Transcript
Heather Roberts: Hi, I'm Heather Roberts.
Veronica Adams: And I'm Veronica Adams, and we are 1852 Media.
Heather Roberts: Hello, hello, and welcome back to For Books Sake. I like to call that my John Oliver song, my John Oliver moment. um
Veronica Adams: Oh my God, it totally is
Heather Roberts: Right? Like, it makes me feel...
Veronica Adams: a Last Week Tonight Jam happening. Yeah, yeah I love it.
Heather Roberts: Yeah, yeah, that's the goal. ah Today we are here with Kate Hall, who is an amazing content creator and course owner. um She is known probably best for her course of TikTok for authors.
Heather Roberts: And welcome, Kate. I'd love to, if you can tell us a little bit more about yourself as I bumbled through your bio. Yeah.
Kate Hall: I actually can't tell you anything about myself, so sorry about that.
Heather Roberts: It's be a really short podcast.
Kate Hall: Um...
Veronica Adams: I'm
Kate Hall: oh yes, I am Kate. um I am a six-figure author specifically because of TikTok. um But I also, um in between learning about TikTok and then like making money from my own books, I kind of accidentally fell into...
Kate Hall: becoming one of the top most experts on TikTok when it comes to the author space, which was very weird and exciting for me. And now I have helped over 2000 authors.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: We're actually close to hitting 2500 authors, I think, with their author journey and helping them make money from TikTok with their books and doing it without necessarily like,
Kate Hall: going viral or doing memes or singing and dancing or whatever.
Heather Roberts: Yeah, because I feel like that's one of the things, I mean, Veronica and I talk to clients all day long and they're like, I don't want to put my face out there. i don't want to do the, you know, trends of the trending sounds.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Heather Roberts: I don't want to dance in front of the camera.
Veronica Adams: I'm too old to embarrass myself this way.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Yeah, there's always, ah you know, objections and protests about the types of content that go viral, specifically on TikTok.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Right. So I love that your course is not that, you know, it's you can do this without having to, one, put your face out there and two, without having to follow any of the trends that are, you know, just going, um you know, they're they're so short lived.
Heather Roberts: You know, what you put out is providing people with evergreen content, which I think is really helpful and cool.
Kate Hall: Yeah, and something about that too. Like while my strategy has changed like very minutely since I started, i got started in 2022 then I started teaching people how to do it in 2023.
Kate Hall: But since then, my strategy hasn't really changed all that significantly.
Heather Roberts: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: I'm still posting the same style of content. I'm posting the same type of scenes. I've gotten a lot better at like figuring out the scenes and pulling the scenes and refining them.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: But overall, like my strategy hasn't changed. So my course content hasn't changed other than like I do my monthly Q&As for my course members.
Heather Roberts: and
Kate Hall: And so anytime there's an update, I'll talk about it in there and I'll be like, hey, this is what TikTok's doing right now. This is the direction it looks like it's going. And like, we'll talk about that or we'll talk about like, yeah, TikTok is being an asshole and updating their algorithm, which means everybody has low views this week. a ah um And despite like that being bad news, people are like, oh, I'm so relieved because I thought there was something wrong with my content.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: um So it's really cool. I've just like accidentally built up this whole community because I was trying to, um like make a little money on the side while I was starting to build up my books again.
Kate Hall: And so a friend was like, well, if you're working on your TikTok, would you be willing to like post on mine? I'll pay you. And I was like, yeah, I live in a shed and I make like $100 a month. I will absolutely take some money.
Kate Hall: And now I'm like a six figure author and i do all of this other stuff and it it's gone pretty, pretty wild.
Heather Roberts: It's crazy. No, I mean, your trajectory has been awesome. And you work really hard, though.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: It's not like this just fell into your lap. Like, you yes, it it did. But you also grasped the opportunity. I know. Well, so Kate and I met last month.
Heather Roberts: April, well, I guess technically two months ago now since we're in June. But we met at a conference. We were both speakers at a conference and we just got to talking. And um you know a lot of what we ended up talking about with some other authors as well is sort of grasping on opportunities and a little bit about like manifesting, right? And getting you know yourself in the right headspace to be able to focus on some of this stuff. So you know, yeah, some of it fell in your lap, but you also were able to you know, take that and run with it.
Heather Roberts: So give, you know,
Kate Hall: I mean, yeah, absolutely. Like, obviously, things would be different if I didn't have a friend who had needed the TikTok account. But honestly, like, I was trying to jump on TikTok like everybody else at the end of 2022.
Kate Hall: And I had a bunch of author friends already and happened to be discussing that with one of them. And they were like, Oh, I know you need money. Would you do this in exchange for money? And like, so while the opportunity did kind of
Heather Roberts: All right.
Kate Hall: hit me like a freight train because I accidentally took on too many clients after that. Cause like once they found out I was doing it for her, everybody was like, Oh my God, I need a TikTok person, please. And I took on like way too many clients way too quickly.
Kate Hall: Never again. I actually don't even take individual clients anymore. which is wild because it used to be I would like have to do all of this super, super hard work and work with clients and be really stressed because I'm, despite how I sound, despite how enthusiastic I sound, I'm not the most social of people and I have really bad anxiety about doing like work for clients.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Heather Roberts: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: So the fact that I'm not having to do the client work anymore and not having to stress about that, um that's very nice. But i I almost tanked the entire business in April of 2023 because I was still like,
Kate Hall: just not quite there. And I didn't quite have my confidence, but then I released TikTok for authors in September. And like, I had gotten a lot of my confidence back at that point because I took some, instead of like running people's TikTok accounts, I did some work where I was helping authors figure out how to do theirs and how to train like their PAs.
Kate Hall: And I was like, oh, I'm really good at this. um
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Which was really cool.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. You like found your niche. Yeah.
Kate Hall: Yeah, exactly. And they were, I was just teaching them to do the exact same thing I was doing. Because I realized that like, even though I had been posting for authors before that, I like, it part of the reason it felt like so much pressure was on me is because it felt like I was the only one doing it at the time.
Kate Hall: um There were other companies who were doing it, and who were doing it on a massive scale.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: But their waste waitlist was months long, they would take deposits, and it wouldn't be, they wouldn't even start posting for months. Like, It was a whole thing and it was so hard to find someone. um And so it kind of was wild how quickly it blew up and how I almost tanked everything because I couldn't handle the workload.
Heather Roberts: Thank you.
Kate Hall: um Had to refund a lot of people in May of 2023. Had to refund several thousand dollars. That was a fun learning experience for my business. Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Yeah, well, that's all it is. I mean, that is a learning experience, though. And now you'll never do that again.
Veronica Adams: Yes.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: and you've pivoted into something that's more sustainable to you and for you, which is great.
Kate Hall: Yeah, absolutely.
Heather Roberts: But yeah, so I mean, most of our listeners are authors.
Veronica Adams: Yes.
Heather Roberts: And i would love for you to share maybe, ah ah you know, your top two tips of what they should be doing on TikTok.
Kate Hall: Okay, so step one, get the sexiest bikini you can find.
Kate Hall: And I'm not just talking about the ladies here. Anybody can do this.
Heather Roberts: Oh, yeah.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Heather Roberts: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: Get the sexiest, preferably something sparkly. Get some spotlights.
Heather Roberts: oh yeah
Kate Hall: Get some really good music going. No, I'm kidding. Um, so what I always tell people is that you don't have to be on camera to do TikTok.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: Um, my course does teach about how to be on camera and do TikTok, but honestly, like that's exhausting. And that's why like most of my work now is like through like my YouTube and stuff, because I only have to record once a week.
Kate Hall: It can be really exhausting to try to sit and record constantly and have to like make new content and come up with new ideas. So there are... are You say two things, but this is going to be more than that.
Kate Hall: And I'm going to want to steal.
Heather Roberts: but you You tell us what you want to say.
Kate Hall: And it's going to be super helpful.
