Episode 29: Social Calls

In this episode of the Watchung Booksellers, social media mavens Sara Alli and our very own Evelyn Moulton chat about social media in bookselling.

Sarah Alli is an Associate Marketing Manager for Hachette Book Group, one of the Big Five book publishing houses in the country. She runs all of Hachette US’s central social media accounts. Outside of her 9-5, Sarah is also a social media influencer and creator of Slow Morning Diaries, a cozy corner of the internet where she chats about intentional and mindful living. In her free time, when she’s not browsing the thriller shelves at the bookstore, she co-runs an all-things-horror podcast with her husband called Liver Alone Pod.

Evelyn Moulton is a children’s bookseller and the social media manager at Watchung Booksellers. Additionally, she created the design and runs the social media for the Watchung Booksellers Podcast. She is a writer with a degree in English and Creative Writing from Montclair State University. Evelyn grew up at the beach in Cape May, New Jersey, but always gets a sunburn. Evelyn lives in New Jersey with her partner and her cat, who both read everything she writes.

Resources:

Postmarked Pages
Hachette Open Book

Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.

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The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, NJ.

The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell and Bree Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi and Derek Mattheiss.

Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica.

Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff.

Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids’ Room!

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Transcript

Kathryn: Hi, welcome back to the Watchung Booksellers podcast, where we bring you conversations from our bookstore's rich community of book professionals who talk about a different aspect of the book world. And if you're new to our podcast, thanks for joining us today. I'm Kathryn, and I'm here with my co producer Marni.

Kathryn: Hey Marni. 

Marni: Hello. What you reading these days? I just got a copy of Jonathan Alter's new book, American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial and My Own. I'm really excited to read it. I mean, excited. I think it's going to be a really interesting read. Yeah. After 

Kathryn: that event, it was very, very eye opening and that man knows a lot.

Kathryn: Yeah. He sure does. Yeah. It'll be a good read. How about you? I'm reading Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976 and it was a book that was gifted to me twice. So, I have two copies on my shelf. And I decided to pull one out and start reading that. Today we're going to talk about book marketing and social media from two points of view, from the publisher and a bookseller.

Kathryn: Sarah Ali is here from Hachette to talk with our own Evelyn Moulton about managing social media campaigns. 

Marni: Sarah Ali is an associate marketing manager for Hachette Book Group, one of the big five book publishing houses in the country. She runs all Hachette U. S. 's central social media accounts. Outside of her 9 to 5, Sarah is also a social media influencer and creator of Slow Morning Diaries, a cozy corner of the internet where she chats about intentional and mindful living.

Marni: In her free time when she's not browsing the thriller shelves at the bookstore, she co runs All Things Horror podcast with her husband called Liver Alone Pod. 

Kathryn: And Evelyn Moulton is a children's bookseller and the social media manager at Watchung Booksellers. She is a writer with a degree in English and creative writing from Montclair State University.

Kathryn: Evelyn grew up at the beach in Cape May, New Jersey, but always gets a sunburn. She lives in New Jersey with her partner and her cat who both read everything she writes. 

Marni: Enjoy the conversation and we'll be back after to fill you in on what's coming up in the store. Hey

Sarah: Sarah. Hey Evelyn. 

Evelyn: How are you? 

Sarah: I am doing great. How are you? 

Evelyn: Good, good. I'm excited to finally be here chatting with you. 

Sarah: I am so excited. Excited to talk social media. I feel like I don't get to talk about it enough often, so this is, this is gonna be fun. 

Evelyn: Perfect. I think we should just jump into it. Yeah. My first question for you, I've been meaning to ask you this for a really long time just to get some clarity on it.

Evelyn: Um, So we do have kind of the same job. What exactly is our job? What do we do? 

Sarah: Yeah, that's a really good question. Cause I feel like there are a million ways that we can probably define it. At least on my end, I'm a social media manager at Hachette. And basically what I do is a bunch of different things, but social media is kind of like front and center.

Sarah: And so I post a lot of content, but it's not just posting the content. It's not just hitting posts. It's like. Coming up with an idea, a trendy idea, a relevant idea, something that will resonate with readers, but also producing it, and editing it, and making it look cute, good for the feed, and then posting it, and then sharing it, promoting it.

Sarah: Like, it's like 20 different jobs, honestly. 

Evelyn: One post is like a day long process. 

Sarah: Truly, truly. Is it the same for you? 

Evelyn: Yeah, yeah, and especially because I also work full time in store. 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Evelyn: Which is helpful for posting on social media. I'm always there. But it is like a lot of work goes into just an Instagram story.

Evelyn: Yeah. 

