The Top 40 Hashtags for Authors and How to Use Them

Hashtags are, in a way, a microcosm of social media marketing for many authors. They’re ubiquitous. They’re a little annoying and cutesy. They can make you loathe yourself just a little for using them consistently. And if you aren’t using them, you are leaving money on the table.

Outside paid advertising, hashtags are among the best ways to get the attention of strangers on social media. As you know, financial success as an author is a matter of turning strangers into followers, followers into readers, and readers into friends.

So…you have to hashtag it up. What follows is a list of this year’s best hashtags for writers, to use on both Instagram and Twitter. But before we get into that, a quick primer for those who’re still not entirely sure what we’re talking about.

Uh…What’s a Hashtag?

By now you’ve seen them. They’re words or phrases with no spaces between the words, with a # sign (which you might pronounce “pound” or “number”, but the kids pronounce “hashtag”) in front of it. Examples include #elvisisnotdead, #election2020, and #harrypotter.

They developed on Twitter as a way of helping people search for tweets about certain topics. Somebody figured out that the # sign doesn’t turn up much in natural communication, so by leading a word or phrase with the hashtag, it made it easy for people to find out what you’re tweeting about. It sees some usage on Facebook, but really got adopted over on Instagram as well.

When you end a post with #newnovel, people all over the world interested in emerging writers will search for “#newnovel” and your post will turn up among their results. Some of them will follow the link and read your post. Some of them will stick around and see what else you do. Some of them will buy your books.

Make sense? Good.

The next question is which hastags to use. The options are literally infinite, so we’ve collated a list of the top 40 hashtags for authors in 2019 – 2020.

The Top 40 Hashtags for Authors

Not all hashtags are created equal. The list below, we’ve divided into different categories for different kinds of uses.

Hashtags to Attract Readers

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