Veronica Adams: Yeah, we we love the bonus content.
Kate Hall: So...
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: well we'll take We'll take as many of the tips as you think are necessary.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Yeah. If you're listening, take notes. Because... Yeah, if you're listening, make sure you're taking notes because um I'm about to say a lot of things and you're going to get confused if you're not like tracking it with notes.
Kate Hall: um So the first thing is pulling really good hooks from your book because we're not using blurbs to sell books. um TikTok sees like graphics where it's like a picture of your book cover and then like your trope b list with the arrows or whatever.
Kate Hall: They see that kind of stuff and as ads. And it is. It's a type of ad for your thing, even if you're not doing paid ads.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Kate Hall: And you'll end up getting like 20 to 50 views, if that.
Heather Roberts: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: And that is because TikTok wants people to pay money if they're running ads. So I don't post anything that looks like an ad. And i will pull scenes from my book and split those into slides because I like to do TikTok's photo slideshow content where people can flip through at their own pace.
Kate Hall: And I do, this is gonna sound crazy, 25 to 35 slides. And people are for sure gonna comment like, how am I supposed to find 25 to 35 paragraphs worth of information or pages worth?
Kate Hall: You're not posting your whole book. You are pulling a scene and you're gonna have like 10 words max per slide. The only slide that I have that's over like 15 words, like 15 is gonna be a lengthy slide for me, but the only one that I will have that's over 15 words is gonna be that first slide.
Kate Hall: And at that point, I'm going to put a character archetype plus a conflict. um A lot of my clients are romance writers because this works super well and is super easy for romance because we know the tropes and we know the archetypes.
Kate Hall: So if I say when she runs into her hockey player ex,
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: with her new boyfriend or like when she goes to her hockey player ex's game and her boyfriend doesn't know that they'd used to date. Like we know that there's a conflict there because she's there with her boyfriend and the hockey player is her ex and we know because he's her hockey player ex we know who the love interest is.
Kate Hall: We've got that archetype, right?
Veronica Adams: Yep. Yep.
Kate Hall: We know that she's going to go back with her ex and that her boyfriend is probably going to turn out to be a jerk.
Veronica Adams: yep
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Kate Hall: because that's the archetype. We understand the tropes. And then we're going to go into the scene, and we're immediately going to be in the scene. We're not going to paraphrase it. We're not going to make it read like a blurb. We're immediately going to have a piece of dialogue.
Kate Hall: something um It can be a long piece of dialogue. It can be a conversation. But you want to start with dialogue because this lets people know Sorry, I have a hiccup coming through.
Heather Roberts: Oh, you're fine.
Kate Hall: ah one So this dialogue lets people know that they're reading a scene from a book and that they're not just reading like a concept or an idea. TikTok has another like common trend that's the, what I call the imagine trend where somebody will put like imagine at the top of the page.
Kate Hall: And then it'll be like, you run into your ex at his hockey game. You had no idea he was a famous hockey player. And it's like this long wall of text. And I call it the imagine trend because it has the word imagine at the top.
Heather Roberts: Six months.
Kate Hall: And a lot of authors have tried to use that. But the problem is that there's the expectation with that trend that this is not a book that exists. When we're putting this dialogue and doing these individual slides,
Kate Hall: because it's an accepted format and because so many people have used it at this point, it is expected that this is a book somebody can already read. And so people are going to go into the caption, the description, and they're going to go into the comments to find the title.
Kate Hall: Because I know you're going to ask, how do people get to the book then?
Heather Roberts: Thank
Kate Hall: Because you can't put a link on TikTok, how do they get to the book? Why don't I just put that little Canva graphic at the very end? Because TikTok thinks it's an ad. But if you put the title in the caption or in the description, I should say, if you put the title in the description and your pen name,
Kate Hall: then that's how people can find it because people are willing to search for it. People on TikTok are willing to search for it. Anybody who was an author on Facebook 10 years ago is aware that like, if you didn't put a clean link that like basically added the book to the cart and downloaded it to their Kindle for them, weren't getting the sale.
Veronica Adams: so true yeah
Heather Roberts: You're not wrong.
Veronica Adams: so true
Heather Roberts: You're not wrong.
Kate Hall: Like people were so unwilling like do even like the tiniest bit of work to read the book.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Kate Hall: But nowadays people are willing to search for it. They're willing to search if they have the title and the pen name, they'll find it um
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: which is wildly different from how it used to be. um So I use the slideshow posts unless I'm doing like my TikTok shop content. And the scenes that I'm going pull for these are going to be emotional scenes. I never pull spicy scenes since the spring of 2020.
Kate Hall: I have said, do not pull spicy scenes because in the spring of, or not 2020, 2023, there was another number there. there was another number there So in the spring of 2023, might recall, was the first time that the United States tried to ban TikTok.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: And if you were on TikTok at the time, it sucked because the algorithm was all messed up and it was really difficult with BookTok and people were not able to find your content because the algorithm was resetting every day.
Kate Hall: So like at one point in 2023, would refresh my page and it would show the same viral video of like a guy doing doing a backflip off of a cliff.
Kate Hall: And I was like, this isn't in any way related to anything I've ever watched. But it had like 2 million likes or something on it already, which means that it was a generalized viral video.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: It wasn't niche. It wasn't for my content. It wasn't for me. It was something a lot of people liked. So they were like, we're just going to throw viral shit at them. We don't care what it is. We just need content for people.
Kate Hall: And they would do this every day. So every day until I like... blocked that account, I would see that content. And then the day after I blocked that account, guess what? I saw that content again, the same video and the account was still blocked.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: And it's because they were rebooting and they were just, they were basically like handpicking already viral content.
Veronica Adams: Okay.
Kate Hall: And then if you were posting your book content, then only your older content would show, older content that already had views. So people who were just starting out at this time were like, TikTok is garbage, nothing works.
Heather Roberts: right
Kate Hall: Um, and a big part of it was that TikTok was starting to ban spicy content because the excuse the United States was using to get rid of TikTok was basically saying, well, what about the children? There's children on TikTok and people are posting pornography.
Kate Hall: And so I started saying in like March of or February of 2023, I was like, hey, stop posting spice. TikTok is gonna start banning it.
Kate Hall: And they did. And they still, people will still post spicy scenes and be confused when four posts later, their account won't get any views because they're posting a million spicy scenes.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: And some people still get away with it somehow. Some people sneak past it, but eventually they're going to get on TikTok's radar. The bots are going to catch them and they're going to get that account shadow banned.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: So i use content that is emotional and relatable. um I specify relatable because if your main character is a orphan and her village got destroyed by this evil king, then she is about to go into battle and she's like really worried and emotional because this battle is gonna be like what determines her fate and it's gonna be her vengeance on her village.
Kate Hall: People will care when they read the book, but they're not going to relate to it when they see it on TikTok, when they have about 60 seconds to see your content.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Okay. And when they have an initial three seconds to determine if they even want to read it. that the feelings she's feeling about that are not going to be relatable enough for most people to be willing to give it a chance.
Kate Hall: And I say most people, because obviously there's going to be outliers who are like, ah, yes, orphan who is you know, about to go into battle.
Heather Roberts: That is the book I've been looking for forever.
Kate Hall: That's like, that's the only type of book read. I only read books where orphans go into battle.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Oh my God. I'm so excited for another one. But, yeah,
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: That FYP is really FYP-ing. Yeah.
Kate Hall: Yep.
Heather Roberts: But
Kate Hall: So... yeah um so
Heather Roberts: but yeah, for most people, that's not going to be, that's not going to work.
Kate Hall: Exactly.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Kate Hall: Yeah. So even in like those high stakes, high fantasy things, I'm going to find stuff that's relatable.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Hall: I had one client who wrote a sci-fi book. um There was technically a romantic aspect in it, but it wasn't a romance. Like, and by a romantic aspect, I mean, the man was already married and he had been kind of neglecting his relationship with his wife.