Sarah: It's kind of deceiving because once it gets on the feed, people are like, Oh my gosh, it just looks so seamless. But then there's so many things that we have to do to get it to look seamless. And it's like, it's a whole process. 

Evelyn: If it looks really easy job well done. 

Sarah: So how did you get into this job?

Evelyn: So I have I have a really romantic, exciting story. Um, I started at the bookstore when I was still in college, and after I graduated and went full time, in the publishing world, which I'm sure, obviously, you know, listeners might not, new books always come out on Tuesdays. It's like how new music always comes out on Fridays, Tuesdays is the day for books.

Evelyn: And I was in the store on a Tuesday, we'd do something on our Instagram, new title Tuesday, and we needed to film it. I happened to be there, and was asked, because I had a phone, if I could do it. Funnily enough, at the time, Maddie actually didn't even know that I had social media experience. Like, in COVID, I did social media full time for like a year, just on my own, and when I started working at the bookstore, I was like, that has nothing to do with this job.

Evelyn: I didn't even bring it up. And so I just slowly, over time, started doing more posts. Like doing Friday favorites, all of that, and just kind of, I feel like I just fell into a really comfortable hole and ended up being a social media manager. What about you? 

Sarah: I love that. I love that you kind of like, it is very romanticized, and I honestly love that, but I love that you kind of grew with the position and Became like a developed thing.

Sarah: That's awesome. For me, I kind of started things off on the influencer side. I was doing a bookstagram way back when. I probably like 2016. And of course, it was just a passion project at the time. I was just getting on Instagram and learning what the heck Instagram is. And then I was also in college at the time.

Sarah: I eventually graduated, got my degree in creative writing and, you know, all the English majors, they, they have this dream to go work in publishing. So once I graduated, I started applying into the publishing industry and, funny enough, I ended up getting a, Position in contracts, which is definitely not what you think about when you think about publishing and all of the other romanticized positions that you can get there, like editor, marketer, whatever.

Sarah: And I was in that position for about two to three years and then suddenly there was a position that opened up in the marketing area and It ended up working out. I was able to transfer from one department to the next and because I had that experience on social media doing the bookstagram and it was a successful bookstagram at the time, things just worked out.

Sarah: I moved over and then I've just been there ever since and so I've kind of also been growing with that position starting from like a teeny itty baby marketer to more of like a marketing manager which has been super exciting and yeah. 

Evelyn: That is so fun. As an other English major with a creative writing degree, I really understand that, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah, it's like all of the creative writers are just like, alright, publishing, let's go, let's go, we gotta make some money anyway. Exactly. What is the vibe you want viewers to get from your content? 

Evelyn: My goal is to make the Instagram feel like you're visiting the bookstore in real life. That when you open it up, you see pictures of it, but you also get to, in a way, talk to the booksellers.

Evelyn: Which is why we do, like, Friday Favorites. We do that every week. It's like virtual hand selling. Just posting pictures of everyday life at the bookstore. Watchung Booksellers is It feels like a really important part of the community and everyone coming together and hanging out there and spending time there.

Evelyn: And so the Instagram, it's really important that I feel like that's an extension of what it feels like to actually be in the bookstore. 

Sarah: Yeah, I love that. That's such a great vision for the socials because Anytime I think about Watchung, I always think about the community first because it's so community driven and I feel like it gets so much of its spark and personality from the community as a whole, but as well as the bookstore embracing that.

Sarah: So I love that you're doing that on social. I mean, our tagline is your 

Evelyn: community bookstore, right on our logo. So we really try to like focus on that. I love that. How do you feel about kind of the vibe of doing the Hachette socials and doing that? 

Sarah: Yeah, it's. It's interesting to look at it from a brand, like a large industry brand standpoint because, again, coming from the influencing side, you definitely have to do a little bit of a mindset shift because it's not just about the individual, it's the brand as a whole.

Sarah: And so I'm trying to encompass what I think Hachette wants to convey. to, you know, their consumers, to their readers, and I also try to put a bit of that genuine quality that you get from the influencer side, because at the end of the day, whoever is managing a large brand social media account is just a human.

Sarah: And I, I personally think putting a bit of that humanization towards the brand account can only do good. I think consumers like to see the behind the scenes of such a large company, especially a company that they probably look up to and admire not just from a professional career standpoint, but also where they buy their books.

Sarah: And so try to bring that human back to that. Well, that 

Evelyn: relates to another question that I wanted to ask you is posting as, you are posting as the brand. When you're making a post, are you talking as Hachette? Are you trying to kind of hide yourself or show that there is a person running the account? 

Sarah: Yeah, it's a really good question because at first when I took over the social accounts, I was really intimidated by the largeness of Hachette and so I kind of wanted to remove myself as much as possible and just focus on the brand as just the brand.

