There are very few things that an author can practically do to make a book a success, especially after said book is written, edited and printed. Being a celebrity or personality with a pre-existing audience that adores you definitely helps, but isn't something you can suddenly decide to become four months before your publication date. Catching a particular trend or moment that causes publishers to invest heavily in promotion and booksellers to place large early orders is great too, but once the book is done that's up to them, not you. Giving off that nebulous aura of "I'm about to become a huge literary success" that seems to cling to some people and not others would be good as well, but is also pretty hard to engineer deliberately if that's not your personality or presentation (and it isn't mine).

In that tense, quiet period after the book has been finalised but before anyone can buy or read it, augmenting your personal brand via the regular use of social media feels like the only concrete action you can take. Or at least it did to me, so I threw myself into it. I attended some training sessions on "social media for authors". I asked professional acquaintances with expertise for tips. I learned that Instagram and TikTok were the best platforms to target for bookish followers and that the algorithms of these platforms were, these days, only interested in vertical videos. I compiled lists of videos I could make and started filming mostly-daily updates about my experience as an author with a book coming out soon. I scoured the accounts of other authors who were more successful than me on social media for insights. I posted about every tiny bit of publicity my book got or small win I achieved. I asked people to pre-order in as many ways as I could think of. I delved into the analytics, searching for ways to optimise and improve. I spent a lot of time scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling, hunting for the "one weird trick" that would help me make a success of this.