Kate Hall: And She like packed her bags and left at one point because he was like neglecting their relationship emotionally. But the book wasn't about them. The book is the fact that he accidentally created it and an ai copy of himself that is self-aware.
Kate Hall: Um, and his company is like, oh shit, this is a big deal. Nobody can find out about it. We're going to make you stay at the office and it's going to be just you and the robots and guards.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: And you are stuck on the premises and we are telling everyone that you are planning, cause they were like planning a, um, manned mission to Mars to try to colonize Mars. Cause, hi-fi.
Heather Roberts: Okay.
Kate Hall: Um, And so the scene that was like the absolute juiciest scene in the book that I pulled for this client to use is this man is sitting at work. His bosses have told him he's not allowed to leave.
Kate Hall: And he gets an email that his mother has died five miles away from where his work is because she lives in the same town. I think they were in Seattle.
Kate Hall: um So she died like five miles away from him and they're not letting him go to the funeral.
Heather Roberts: Mm.
Kate Hall: And like, yeah.
Heather Roberts: And that's the scene.
Kate Hall: And so we can't necessarily emotionally relate to we are trapped by our evil bosses because we created a self-aware robot, but we can relate to, oh, your dad's funeral is today.
Veronica Adams: Right.
Kate Hall: So are you going to come in for the second half of your shift then?
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: Like we can relate to a shitty boss.
Veronica Adams: Yes.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Like that's where that emotional juice is.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: Um, never let me say emotional juice ever again.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: That was a discussion phrase.
Veronica Adams: ah But that lived experience of of having someone completely lack compassion for a totally natural and normal thing that we all, well, most of us experience at some point.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: ah Especially experiencing under capitalism, like with middle management, you know, this is some, you know, asshole middle manager who's just like, o yeah.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. These record profits aren't going to generate themselves. Bury your mom and get back here after lunch.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: it
Veronica Adams: Right.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Yeah, exactly.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: They were like, well, no, you can't go to the funeral. Everyone thinks you're in Antarctica for your training, for your Mars mission.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: right yep yeah
Kate Hall: you Why would you be ah able to go to the funeral? Because my fucking mother died?
Heather Roberts: Yeah, that's
Kate Hall: Turns out, well, I'm not going to spoil the book. I'm spoil it.
Heather Roberts: Don't s spoil the book. No, that's the one, the one of the big things that I took away from your talk, um, at the conference I was at was this point was, you know, don't put up spice, put up vulnerability and, you know, put up relatability and vulnerability and that's, what's going to sell.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Heather Roberts: Vulnerability sells spice doesn't sell.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: That's not, you know, and that was that was a huge mind shift for me for Tik TOK specifically.
Kate Hall: Yeah. Yeah. And then... Yeah. Yeah. And when it comes to, like, if you decide to do content of your face where you're talking about your books, talk about your books.
Kate Hall: Because if you go viral for something else, people aren't going to buy your books. um I've had a lot of people who are like, yeah, I ran an author account, but then I had this funny thing happen with my kids or with my pets.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Hall: And I posted about that and that went viral, but none of my other content is doing well.
Veronica Adams: here
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: And they're not looking at my other content and nobody's liking my other content. But now TikTok is like, well, the content about your dog kids, funny thing is going viral.
Kate Hall: I think dog kids are actually called puppies. Yeah.
Kate Hall: Um, but yeah, TikTok is like, well, that's what's going viral.
Heather Roberts: Yes. Right.
Veronica Adams: we love a wordsmith by the way
Kate Hall: So if you post more of that, you can go viral again, but not your book stuff.
Heather Roberts: right
Kate Hall: Um, but then another big point on like virality and how to go viral, how to guarantee that you're going to go viral six times a month. There's no way to guarantee it. And especially in the book space, like I could pretty,
Kate Hall: confidently make a person go viral about something random so that they could monetize their account and like make money from ads.
Heather Roberts: Yes.
Kate Hall: But when it comes to a space where you have something that you're already trying to sell, um there's a whole different ballgame when it comes to virality and it's much more random. But What I want people to understand is that being consistent is going to make you more money in the long run because sure, a viral video can do really well, but it can also tank.
Kate Hall: So if you're depending on a viral video to make your income, you're going fuck yourself over.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: um I had a video that went viral. It got 200,000 views in twenty twenty three 2024, 2023, one of those years.
Kate Hall: um The point is it went viral and it was about a book that had newly been released. It was 2023, I remember now. um And I was super excited because despite having made other people go viral and do really well, this was my first viral video in a long time and it got 200,000 views.
Kate Hall: And um does anyone wanna guess, do either of you wanna guess how much money that spike in views made me?
Heather Roberts: I mean, I know the answer, but go ahead, Veronica.
Kate Hall: You know the answer.
Veronica Adams: Oh, am I guessing blind? Okay.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: 200,000 views.
Kate Hall: yeah
Veronica Adams: oh twenty five grand
Kate Hall: 25 grand. So I was expecting, um, to give you a more realistic view, um, with that kind of the, with those kinds of numbers, I was expecting to make, um, around a thousand dollars a day for two or three days.
Veronica Adams: holy crap
Kate Hall: Um, yeah. So the that spike in views um made me, and I'm not kidding, this is not an under exaggerated number, for that book, the spike that I saw was $20.
Veronica Adams: Oh
Veronica Adams: my god.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Hall: My spike was $20. And
Veronica Adams: Those are like micro pennies.
Kate Hall: and i
Kate Hall: I had done everything correctly
Heather Roberts: yeah
Veronica Adams: Wow.
Kate Hall: But someone commented because everybody said, oh my god, what happens next in the comments? And some people said, well, I'll only read it if I know what happens next.
Kate Hall: If you see that comment and somebody says, I'll only read it if I know what happens next, they're lying to you. They're not going to read it if they know what happens next. Because someone replied to every single comment telling them what happened next.
Kate Hall: And it was such a juicy scene and somebody replied to every comment saying what happened next.
Heather Roberts: And so that's why she only made $20.
Kate Hall: And because of that, because nobody had the tension, nobody had ah reason to go keep reading because they knew what it was.
Veronica Adams: You've resolved resolved the impetus to buy the book.
Kate Hall: Exactly.
Veronica Adams: Someone's just put it in the comments.
Kate Hall: So it it resolved that tension and it resolved any reason to buy the book, despite it being an emotionally juicy scene.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Kate Hall: It made me $20 on that book.
Veronica Adams: That's so disappointing.
Kate Hall: And I cried for two days.
Heather Roberts: I would have tried too.
Kate Hall: um
Veronica Adams: No kidding. Mm-hmm.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: So um what I have realized from that experience and from overall is that going viral should not be the goal. It should be consistently getting decent views.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: And what I consider to be decent views is trying to aim for
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: around 1,000 to 2,000 views per video. If this were 2023, like the spring of 2023, I would say you should be getting videos that are like 15 to 20,000 views at least twice a month or twice a week even, but it's not back then.
Kate Hall: um But if you're getting views, videos that are one to 2,000, you're gonna start seeing sales. If you're already making money from like ads, then you might not notice the spike so much.
Kate Hall: But you will be getting sales from your books through that. um Whether that is, yeah, absolutely.
Veronica Adams: still better visibility than meta.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: You know, that anything you can get on Insta or Facebook without paying for it, so.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Well, and else I'll still say the consistency is key because I've had some clients go viral, you know, and it really did, you know, shot their book up. into close to the top 100 on Amazon, even though the rank is now, now we don't even know if that can happen.
Heather Roberts: But anyway, that's a different conversation.
Kate Hall: Yeah, the rank is all screwed up.
Heather Roberts: But anyway, it shot shot them up the charts, right?
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: They're making tons of money and you know it's it's great. And then they're trying to do it for their next book in the series and nothing, they're they're not able to go viral. And the problem is because they weren't consistently posting between those things.