Sarah: But as you probably know when you're on social media, things change in an instant and what works changes in an instant as And I started to see that a lot of large brands were Prioritizing the humanity or the human behind the account, if we think about large brands such as Taco Bell, which has nothing to do with books, but Taco Bell, we all know they like kind of started that joke, like, oh, there's an intern kind of running the account.

Sarah: And while, you know, there's a whole other things that are stereotyped underneath that, but there's a person that is handling that account and we should embrace the fact that that is just a person and it makes you kind of have an admiration or like a likeness to the brand. And once I started seeing that become more trendy, I started embracing that as well.

Sarah: And so now on the social accounts, it's still very much like brandy. It's more like, I would say maybe 70 30, but that 30 percent is me kind of saying, Hey, I'm a person. Here's my face. This is what I look like. This is how I talk. This is kind of like my language, my style of speaking to you, communicating with you, but I'm communicating to you.

Sarah: as well from a brand standpoint. And so I feel like, at least from my experience so far, people are enjoying that and feeling like they can reach out or DM Hachette and be like, hey, can you give me some book recommendations? Because they feel a little bit more comfortable as opposed to something that's super corporate, if that makes sense.

Evelyn: Yeah, I mean, I always love when I get to see you. Not just because I want to see you, but because it's like, it is nice to know that there's a person making all of this stuff. I know you made a video a little bit ago. You came to our bookstore. Oh, yeah! But like, a bunch of people from a Shetland to a bunch of Indies and like videos like that are always just like So fun to see.

Sarah: I love that. 

Evelyn: I kind of felt the same way when I first started out. Just being kind of nervous in the first place to post and speak for the business. 

Sarah: Yeah, 

Evelyn: but I realized I was like always talking in like a royal we. I was like, we at Watchung booksellers and like everything I posted and it felt so serious and so like it almost made it feel more intimidating to try to post like that and especially because I feel like Instagram used to be a lot more casual.

Evelyn: If you scroll all the way back on our Instagram Instagram. A lot of our posts from when the account was first started were just like really random pictures of the booksellers in their natural habitat in this really like warm and familiar feeling. And of course social media has changed so much in the past like 10 years since those posts were made and it's a much different landscape.

Evelyn: It's definitely not as casual. As it used to be, but I've been like, I kind of want to go back to that of just kind of this, like, really familiar, like, personal feeling. 

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. That's such a great point because, like, if you think about the influencer world, there's a little bit of a gap, whereas before it used to be more, like, friendship based, community based, like, we're doing this together.

Sarah: I would love to see that come back, honestly. I love that sense of like, we know each other, we're cool with each other, we're friends. And I think about that a lot in my earlier Bookstagram days where I was creating a community on my Bookstagram and I ended up being like lifelong friends with some of those people, whereas now it's not necessarily the same.

Evelyn: Yeah, I feel like sometimes you get lost in the idea of trying to Sell yourself as opposed to connect and like those don't aren't mutually exclusive ideas. 

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely So, okay. My next question is how do you find the balance with selling and authenticity? 

Evelyn: I think I have kind of two different ideas of it from my two different like Perspectives at the bookstore versus like book selling every day and then doing the social media sometimes really connect and sometimes do feel like very separate things.

Evelyn: Before I worked at the bookstore, I was a waitress for like 10 years and I really believe that waitresses should be getting daytime Emmys. Oh my god, yes. Because 90 percent of that job is acting and acting is just lying. Like you lie, lie, lie all day long to like, Yes, I love the salad. Like buy it, buy it, buy it.

Evelyn: And now at the bookstore, like selling a book is not hard. Like I don't have to lie. It's really I feel really fortunate and it's really easy to have a job that already feels authentic to be doing. And then translating that into the social media, it's just, I just get to talk about the thing that I like all day long in every way.

Evelyn: And that makes my job really easy because I'm sure there's a lot of social media managers out there who maybe don't have the luxury that we have. to get to talk about books, and books are not a hard sell. Like, it's always a good thing to read a book. It's always a good thing to talk about a book. So I think in that way we're really fortunate.

Sarah: Yeah, no, I totally, I totally agree with you. It's kind of privileged in a sense that we get to talk about things that we genuinely love and so it makes it super easy to talk about that, but also coming from like such a large brand standpoint from Hachette, there are so many books. So many books and not gonna lie, I don't read all of the Hachette books, let's be real.

Sarah: I also love books from other publishing houses and it's like, how, how do I still continue to maintain an authentic voice that also is trying to sell? And Sometimes, I'm lucky that I manage the Hachette US accounts, and so that's not imprint specific. And that means I get to talk about any books across all of the imprints, which makes it easier.

