a playlist for your new romance book? Share it with your followers, to let them know more about the book vibe or your thought process when you wrote the book!
You can either create one graphic that includes the whole playlist, or a carousel post that has one song and artist on each slide, along with a picture of the album the song is from.
While you might be tempted to also share lyrics if you go the one-song-per-slide route, I wouldn’t recommend that due to copyright reasons. Just like you’re not allowed to use celebrities’ images to promote your book, you’re also not allowed to use copyrighted material such as Pinterest pictures and song lyrics. I’m not a legal professional though, so please make sure to do your own research on whether you’re allowed to use material for commercial purposes or only personal.
6. Annotations
Creating posts with annotations is another idea to give your readers a glimpse at your book and increase awareness for it.
Take a screenshot of a passage from your book and do the annotations digitally, or, if you have a paperback handy, do them by hand. Highlight key passages, add some doodles like little hearts or stars to make certain words or sentences stand out in order to market your romance book.
You can also add notes that give your readers a peak at the creation process of the scene or provide some fun facts about the characters or scene setting.
7. Release Countdown
Sometimes, you lose track of time and realize the book you’ve been eagerly waiting for has actually been out for three weeks already!
Release countdown posts are great to remind your readers about when your new romance book publishes so they can go ahead and read it if they don’t want to preorder. Find stock models that resemble your characters, commission character art or use faceless characters to advertise the release date of your romance book.
8. Reviews
Word of mouth is a powerful tool that authors do not have access to when it comes to promoting their own books. But what you can do, is share reader reviews of your new romance book.
There is a general discussion, whether authors are supposed to be in readers spaces, such as Goodreads reviews. So my tip here is to stick to reviews you’ve been tagged on, on social media and ask the creator if they’d like to be tagged (or you can already ask this in your ARC form as well).
General Tips For Marketing Your Romance Book With Instagram Posts!
It’s always helpful, to create post captions that invite interaction. Utilize the polling feature, or ask a question in your caption, then keep an eye on your comments and engage with your followers. Spark short conversations, make sure to ask follow-up questions or just thank them – each new comment is engagement and will ideally get your post seen by more people.
Ready to level up your book promotion? Check out my Instagram templates for romance authors to create eye-catching posts that will make your romance novel stand out!