Heather Roberts: You know, they were just, they went viral, they posted a little bit, and then they were like, oh my God, like this is, and just riding the wave.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Heather Roberts: And then trying to post for the next book. And readers who pick up a book from TikTok, they're not necessarily going to be your you know, loyal, they're not necessarily signing up to your newsletter.
Heather Roberts: Some might, some might convert, some might stay and be loyal readers, but a lot of them aren't.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: They're just picking it up and moving on to the next, picking it up and moving it on to the next.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: yeah
Heather Roberts: So you really have to get their attention again, almost um every time.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Heather Roberts: So being consistent is so key there.
Kate Hall: Yeah, my percent that goes from reading to my newsletter is ridiculously small. And I have a wonderful newsletter and I have a very engaged newsletter, but the percent that goes and like reads the book and then signs up for the newsletter is very small.
Kate Hall: And I think it's because people also expect like, well, if I finish this book, I'll remember to get the next one or like Amazon will remind me um or TikTok will remind me, but it it won't necessarily.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Veronica Adams: here
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: yeah. so
Heather Roberts: Which is such a bummer.
Kate Hall: or by the time it does, then they've forgotten about it. So
Veronica Adams: Well, and is it possible that it's also like a demographic issue too? Because I think the conventional wisdom, and you can correct me on this if if I'm mistaken, but the average TikTok user, even on BookTok specifically, is a little bit younger than a reader that you're going to find on another social media platform.
Veronica Adams: Or at least that's, I guess, the general conventional wisdom that gets passed around in the industry is that you're getting younger readers who maybe don't want to be marketed to via email or, you know,
Kate Hall: um
Kate Hall: There is some truth to that. um Not as much as there used to be So um does anyone remember when Facebook started and it was for all the young people?
Veronica Adams: yeah
Heather Roberts: Oh yeah, I was, joined it in college.
Kate Hall: Like, it was all... Yeah.
Heather Roberts: i was one of the college accounts back in 2016.
Veronica Adams: I yeah I still have an account where the the college email address is the login email even though I no longer have access to that yeah
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Yep. Yep.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: of course, uh, you should change that because if you get locked out, you're screwed.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: Um,
Veronica Adams: a
Kate Hall: uh, but don't worry. I have a TikTok. That's like one of my main TikTok accounts and it's like attached to a Facebook account.
Veronica Adams: you
Kate Hall: That's not my legal name. So if I get locked out of there, I'm like screwed on my TikTok shop account.
Veronica Adams: You're done. Yeah, you're done.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. a
Kate Hall: Um, it's fine probably. ah but anyway, like, Any social media account after a few years, the demographic is going to start to age up.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: Demographic for TikTok used to be a lot younger. And there is still a lot of the younger demographic on TikTok, but a lot of it has started to shift older.
Kate Hall: And there was a big misconception in 2023 where people would be like, well, if it says that this audience is above 59 years old, because there's like age brackets or whatever on your post.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: And if it's like people were saying like, If it says that your main demographic is above 59 years old, it's because TikTok doesn't know the age of the person using it. And it's like, that's not true so because TikTok makes you put in your age when you sign up.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: Of course, some people could be putting in fake ages, but if the majority of your audience is above 59 years old, that's not a bunch of 12-year-olds putting in that they were born, you know, 60 years ago.
Heather Roberts: right
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: um A lot of it is going to be an older demographic. And the older demographic is there. um They just... They don't interact quite the same on social media.
Kate Hall: um And they don't...
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: A lot of people who are older don't know how to post right, either. um
Heather Roberts: No, that's true. That's true.
Veronica Adams: That is a savvy level that that comes with familiarity.
Kate Hall: so Yeah.
Veronica Adams: And when you're a late adopter or it's just not native to you in terms of the technology, that makes a lot of sense.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Yeah, absolutely. So there's a thing called the millennial pause
Veronica Adams: Ah, yes.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Um, so I'm, I'm on the ass end of millennials.
Veronica Adams: Yes. Yes.
Kate Hall: I'm 30. Um, so I'm on the very like ass end of being a millennial, but I still do it because back when we were starting to post and we were starting to make videos on our phone, you would click the button and then you would pause.
Kate Hall: And then it would like, you couldn't start talking until you were sure it was recording.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: Um, because it took a second. So the millennial pause is um,
Kate Hall: hi, I'm Kate, like that pause and then the breath and then starting to talk.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: So that's the millennial pause. And then we're used to the YouTube thing of introducing ourselves at the beginning of the video because people used to have any amount of patience. um But then Vine, RIP Vine, I miss you.
Veronica Adams: know
Heather Roberts: I know.
Kate Hall: Never forget. um So then Vine happened and every video had to be seven seconds or less.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: um So that would happen and... um you had to get to the point. You take a pause and then introduce yourself and you're halfway done with the video. um So people started learning how to record and get to the point because on Vine, you also couldn't edit. You couldn't like cut to that seven seconds, like to the beginning of you talking.
Kate Hall: um And then Musical.ly was created, Vine shut down and RIP Vine. I will never forgive Twitter for that. um And I'm going to blame Elon Musk, even though he did not own Twitter at that point.
Heather Roberts: Yeah, but there.
Kate Hall: um But you know what? I'm going to blame him for everything. So um my shower was too hot.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Elon Musk's fault.
Heather Roberts: Elon Musk's fault.
Kate Hall: that
Heather Roberts: Everything. It's raining right now.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: It's el it's Elon's fault.
Kate Hall: Yeah, absolutely. um But anyway, so ah Musical.ly, ah people started shifting over to Musical.ly and then Musical.ly turned into TikTok.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: Um, all of the millennial, all of us millennials who loved Vine were still in denial and took an extra couple of years before we started using TikTok. Um, so most of us weren't on TikTok until 2019, 2018, 2019.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Um,
Kate Hall: um that's when it started aging up because millennials would be like, this is the platform we're on guys. This is the cool thing. And our parents were like, okay, okay.
Heather Roberts: ah
Kate Hall: um But then we would freak our parents into being on TikTok anyway.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: But um right now, Gen X is really popular on um Facebook and Instagram, Gen X and Boomers.
Heather Roberts: TikTok. Yeah.
Kate Hall: um So all of our parents are on Facebook and Instagram. um And there's a little bit of a generational split there. A lot more of Gen X is going to be on Instagram versus a lot more Boomers on Facebook. um And it's just an age thing.
Kate Hall: It's because that's what was popular when you hit a specific age, when your brain was starting to convince itself to function normally.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: Yeah. And, or in some cases, when you knew somebody whose brain was starting to function normally and that app got created. So I also see a lot of people who are like, well, I'm not willing to learn a new thing.
Kate Hall: um Because guess what? The teens, the youths are barely using TikTok at this point. It is the Facebook for millennials, I guess.
Kate Hall: Like, exactly, have.
Veronica Adams: Oh no, we've ruined it. We've ruined it the way boomers ruined Facebook.
Heather Roberts: oh
Heather Roberts: We always do that, though.
Kate Hall: say
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: we
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: ah Um, so,
Veronica Adams: Oh God, every screenshot my mom texts to me is my comment on TikTok videos. Son of a bitch.
Kate Hall: yeah, yeah. so
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: So, though, you can see how it's happening.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Kate Hall: The youths want to get away from their parents. They don't want their parents following them on social media.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: Um, so they said skibbity right.
Heather Roberts: Oh my God.
Kate Hall: That's what, right that's what
Veronica Adams: you
Kate Hall: My kid is three.
Heather Roberts: That's what the kids say these days.
Kate Hall: i don't actually know what they need to say. um So the Gen Alphas and the Gen Zers hopped on over back to Snapchat, which the millennials stopped using Snapchat because they posted a joke about Chris Brown beating Rihanna.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: And we were all like, hey, fuck you guys. And we all left. The Gen Zers and Gen Alphas don't remember that happening. So they're hopping over because Snapchat now has the spotlight feature.