Sarah: But also, because it's a more general account, I get the privilege of also talking about the love of reading and that also resonates with audiences. And I think in that way, it's a subtle sell to simply read. And I love leaning in on that because I have an endless pool of ideas for selling reading.

Sarah: Because why wouldn't I? I love reading. There's so many reasons why I love reading. And if I'm able to convey that through the Hachette US accounts, then, you know, I feel like other readers are also gonna resonate with that. Yeah. 

Evelyn: I mean, we don't have to get into, like, book banding or anything to that, but generally everyone loves reading.

Evelyn: Yeah. And everyone loves books, so it's easy. Exactly. Exactly. On selling, how do you feel like social media affects sales? In like, in positives and negatives, are you able to kind of see those numbers? 

Sarah: I am. I'll throw in a little trendy social media trendy joke, but have you seen that, those videos on TikTok, like on the For You page, where there's like the social media content girlies and then the social media data girlies?

Sarah: I am the content girly. I'm like over in the corner throwing glitter and sparkles and just having a good old creative time. Meanwhile, the social media data girlies at Hachette, you know, they're, they're looking at the numbers and I'm so grateful that, you know, they get to present me the numbers. And, you know, it fluctuates just as social media is, but I think the real power An example is looking at TikTok and BookTok right now.

Sarah: BookTok is kind of leading and being a director in terms of sales, which is wild to say because at the end of the day that's social media and that's just like influencer marketing and it's making a huge push. It's it's Influencing the way that we publish books. It's influencing the way that we create covers and all of that.

Sarah: So it's definitely influential and just the impact of seeing the way that a book is published going forward is a huge example of that. But I also think it is problematic and it can be problematic to read. For the same exact reasons. It's influencing the way a cover will look. It's influencing the way that a marketer will sell it on the publisher side as opposed to what they used to do.

Sarah: There's so much more of an effort to get on TikTok and blow up on TikTok, which is, you know, that can be really tricky, especially in the traditional publishing world. So for the same reasons, I think it's a good thing. It's a bad thing. We have to kind of navigate it and see how the future holds for publishing in that sense.

Sarah: But I guess it depends on how you Address it. Yeah, 

Evelyn: they are kind of overtaking the world. Which I feel like it's so interesting there's never been as much of a direct line between consumer and Corporation as there is with book talk to publishers. 

Sarah: Yeah, and 

Evelyn: just how loud they can get like self published authors being now published by publishers just because the internet decided They really liked them like it's really interesting how fast those things can happen and then how fast things can go out of popularity You The timeline in publishing takes a lot longer than the timeline of TikTok.

Evelyn: So something can be popular for a month and publishing won't get to it in time. So do you feel like you've ever seen like difficulties in that, that Getting a book out can't keep up with what BookTok 

Sarah: kind of wants. Absolutely. Like, just for context, in publishing, to publish a single book can take majority of the year, if not the entire year, longer than that.

Sarah: Like, there are so many different factors, and marketing comes in near the end. So, when you have really loyal, uh, readers that are following, say, a certain, uh, Author, like Colleen Hoover, for example, that's one of our authors, and they want the books cranking out. They want something new. They want an update, etc, etc, and in reality, like, we, the marketer doesn't even know what's going on at this given moment.

Sarah: Has the manuscript even come in? Things like that, and so, there's just so much going on, and I've actually seen some stuff on social media recently where, you know, publishing insiders are giving that context and saying, like, listen, y'all, I know you love, Koho, but y'all gotta wait a year, she's gotta write the book, we've gotta look it through, all of those different things.

Sarah: So, yeah, the timeline is strange and it's also hard from a social media standpoint. Like, for my job, having to market a certain book or promote a certain book that's trending right now, I have to be on top of that. If it's trending. When did it trend? Did it trend yesterday? And is it already out the door?

Sarah: I have to be able to pick up on that and then again, like we were saying in the beginning, producing, creating the content, editing, posting it, all of that stuff, all in this tiny little time frame that BookTok has kind of created for us. Unfortunately, but fortunately. 

Evelyn: Were you there at Hachette when they took on Colleen Hoover?

Sarah: Yes. What was 

Evelyn: that like? Because that was, I think, one of the biggest examples of a BookTok author really kind of making it. 

Sarah: Oh my gosh, yes. Things are just so unexpected. The pacing in publishing is so much more chill in comparison to what you think, even though there are so many fast moving parts, there's also like a general timeline that doesn't go at the speed that you wouldn't anticipate, if you have any experience of how fast things go on TikTok or social media.