Kate Hall: Spotlight is TikTok for Snapchat. Every social media app wants to compete with TikTok. So they have Spotlight.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: YouTube has shorts. Facebook and Instagram, who are both owned by Meta, have reels. Everybody has one.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: I think LinkedIn even has a short feature now. And I'm like, oh, yes.
Heather Roberts: Do they seriously?
Kate Hall: I want, like, do I just make, like, a flossing with
Heather Roberts: oh my God.
Veronica Adams: there's nothing I want more than virality in polo and chinos.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: I should just like, yeah, I'm just gonna like floss and be like, I have years of experience in management.
Heather Roberts: Oh man.
Kate Hall: Social media.
Veronica Adams: Oh, God.
Kate Hall: Like that's just doing.
Heather Roberts: I got, got.
Veronica Adams: What a time to be alive, ladies.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Can I just throw that out there?
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Wow.
Heather Roberts: Oh, LinkedIn video shorts.
Veronica Adams: wow
Heather Roberts: I can't. I can't.
Kate Hall: yeah um But yeah, so basically anytime us elderly people are hopping in the the kids flee because they don't want their parents following them on social media.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. Right.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Veronica Adams: Of course not.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Veronica Adams: Of course not.
Kate Hall: Like MySpace died because parents would follow their kids on MySpace and MySpace couldn't figure out how to how to deal with that.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: MySpace still exists, by the way. It's like a music thing now.
Heather Roberts: Oh, is it fun?
Kate Hall: Yeah. Yeah. I didn't think it existed.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. i mean, I have a 19 year old and he's not.
Veronica Adams: I hope Tom's still getting paid.
Kate Hall: think after Tom sold it was when it really died.
Heather Roberts: Oh yeah.
Kate Hall: For the youths, Tom used to be your friend on the internet.
Veronica Adams: That's right.
Heather Roberts: Yes. Tom was.
Veronica Adams: Some of us kept him in the top eight just for fun.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Oh my god.
Heather Roberts: Just keep me there. What a time.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: um
Kate Hall: Top eight was when you would rank your friends.
Heather Roberts: No, I'm i' have a 19 year old and he he is not super on social media, but he uses Snapchat religiously. That is what he uses. And he does have, he uses Instagram. He lurks on TikTok.
Heather Roberts: um But he, i don't really know what he does on Instagram because he blocked me. I know.
Kate Hall: Yeah, because he's using his Finsta.
Heather Roberts: Because to your point-
Heather Roberts: He doesn't want his mother to see his story. He hasn't blocked me totally, but he's blocked me from being able to see his stories or whatever. um hers His reels um on on Instagram.
Veronica Adams: Interesting.
Kate Hall: says Is his Instagram, is it a Finsta account? Like, is it a locked down one?
Heather Roberts: It's not totally locked down,
Kate Hall: Okay, I wasn't sure if it was one that like, because what the kids these days, I hate that I'm saying that not super ironically, I tried to make it sound ironic, but it's really not that ironic anymore.
Heather Roberts: by
Veronica Adams: Yeah, no.
Kate Hall: I'm old.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: ah so what the kids these days are doing, if they're using Instagram is they're setting their account to private so that they're only like, they choose who follows them. So it is so only like, their friends can see it.
Heather Roberts: and
Kate Hall: And the
Heather Roberts: He might. I honestly haven't looked recently because I...
Kate Hall: And
Heather Roberts: He was like, oh, mom, did you see my story? And I was like, I went to go look. I was like, no, I can't see that. And he's like, oh
Kate Hall: he's like, thank goodness.
Heather Roberts: Well, and he's like, oh, I forgot. i block He actually wanted me to see that one. He's like, oh, I forgot I blocked you.
Kate Hall: Okay.
Heather Roberts: and I was like, why did you block me? What the hell?
Veronica Adams: Because boundaries are important, mom.
Heather Roberts: So, yeah.
Veronica Adams: Boundaries are important.
Kate Hall: Yeah, so...
Heather Roberts: It's fine. i mean, i don't care, I care a little bit.
Kate Hall: Yeah, so when we were younger, we were using LiveJournal and...
Veronica Adams: Oh.
Heather Roberts: Zanga.
Veronica Adams: Oh, God.
Kate Hall: MySpace for vague posting um and similar things.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Kate Hall: um When our parents were younger, they were using physical journals instead of telling everybody else their private thoughts and feelings.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: I think that's the downfall of this ah this country is that everybody's posting everything they think online.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Some of those thoughts are inside thoughts. Yeah.
Heather Roberts: They are They should be.
Veronica Adams: Yes.
Heather Roberts: They should be.
Kate Hall: Absolutely.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: People will post some out of pocket stuff on social media, but it's because people like we have this need to write stuff down and to document, but it used to be that documenting these things was for our own selves to look at.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: And now it's for everyone to see because we want to validate how we feel about things.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Oh, one more thing to get us slightly back to talking about TikTok. um
Kate Hall: Oh yeah, we should.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. So one other thing that you taught me that um and I sort of knew this already, but you phrased it in a way that like really made sense to me was talking how you talked about hashtags on TikTok and you were like hashtags on TikTok.
Heather Roberts: I mean, you can elaborate after I'm done when I get it wrong. um But they are not for searchability. So like on Facebook, you would use a hashtag so that you could click on it and then you could search that particular hashtag and find other posts that have that hashtag.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: That's not what the hashtags are for on TikTok. And hashtags on TikTok should be used for categorization so that the TikTok algorithm understands what your video is about.
Heather Roberts: Did I say that right?
Kate Hall: Right, so lot of, yeah, pretty much lot of the category, like lot of the elderly opinion on hashtags, and by elderly, I mean anyone over the age of 25.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: So all of us fit that category, don't worry.
Heather Roberts: All of us.
Kate Hall: um All of the elderly folks experience with hashtags is because Twitter and invented the hashtag, that symbol did not exist before Twitter. I'm just kidding, it's a numerical symbol for anyone who thinks I'm serious.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: The pound sign, if you will. Okay.
Kate Hall: Yes. um So as we all know, Twitter invented the hashtag, but they used it so that people could talk about things because Twitter's big thing was we want people to talk about things.
Kate Hall: And then we're going to say, here's the most popular things people are talking about. And it's going to be those hashtags, like hashtag hashtag.
Heather Roberts: yeah yeah
Kate Hall: Beyonce or whatever. Like that's going to be the most popular thing. And it's so we can figure out who's talking about what. um Because using the hashtag with coding makes it a lot easier to do the dropdowns and make it searchable when they're doing coding and when they're using that hashtag.
Kate Hall: um to help people search. It makes it a lot easier and it makes it so there's a lot fewer mistakes if somebody uses a hashtag like with multiple words. Um, so like if you used hashtag wing night, um, then it's going to be a lot of, a lot easier to find other people using hashtag wing night to talk about the wings they're eating tonight.
Kate Hall: Um, whatever day Buffalo Wild Wings does their two for one deal. Um, so um It's gonna be a lot easier to find that than typing wing space night and having a bunch of posts that happen to have those words like I found a bird with a broken wing last night.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: Nobody wants to hear about that. We want to know what the deals are on the wings. Um, so it's, so that's where hashtags started. And I know a lot about like the history of all these social medias.
Heather Roberts: Yeah, it's super interesting.
Kate Hall: That's why I'm so good at my job is because I've learned about like the history of the things and then like how that applies to our psychology and how that applies to like modern social media and how we apply that.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: It's really fun for me. I'm autistic. um
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: So, and I'm not saying that as a joke, I'm saying that as a serious, but it is funny to say, especially because it surprises people.
Heather Roberts: We love it.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: But basically, um so these hashtags were originally used for searchability because people would click it and find people with related things, right? And so then that transferred over when Instagram started using hashtags. They didn't, I believe they, i want to, I say that they didn't use hashtags at first, but then they started introducing hashtags in like 2011 or 2012 because Instagram started in like 2010.
Kate Hall: And then Facebook started using hashtags and trying out hashtags. If anybody remembers, like it was a total shit show when Facebook started using them. People were so mad. They were like, this is a Twitter.
Kate Hall: And it's like, yeah, like people were genuinely mad about this.
Heather Roberts: Oh yeah.
Kate Hall: People would talk and rage about this for days.
Heather Roberts: They were bad.
Veronica Adams: one of many Facebook updates and changes that just re enraged people.
Kate Hall: And then people would post like,
Heather Roberts: Oh yeah.
Kate Hall: Yeah, and they would post, like, Facebook statuses, like, vague posts, because they'd be like, can't believe so many people are falling into the hashtag trend on here nowadays.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Like, they would post these vague posts about it because they're annoyed that their neighbor that they're Facebook friends with, like, uses too many hashtags. So, like, that's what they were for, though, was to find things that were, like, trending
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: and um The thing is, people don't really follow hashtags anymore.
Veronica Adams: We do.
Kate Hall: um And TikTok noticed. TikTok was pretty much the first to notice. Like, people aren't really following hashtags. So instead of using hashtags for searchability, why don't we use... Like, they use hashtag for categorization and to group posts together.
Kate Hall: um And for lookalike audience purposes. For anybody in ads.
Heather Roberts: who We do need.
Kate Hall: um I've heard you guys do ads occasionally.
Veronica Adams: we two
Kate Hall: For angel anybody... For anybody who knows anything about lookalike audiences, it helps TikTok's algorithm to find lookalike audiences when people are using similar um hashtags. So I use very niche hashtags on my posts because I want to know that the people who are watching my posts are the people who are into other ah billionaire marriage of convenience romances.
Kate Hall: So I'm going to use the hashtag billionaire marriage of convenience romance. Um... or just billionaire romance or marriage of convenience romance or a billionaire boss.
Kate Hall: Like I want to know that people who are seeing my posts are into the same type of content, which means that I want TikTok to know what my content is about very specifically and in a very niche way.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: And I'm not just going to use those in the hashtags. I'm also going to use them as keywords in my description. um And what that means um for anybody listening who's not like familiar with SEO, ah SEO is search engine optimization. And it's just saying like,
Kate Hall: you're saying the same thing a couple of times so that your thing gets put above other things because it talks about the thing more is the basic thing. So if I say like, uh, an impressive proposal is a billionaire marriage it can be convenience romance book, um, in my description, like at the very bottom of my description, after like my tagline and my blurb and stuff, cause I do put my blurb in my description just so that the description is longer.
Kate Hall: Cause TikTok likes a long description. yeah, So then at the end, I'll put that and then I'll use like hashtag billionaire romance, hashtag billionaire marriage of convenience, hashtag mill ah marriage of convenience.
Kate Hall: um So that TikTok is like, okay, so this person's really into the fact that this post is about this. So we'll go ahead and share this. And because of the format of the post and because of the format of how I word things,
Kate Hall: Um, and even the punctuation I use on my slides, even though I make it in Canva, TikTok can still read what your post, what is on your post. Um, so that's when people are like, yeah, I wrote a spicy scene that didn't do well, even though I censored all of the words.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: It's like, yeah, TikTok can still read that. Their bots can still read it.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: They figured it out. I promise you. Um, so because they, they have,
Heather Roberts: Right.
Heather Roberts: they They know all the words that we've replaced with other words. And yeah, they they know.
Kate Hall: Yeah. And like, yeah.
Heather Roberts: They know.
Kate Hall: And so if I talk in my course and stuff about censoring words, it's not so that I trick TikTok into thinking the words aren't there. It's so that TikTok is satisfied into being like, okay, you're not saying the explicit word.
Kate Hall: Meanwhile, the explicit word is like hand because TikTok knows what we do with our hands and it's disgusting.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: yeah.
Kate Hall: so
Heather Roberts: it's true.
Veronica Adams: you
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: It's true.
Kate Hall: But yeah, so like the hashtags I only use for like categorization and it's to help TikTok categorize my content for like their lookalike audiences and for their algorithm. um The TikTok algorithm is simple. Your first three seconds are the most important.
Kate Hall: That's why I use that when archetype plus conflict and then your view time, not view percentage, your view time is important.
Kate Hall: And then whether someone completes the video. is important. um So those three things are going to be your most important things on TikTok. And to do that, you have to do all the other things. and You have to have an understanding of all of the other things.
Kate Hall: And then to get people to to get TikTok to categorize it right, you have to understand that description and those hashtags. um And it sounds really, really complex, but I promise like once you have an understanding of it and once you get the process down, you're working a couple of hours a week.
Kate Hall: Unless you're actually writing books instead of like procrastinating writing books by playing another round of Baldur's Gate 3 because you want to the bear.
Heather Roberts: Yeah,
Heather Roberts: definitely not.
Kate Hall: Hypothetically, hypothetically,
Heather Roberts: i but that
Veronica Adams: Who would be doing such a thing, Kate?
Kate Hall: what, sorry?
Veronica Adams: I said, who would be doing such a thing?
Kate Hall: Um, nobody, especially not in a co-op game with their husband. That would be weird.
Veronica Adams: but my goodness.
Heather Roberts: yeah ah definitely not
Kate Hall: Um, but, like, my goal, like, for everyone, for even if they listen to this, like, and this only, and this is the only time they ever hear me speak, I want them to be able to do TikTok easily, to not put a ton of effort into every post.
Heather Roberts: Okay.
Veronica Adams: Oh.
Kate Hall: So, like, I make all of my posts in Canva and then upload them on TikTok because...
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: it's so much easier to like repeat the content. I don't post a new piece of content every day. I don't have, you know, I have a book that's 300, 400 pages. Okay, I don't have 365 days worth of scenes from that book.
Heather Roberts: Thank you.
Kate Hall: I have 10 scenes that I used to have 18 for it, but I refined it down after using my like analytic spreadsheet that I have. um I used that to refine it down to the top 10 performing.
Kate Hall: hooks and I post those on a loop and I post them on several accounts, but I use a post scheduler now. I don't recommend starting with a post scheduler because you're going to get really discouraged because you're going like, okay, so I checked my accounts and I have like zero views here, a hundred views here, 50 views here. Ooh, 500 views over here. But like, like it's very discouraging, but if you do it right, like you're going to consistently get decent views.
Kate Hall: overall versus having to worry about like one specific account doing really badly because if like one account gets shadow banned but you're running 12 on a post scheduler who cares throw it out start a new one if you're running one account and depending on that for all of your income and that gets shadow banned you're fucked
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: um But I do recommend starting with one account so that you can understand how to make your posts and how the algorithm works and like understand which one of your posts are performing well before you ever go into post scheduling.
Heather Roberts: Right. Yes.
Kate Hall: Because if you don't if you don't make good content, you're just wasting money on a post scheduler. Because mine is like $80 a month or something, which is a lot of money for a lot of people for a subscription product.
Heather Roberts: right
Kate Hall: But I make... So, so, so much more than that because I understand which ones of my posts are going to do well. I understand that posting twice a day is going to make me a lot of money.
Kate Hall: And I understand that I am not physically capable of posting a new piece of content twice a day for a month, um let alone for 12 months.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: But I can sit my ass down once a month and make a month's worth of posts. um and like hyper fixate on it for one day, like for an eight hour work day and get all of my marketing done for the month so that I can go and, you know, have sex with Halston in a video game.
Heather Roberts: Exactly.
Veronica Adams: and Incredible. Work smarter, not harder. Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Exactly.
Kate Hall: Exactly.
Heather Roberts: There you go.
Kate Hall: Halston can work harder.
Heather Roberts: There you go.
Veronica Adams: Well, of course.