Sarah: And so, when an author blows up, It kind of trickles in slowly until it gets to you as a social media person and you're like, Oh my gosh, this, this is crazy. Like it's impacting the entire industry right now. It's impacting everyone's job at the, at the company. And so everybody's trying to capitalize it.

Sarah: Of course, we want to boost our authors. We want to continue that momentum that the author is having. And so it becomes like a huge company effort. to get that going for the author. Author care is extremely important. And so, first and foremost, we're always like, how can we give the author the care that they need to boost them when they're doing well, and stuff like that.

Sarah: So, that's kind of how things are structured at Hachette. We all look at it from that standpoint. Like, how can we give extra care to this author that's doing really well? We have another example of Frieda McFadden. We have The Housemaid that's trending. And The Housemaid is one of our books, too. And it's like, how can we keep this going to let her have her moment?

Sarah: And it's exciting. You guys are all the 

Evelyn: stars. 

Sarah: You know, we got some really good, good gems. Yeah, it's kind of like author Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's wild. It's wild. All right. So let's shift gears a little bit and talk about book influencers. Your thoughts. Do you, have you noticed shifts? Do you have any observations on evolutions, growth or anything like that in the bookish social world?

Evelyn: I mean, we were talking earlier about how much of a control that booktok kind of has on publishing now. It's really evolved into its own beast. Yeah. It's kind of intense and I feel like it started as such like a small little like book club of like a few people on like YouTube in 2012 who wanted to talk about The Hunger Games.

Evelyn: Yeah. And now it's It's widespread. I mean, it's also really interesting that book talk single handedly has turned people who maybe wouldn't have called themselves a reader into a reader. 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Evelyn: That they want to read these books that everybody's talking about. It's kind of, like, reading is cool. It's always been cool, but now everyone kind of agrees.

Evelyn: Yeah, it's cool to read. So I think that that power of the internet in that way is really interesting. And a lot of like indies and a lot of publishers will also like kind of lean on book influencers, not only just to know what's going on, but like sending them ARCs, like doing all this stuff, and that kind of collaboration with really just people who like to read is I think really awesome.

Sarah: Yeah, I totally agree. I kind of, Love the direction that this is going for book talk, for book influencers, not just on TikTok. But it's really exciting. Coming from a Bookstagram standpoint, when I first started, Bookstagram was truly like a little community, a little book club, like you said, and friendships were created there and it was super exciting.

Sarah: Now I feel like it can be a career for someone. Someone can be an editor. Book influencer and that can be their job. They are getting paid. Not only are they getting access to books that they absolutely love and they genuinely can talk about them but they're, they're getting their bank which I, I can so appreciate from that standpoint since I was there at one point and you know there was really no money in it but also from a large publishing standpoint now we have to navigate how we pay these influencers, how we work with influencers and how we can keep that momentum going with them as well because I personally think it's really important to keep us strong.

Sarah: Connection with those influencers and allow them to keep doing their job because it does trickle into, you know, the love of readers, boosting that, boosting sales, all of that stuff. 

Evelyn: In a really large scope, our jobs exist kind of in a way because influencers started getting popular. Being a social media manager has not been a job for a very long time.

Evelyn: We're in a new career, the internet is new, it evolved into this, and I think that social media management, having a person attached to these social accounts, Thanks to like the early influencers of like yesteryear who were like creating online personalities that then brands kind of wanted to capture that same Magic, which is really interesting too to see that kind of full circle 

Sarah: moment.

Sarah: I absolutely love that You're you're so right because I I do feel like coming in as a social media manager to a brand, sometimes I try to replicate what I do see from fellow influencers, like their unboxings or when they have like a haul and they get super excited about X, Y, and Z book that they're really excited about.

Sarah: I definitely try to do that too. And I've also noticed that with imprint marketers that You know, there's an excitement to reciprocate that same kind of energy that you get from genuine book influencers. I guess on to a really serious question. What is your favorite thing to post? Ooh, that's a good question.

Sarah: I like doing our pub day videos. Yeah, 

Evelyn: new Title 

Sarah: Tuesday. I love it. It's the week. It's the best day of the week. You get to talk about a bunch of new books. They're all different kinds of books. Again, A Huchette publishes a lot of books. But I kind of handpick a few that I think are diverse enough to share to a large scale of readers.

Sarah: So it's not just the Not just romanticy, not just, um, thriller, but it can be nonfiction, it can be, like, something new in the nature space. And I get to talk about it and nerd out about it, and I love seeing the comments trickle in when a new book comes out. And they're like, oh my gosh, I gotta add this one to my TBR.

Sarah: I never heard about this one. That's so cool. It's so exciting. It's those books special day to shine. Exactly, I love that. How about you? 