Kate Hall: mean,
Heather Roberts: sorry
Kate Hall: that
Veronica Adams: Of course.
Heather Roberts: So if people want to find you, how can they find you?
Kate Hall: um They can't. I actually live in a hole in the woods. um I just dug... i just This is actually my hole.
Veronica Adams: She's occupied with that bear, Heather.
Heather Roberts: i know. i know.
Kate Hall: Yeah. Yep. I just dug a hole and then I i burrowed into it. um In the winter, it gets closed off and I go to sleep for six months. um Now, I have...
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: um First of all, I would start with my YouTube channel. It's Kate Aline. um We'll make sure to that you guys have a link. But if you want to go ahead and like get my course and like really get started and go into it.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: If you have never made a social media post in your life and don't know how to download an app on your phone, TikTok for Authors is for you. If you... have not figured out what book you should write yet, that bundle has a course for you. if you know a lot about social media and you're really good at it, but you just can't get TikTok to work for you, this course is for you.
Kate Hall: It goes from absolute basics to super advanced um strategies because um I don't know what you don't know. Like that's something I've said a lot for several years.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: And I think that a lot of people forget that. Like they say like, oh, well, this is just common knowledge. And they'll say that about something on social media, like, oh, it's common knowledge that you can't post spicy scenes. Well, no, it's not because people know what was happening on TikTok five years ago and they decided to start today and they're following like three people.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: They don't know what's common knowledge. So I'm not gonna ever, in any of my content that I make, I'm never gonna assume that you know any sort of information. I'm going to pretend you are a blank slate and you have not been on social media for the past 20 years.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: because I think that this should be accessible for everyone because my goal is for everyone to get super rich, especially women. um Like I do appreciate the men who do really well with my courses and stuff and that's really awesome.
Heather Roberts: We love that.
Kate Hall: um But my main goal is always, always, always to uplift women in any space, especially in like financial independence because I have grown up knowing like so many women who, and especially as I get into the author community, I've met so many women who wrote a book for fun, um or they saw other people writing books, and they're like, you know what, I want to publish this book.
Kate Hall: And my husband doesn't support it. And my husband got mad when I started making money.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: yeah.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: And he doesn't let me work.
Heather Roberts: I have to hide my books from him or whatever.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: And I see that a lot.
Heather Roberts: So many.
Kate Hall: So my goal is always to uplift women and to help women. um So like, seriously, even if you're like, I, there's no way I can put money down for a course, like follow the YouTube channel.
Kate Hall: I talk about shit all the time there too.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: I have a TikTok, but that's just like reposted content for my YouTube. So the YouTube is going to be like the main place to follow me. um Because that's where I post like the bulk of my content. And then obviously like the courses.
Kate Hall: But I just I want people to be able to make money because I know what it's like. I know what it's like to be broke as shit. I know what it's like to lose your house because you can't afford your rent anymore. I know what it's like to have your car repossessed.
Kate Hall: Okay, this is not, I'm not saying all of this as someone like, you know, oh look, I have a Chanel bag and I have my Kelly up here and like, I've never had to work a day in my life.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: I just do this for fun. I do this as someone who like, has struggled, who has lived in a shed with no plumbing, um with a child at the time.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: like Like, I just want, I don't want people to have to struggle the way I did. Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. That's awesome.
Kate Hall: So, I know, I'm like...
Veronica Adams: We love a girl's girl and we love a ra a rags to riches story too.
Kate Hall: Yeah,
Veronica Adams: I mean, like, and you like, it's a hustle you put in the work. It's not like this just accidentally happened to you. You refined it through your, you know, with your own books, your own author brand.
Kate Hall: absolutely.
Veronica Adams: And like, it's tested.
Kate Hall: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what, we talked at the very beginning of this episode about like, you know, this didn't fall into my lap and I work hard. And worked my ass off to get where I'm at now.
Kate Hall: And to get things where I'm at now. And guess what, I work four hours a week now.
Heather Roberts: hu
Kate Hall: because of the steps I've put in place to be consistent and to get this where I need to be. And so if you are consistent and you do it right, and like you show up and do it the right way.
Kate Hall: And like a big problem I've seen, I know that we're like trying to wrap up and I'm very sorry about this.
Heather Roberts: Yeah, no, you're fine.
Kate Hall: Um, But a big problem I've seen with a lot of people, and I used to do this myself, is they will self-sabotage. They'll be like, well, I listened to this advice from this person who's helped 2,000 people do super well with TikTok and go full-time as an author because of TikTok and because of social media.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: And I did everything she said, and it didn't work for me, and this doesn't work for me. And I think that a lot of us do this as well, where we'll be where we will decide ahead of time, even if we spend money on a product, even if we spend money on on a course, we will decide ahead of time, um I'm going to do this, but it's not going work for me, but I'm doing it to prove that it's not going to work for me.
Kate Hall: But then we don't quite do everything.
Heather Roberts: Right. Yeah.
Kate Hall: um We say it's not working for me, but then our posts have people in the background, especially people wearing like lingerie.
Heather Roberts: right
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: Okay, which I say specific explicitly in the course, I say do not have people in your backgrounds because TikTok flags this as like potential screenshots from porn because that's something that spam accounts will do.
Kate Hall: They will put literal screenshots from porn on photo slides.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: So I don't use people in my background at all. Like, even if it's a hot guy in a suit, we know what's underneath that suit and it's disgusting. Okay. Put it, keep it been in another room, sir.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: So I don't use people in the backgrounds. Or they'll say, well, I did everything she said and then their posts are 10 slides long. Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: And so people aren't, they're not on the content for as long and they're not interacting as much because they're not putting in quite as much effort for the thing.
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Kate Hall: And it seems like, it might seem like, well, if I do 25 or 35 slides, nobody's gonna be that long. But the thing is when you have slideshows that long, people are the people who are there and who are being delivered your content because you've made that content, the people that TikTok knows to give that content to,
Kate Hall: is going to be people who do watch that content because people interact with that and people are more likely to then go and buy and read your book.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Kate Hall: um The highest return on investment on time investment and financial investment I've seen is these slideshow posts.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: And like, um there's going to be some differences if you do like TikTok shop, because I i don't know if they've v let you link. i I don't do enough on my TikTok shop. I should clarify that.
Kate Hall: um I know how to do it. And I've worked with clients on it to help them. Like I have one client who makes $1,000 a day on her TikTok shop from her books. um But I don't know if I don't, I don't do enough of it.
Kate Hall: And I don't have enough people that I've worked with on it to have like a massive amount of data versus like the normal posting.
Heather Roberts: Right. Right. Right.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Because you also have to like mail stuff out. And my goal is like be as low effort as possible. um Because again, like, like you said, like, I'm a girl's girl. I want to do this for the girls. And like, you know, some of the girls have husbands who won't let them accept a delivery of books.
Kate Hall: Or who don't give them access to a car. And it's like a really shitty situation to be in But if you are in this kind of situation, you can't drive to the post office to drop off books every day.
Kate Hall: um Or your husband will throw a fit if you have the mail truck pick up a bunch of books from you.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: Or you only have a couple of hours a week because your husband's an asshole. Or because you don't have a husband and you have, you know, four kids that you're trying to take care of and keep alive. Like, whatever time you can squeeze out is what you're going to do to work on it.
Kate Hall: And to improve. um So yeah, that's my goal is to let everybody be lazy and rich.
Heather Roberts: I love it.
Veronica Adams: Love it.
Heather Roberts: No, that's my goal too. So I think that's probably why we aligned so well. We were like kismet spirits. Like this is this is the thing.
Kate Hall: Absolutely.
Heather Roberts: Because yeah, we're in this business for profit. um I mean, that's always been something that Veronica and I have talked about with our clients because people will come to us with different goals and we're like, well, that's great, but it's not going to make you money.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: do you still want to do it?
Veronica Adams: Yeah. Yep.
Heather Roberts: Because at the end of the day, we want you to make money.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: i you know, it's it's nice.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: Like I once got a client um in Cosmo and like, that was cool. Did she make any money off that? No, she made, she saw not one spike in sale.
Heather Roberts: So was it worth it? Eh, eh, I mean-
Veronica Adams: I mean she can say she's been in Cosmo now
Heather Roberts: Yeah, she can say she's been in Cosmo, but she got no actual thing from it.
Kate Hall: This is true.
Heather Roberts: It was a goal from her to be for to be ah a personal goal, to be in like a magazine. So we made that happen, and it was really cool. But at the end of the day, i care more about things that are going to make you money than about just doing things that are cool.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: And so it you know certainly we can try to work together to achieve goals that you may have. But like you, at the end of the day, we care about the money.
Kate Hall: Yeah. yeah And you know what?
Heather Roberts: That's important.
Kate Hall: you know what, I've had a bunch of people approach me and approach my content that is like, here's how I make this much money from my books and like come at it from a business standpoint. And like, that's basically the title of the video.
Kate Hall: And then they'll be like, but what if I don't care about making money from my books?
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: I just want to publish it and say that I published it because I wrote this piece of art that is, you know, this thing. And I'm like, well, then my content's not for you.
Heather Roberts: Then just public it. Right.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Kate Hall: then do it. Do that. If you don't care about making money and then you're coming onto my content about how I make money and treat my stuff like a business and you're mad about how you have to do it to treat it like a business, then like my content's not for you.
Heather Roberts: Like you don't, yeah, you don't have to do that.
Kate Hall: um Not everybody's content has to be for everyone.
Veronica Adams: yeah race.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: um Because like you were saying.
Veronica Adams: Artistic integrity is your priority.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Great.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Veronica Adams: Do it, do it in the way that feels like you are keeping the integrity of your art, the priority, but maybe this course isn't the way you should handle it.
Kate Hall: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. um Yeah, exactly. And like, but there's so many people and there's so many people I've met who make a crap ton of money from their books and who did well before they ever took TikTok for authors or anything.
Kate Hall: um Who like, we're coming at this, a lot of us are coming at this and a lot of the people I work with are coming at this from, I need to make money now and like not necessarily like just like right now I need to make a thousand dollars by Friday or the mafia is after me but like I need to fix my shit I need to fix my life and I need the money coming in and I have these books and I have I want to be an author and I've wanted to and I'm finally going to do it and I need to make money from it
Heather Roberts: Right. Yeah.
Veronica Adams: Yeah. Right.
Heather Roberts: Right. Yeah.
Veronica Adams: right
Kate Hall: um And that's where a lot of my people are coming from.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: And I think, and that's very much where I came from. And a lot of people try to shame people, especially women for that. Like so many people will shame women um for saying, I wanna make money from my books, especially men who are in high paying jobs, but wrote like their passion book.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: I've seen so many of these men, um again, no offense to men who are not like this, all of the offense to men who are like this, but they'll be like, I wrote my passion project and published it and got three sales, but I don't care.
Heather Roberts: Oh
Heather Roberts: yeah.
Kate Hall: because I secretly make six figures at this job and don't actually need the money, but I feel good about myself because I published a book and paid $5,000 to a vanity press for them to publish my book with a cover that's not a good cover.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Heather Roberts: Awful.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: But I published it and I'm mad at you for trying to tell people how to make money. And I'm like, well, then my content's not for you.
Veronica Adams: yep.
Kate Hall: um
Heather Roberts: Right.
Kate Hall: Like, Yeah, because there's there's a lot of people who are coming at this of, like, you know, the economy's shit right now.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: And it's not just, like, the Dow is down or whatever.
Heather Roberts: Yeah.
Kate Hall: I don't know anything about investing. Like, it's not coming at it from that standpoint. It is groceries are four times as much as they were a year ago. And people cannot feed their families.
Heather Roberts: hu
Kate Hall: And people need to figure something else out.
Heather Roberts: yeah
Kate Hall: because our like Because the system is crashing. The system is broken. Yeah.
Heather Roberts: a We are at end stage capitalism, baby.
Kate Hall: Yes, like people who were making, yeah, people who are in you know, like a single income household where the earner is making a hundred grand, like can't foot can't put food on the table.
Heather Roberts: So if you can make it work for you, let's, yeah.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: It's wild.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: It's wild.
Kate Hall: And then, and then of course there's going to be people who are like, well, I've never made more than 20 grand. How in the world are you suffering? And it's like, the problem isn't the people who are making a hundred grand who are still struggling.
Kate Hall: The problem is that the system is broken and that the people who are making a hundred billion a year are increasing the prices for those of us making less than 200, 400 grand or whatever.
Heather Roberts: Right.
Veronica Adams: Yes.
Heather Roberts: Yeah, there should not be record-breaking profits.
Veronica Adams: Record profits, no raises. Record profits, no bonuses.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. Every year.
Veronica Adams: Record profits, record
Kate Hall: yeah
Heather Roberts: Every year.
Kate Hall: record Record profits, all of our record profits all of our employees are on food stamps.
Heather Roberts: Yeah. i I like this.
Kate Hall: oh
Heather Roberts: i That's part of, you know, one of my big missions is talking about entrepreneurship ah with some other things that we do. And yeah, be your own boss, create your own money, take control of your life in that regard.
Heather Roberts: And if you can do it for a few hours a week,
Veronica Adams: Mm-hmm.
Heather Roberts: you know, grab some of these courses and, you know, figure it out because it's, it's a cheat code to help you get ahead.
Veronica Adams: Yeah.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: um instead of, cause a lot of this stuff, listen, you could do the research yourself. I mean, I'm building out courses myself. Kate has been a lovely mentor, ah for me. and you know, a lot of this information, you could go and do the research yourself.
Heather Roberts: You could go and learn it yourself. You could spend the time
Kate Hall: And you could do a lot of trial and error yourself.
Heather Roberts: Yeah, you can do a lot of trial and error yourself. But like you know with with all courses like this, and um you know we obviously only like to talk about the reputable ones because there are ones out there that you don't want to take.
Veronica Adams: for short.
Heather Roberts: But these are cheat codes.
Kate Hall: yeah
Veronica Adams: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Heather Roberts: These are people who have already done the work, who are compiling it together in a curated lesson so that you can get it in a way that is palatable for you and you can work through it on your time and you're only getting the points that you need.
Veronica Adams: yeah
Heather Roberts: you you know you're not You don't have to go through all the slush that everybody else has gone through.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: So that's the one of the big benefits about courses.
Kate Hall: Yeah.
Heather Roberts: And for somebody who is in a situation where they need to make money more you know too quickly, um you know they need to take their business to the next level quickly.
Heather Roberts: You don't have time to do all of that. So this is really perfect. But we should probably wrap up.
Kate Hall: Yeah. yeah
Heather Roberts: We've been talking for over an hour. um bye
Kate Hall: Yeah, I don't know how to shut the fuck up.
Heather Roberts: We could talk with Kate all day. know.
Kate Hall: I have Yapper's disease.
Veronica Adams: Like, for real, though.
Kate Hall: I never stop yapping.
Heather Roberts: We love Kate. We could talk to her all day. you don't what you don't know is like we literally talked for a half an hour before we even started recording because, yeah because we just can't help ourselves.
Veronica Adams: That's right.
Kate Hall: We did.
Veronica Adams: the The podcast before the podcast.
Kate Hall: The free cast.
Heather Roberts: But... So I will put Kate's information in the description of the YouTube link and also wherever you are listening on this podcast, check out the description.
Heather Roberts: It will be there.
Veronica Adams: Yep.
Heather Roberts: And we thank you so much, Kate, for coming on. We've had a really good time.
Veronica Adams: Yes, thank you.
Heather Roberts: So until next time, this has been For Book's Sake.
Kate Hall: Thank you for having me.