Evelyn: I've mentioned it like earlier, Friday Favorites is probably my favorite, which some days when I walk into the bookstore at the end of the day begging my co workers to record Friday Favorites, it's their least favorite.

Evelyn: Um, But like I said, it's really important to that feeling that you're coming to the bookstore. It's our version of hand selling online. And also we've been doing it for about a year now, like year worth of Fridays of different booksellers every week talking about what they love. For me personally, I like having that kind of archive of the people I like talking about the things they like.

Evelyn: Like I sometimes watch old Friday favorites to be like, oh, I remember when Asia was reading that book and it's like that for me is fun. And I hope that, It's fun for our audience too. And it's also some every now and then a customer will come in and they'll ask for the book that was in the Friday favorites and kind of having that tangible reciprocation of what I'm just doing on my phone, translating into a customer coming into the store is always fun.

Evelyn: I 

Sarah: love that. Again, the whole community vibe is just, it's so good. It's a feel good. I think the book community does really well at strengthening that and continuing that. Mmm, love that.

Sarah: Okay, I'm not 

Evelyn: gonna say like a specific video or sound or something, but the general idea that reading fantasy is cool is cool. I'm really excited about it. I'm not a romanticy reader, I'll say that. I like reading like, old wizards. Terry Pratchett is my favorite author. Nice. So, I've always been such a big fantasy reader, and now having it be kind of like, one of the mainstream genres.

Evelyn: You know, it's had its moments throughout history, but I'm really glad that we're in another one right now. That I'm really excited about. 

Sarah: Yeah, I love that. I love that your, one of your favorite genres is having its moment. It's having such a moment. So that's exciting. 

Evelyn: And it, and you know, it's boosting romance as well.

Evelyn: Kind of like two underdogs fighting to get to the top of genre fiction. Oh my gosh, 

Sarah: you're so right. And it's just like fusing together. And I feel like it's a good sign when one large genre starts to fuse into a ton of subgenres. It's like a good sign for that genre. Yeah. 

Evelyn: Yeah, it's like, it's been an interesting kind of like, swirl to see those two really meet in the middle.

Sarah: Absolutely. I love that. I would say my favorite bookish social media trend is very similar to yours. It's seeing other influencers or creators in different niches. Or industries talk a lot about books. So I've been seeing my personal favorite, like, YouTubers that have nothing to do with books. They're not BookTubers.

Sarah: They will come in and start talking about their book haul that they just recently had or a book that they really fell in love with. And that excites me because, again, it's, it's a good sign when you start to see something expand and move on to other sub interests, some niches. And I've also been seeing it with brands.

Sarah: I've been seeing, say, like, fashion brands and they're doing a little book club or even Reese. Like, Reese is excelling when it comes to the bookish world and we don't necessarily initially think about Reese Witherspoon as, like, a reader first and foremost. We think about her as an actress. So it's so cool to see that.

Sarah: I also love seeing, over the summer, there were a lot of events, like, Fashion brands doing book swaps or a little book sell or book exchange. I don't know, all of those little Influencer events where there's books involved. I just think that is the coolest thing. I love, love seeing those. Mm hmm. 

Evelyn: And with like Risa's Book Club, It's, it is interesting to watch books kind of break out into all these, not just on social media, but everywhere.

Evelyn: Everywhere. I mean, books have always been turned into movies. You just didn't hear about it that much. Like, Jaws was a book. All these things were a book. It all comes back to books. 

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And now there's like, I kind of see these new releases of the adaptations, like page to screen adaptations, as drops almost.

Sarah: Like most recently with The Housemaid, there was like a whole thing on social media where we saw like the drop of Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney like being cast for it. Everybody was like losing their minds and it's so exciting to see that because people are, at the end of the day, people are invested in the books.

Sarah: So, 

Evelyn: on posting, what is your favorite platform to post on and your least favorite? 

Sarah: Ooh, okay. I really like posting on Instagram. I'm still, I'm an Instagram girly, unfortunately. I mean, TikTok is fun, but it's so new, I'm still trying to navigate it. My least favorite, I hate to say it, maybe I don't hate to say it, but Twitter slash X.

Sarah: Not my favorite. How about you? 

Evelyn: I'm also an Instagram girly. Most of our audience is on Instagram. We don't have a big Gen Z audience, that's just the demographic of our town. Yeah. And so TikTok, if I remember to post on there, super fun. But I probably usually need to remember more. But Instagram's always a blast.

Evelyn: Technically, We have a Threads, which Threads? I don't think so, honey. I'm not posting on Threads. I don't get it. I'm not on there. Like, everything is autopost, so technically we do post on there, but I just Instagram always cannibalizes other social medias. Like, they stole Snapchat stories. Yeah. They're trying to take over Twitter.

Evelyn: No. X. I just don't get it. It keeps auto downloading on my phone because it's connected to our Instagram. 

Sarah: Wow. And 

Evelyn: it's I'm a little afraid of it, to be honest. 

Sarah: I don't blame you. It's kind of like a mini Twitter. We're going to have to have like a little mini session after this social media mini session.

Sarah: Cause I have been loving threads, but it's mostly because I that's my most unhinged platform. I just. Post nonsense and people eat it up, so. It is 

Evelyn: like a, a wild west. Whenever there's a new social media platform, it's always like, Should I get on there? Who's even on there? What do I post on there? Like, what's the vibe?

Evelyn: Cause like, you know what you're posting on Instagram. You know what you're posting to Facebook and to TikTok. But threads is like, who knows what's going on in there? 

Sarah: It's so true. There is so many brand accounts on threads right now and it's, It's funny to see, again, the human behind those accounts because they'll post on Threads and they'll be like, Oh yeah, I've got a strategy.

Sarah: I've got a strategy for Instagram and all of the other platforms, but Threads, the strategy is no strategy. You just post things into the void and people love it, which is, it's fun. It's fun. So maybe, maybe I'll give you a crash course. You're 

Evelyn: a Threads ambassador because now I'm like, I guess I need to 

Sarah: get 

Evelyn: on 

Sarah: Threads.

Sarah: You gotta get on Threads. Well, you know, we can converse. We can, we can chat, chitchat on it. Exactly. Exactly. 

Evelyn: Yeah, okay. So how do you feel like you use social media in your work life versus your personal life? Do you feel like there's a separation between the two or do you feel like they're kind of blending together?

Sarah: There's a teeny bit of blend but personally just for like my mental capacity I try to keep them as separate as possible mostly because if I blend them too much I feel like I'm constantly working and that's not healthy at all. But I think in my personal life, because I'm such a social media person and I have experience with like how these algorithms work, I purposely curate my algorithms to do certain things.

Sarah: So in my personal, like, it's more lifestyle. There will be some books here and there. Again, with like lifestyle creators, they will talk about their books and what have you. But the focus is not on books and I try to keep it that way. And then when I am doing my Hachette work, it's all books all the time.

Sarah: I'm looking at it from different standpoints, from lifestyle standpoint, from like heavy book talkers, halls, publishing, professionals, all of that stuff. So I try to keep a little bit of separation for my mental health. How about you? 

Evelyn: I feel like weirdly enough, I think I use my phone a little less now that it's kind of my job 

Sarah: that I'm 

Evelyn: like, I'm not going to go on Instagram tonight.

Evelyn: I did that at work. I did that already. That's smart. Like it's been kind of healthy for me in that way. Okay. I do sometimes feel like I'm kind of 24 hours watchung booksellers. I'm always logged in. If people DM us at 8pm, 2am, I see it. But I have been better at kind of developing a separation between the two.

Evelyn: It is weird when, Your phone is your work and your phone is always with you, but it's not too bad. 

Sarah: Yeah, that's a really good point that we kind of bring up. Like, when you are working, say, a more traditional, more known position that's not social media, you, you do get the privilege of taking a break. But again, we're constantly immersed in social media.

Sarah: Social media moves 24 7, so it's like, we have to kind of make our own habits and create practices throughout our day to ensure that we're not working 24 7. You know, of course it's hard, and a lot of times I have conversations like this at work, but like, it's hard because we're constantly on our phones, but you have to make the effort of just not constantly doing book.

Sarah: Sometimes you need to go on airplane mode. Exactly. And I'm glad, I'm glad that you do that. Okay. So let's end things off and our conversation off by this final question. What's a part of your role that people would be surprised to learn that you do? 

Evelyn: I think that at least at the bookstore, because we're such like a small operation as opposed to like a company that has like a whole department for social media, there's a lot of things that I end up doing.

Evelyn: I would say that like it's just like odd jobs here and there. Kathryn also does the media and the marketing with me. Okay. She is the heavy lifter for a lot of things, but every now and then I'll, like, do an ad for the store or random things like that, but I mean also because I just work at the bookstore, too.

Evelyn: There's a lot of things that I do there. We just started Postmarked Pages, which I've been running. If you get our newsletter, very exciting, mail service, check it out on our website. But there's a lot, there's a lot that happens in the day to day. 

Sarah: I think same, actually. I think a lot of people, when they see you on social media, they think that's just the gist of it.

Sarah: You're a content creator. Being a content creator is, there are so many facets, there's so many many jobs that are associated with it. So like, you're creating something that comes from an idea in your head and you're visualizing it, turning it into a piece of content that's digestible to the public. That takes a lot of steps and processes to get there.

Sarah: But in addition to that, I'm also doing like newsletters, which I don't think my audience knows that, like, I do a newsletter that focuses on diverse authors and books that we publish at Hachette. It's called Open Book and I also try to strengthen relationships within the company between imprints. Like I said, I work on the general Hachette, so, or central marketing at Hachette, so I'm touching all of the books that we publish at the company.

Sarah: But at the same time, I'm trying to make sure that I maintain a good relationship with the imprints so that everything kind of runs smoothly, if that makes sense. 

Evelyn: Do you guys have like little lunches, all the social girls get together? 

Sarah: We do. We have like something called social media office hours, and it's all of the marketers across the company.

Sarah: We just go into this one It's like a hybrid because some people are in office, some people are not, and we just chit chat about all social media things. Sometimes it'll be more structured where we're like, okay, what's the strategy that y'all are doing on threads? Because we need to figure this out. And then other times it'll be like, y'all, I need an idea.

Sarah: What's trending right now? Because I am losing momentum and I don't know what to do. So it's a lot of fun. It's fun talking to other social media professionals because they get it. Yeah, they get all the facets. That's, I feel like I spend a lot of time 

Evelyn: talking to myself about the same thing. So as we wrap things 

Sarah: up, Sarah, what are you reading?

Sarah: Okay, so at the time of us recording this, it's spooky season. So I am reading something that has been all over my For You page. Can you tell I'm a social media girl? Like I'm constantly swayed, as we were talking about, by the, The For You page, but I am reading Incidents Around the House. It's by Josh Mallerman.

Sarah: I believe he wrote Bird Box and is spooky. It's like a haunted house story written in the perspective of a child. So it's, it's a lot scarier because the kid doesn't get what's going on and you're reading it from that frame and you're like, what the heck? So it's a really good spooky read for Halloween.

Evelyn: That 

Sarah: sounds really terrifying. 

Evelyn: I'm not a horror reader so I'm like not for me but that's awesome. How about you? I actually just got in today. I'm holding in my hands. I brought it with me. It is called Devotion, a Rat Story by Maile Molloy. 

Sarah: Oh my gosh. Um, 

Evelyn: I special ordered it for myself. Colin Molloy is another author.

Evelyn: This is his sister. I'm a really big fan of his work. I've always wanted to read something by her. And it is a comically small book. It came in and It's about the size of my hand and I did not know it was gonna be this small. I knew it was short, I just didn't know it was about like five by five inches.

Evelyn: That's so tiny. But I'm so excited to read this. I read a little bit already and it came in while I was off work and Susie and Caroline, two other booksellers, both read it, read my book before I did. So it's been a hit so far, so I'm really excited to get to that. 

Sarah: I have to say I love how tiny it is and it fits in well with the rat.

Sarah: I don't know what it's about, but I love, I love the whole packaging. 

Evelyn: I'm very excited. And I also, I switched bags today and I was like, I can't fit a book in this purse. And then, But lo and behold, it fits right in. But you can though, I love that. It was lovely to talk to you, finally. Yeah, it was so nice, for chatting with me.

Kathryn: Thank you Sarah and Evelyn for joining us today. Listeners, you can find all the books they've talked about in our show notes and at watchungbooksellers. com. 

Marni: Tomorrow, November 13th, we are hosting Juliette Grahams, author of The Lost Boy of Santa Chiona, in conversation with Mark Rotella, director of the Cochia Institute for the Italian Experience in America.

Marni: And next Wednesday, November 20th, we welcome Nancy Arnie P. Sanier and former guest Henry Neff to share Nancy's gift book, Mousekin's 12 Days of Christmas. 

Kathryn: On Thursday, November 21st, we are partnering with AAPI New Jersey and OCA New Jersey to To welcome Katie G. Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll, a biography of film star Anna May Wong.

Kathryn: That same night, the Montclair Literary Festival welcomes Rachel Kushner to discuss her latest book, Creation Lake. 

Marni: You can find out details and register for all of our events in our newsletter, show notes, or email. or at watchungbooksellers. com. The Watchung Booksellers podcast is produced by Kathryn Council and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, New Jersey.

Marni: The show is edited by Kathryn Council and Brie Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kaleni and Derek Mathias. Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica. Art and design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff. Thank you to the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids Room for all their hard work and love of books.

Kathryn: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy the show, please like, follow, and share it. You can follow us on social media at Watchung Booksellers. And if you have any questions or ideas, you can reach us at wbpodcast at watchungbooksellers. com. We'll see you next time. 

Marni: Until then, for the love of books, keep reading.