If you’ve been reading this series of articles on hashtags, then you now know that a hashtag is just a keyword or set of key words with a # or hash in front of it. Even knowing this if you’re just starting out with hashtags you may feel overwhelmed by the number of well used hashtags. After all everyone and I do mean everyone is using them.
With this in mind, and since I myself was confused by hashtags and how to use them, I did a search to discover what I thought would be the five most useful hashtags for authors. Now does this mean you should only use these hashtags? No. I’m just saying that these five hashtags are ones that many, many authors use and are hashtags that will help to draw new readers to your books. These are not genre specific hashtags but rather hashtags that will help readers of all kinds to find your books. We’ll talk more about genre specific hashtags in another article.
So, that being said, here are five hashtags that every author should use:

1. #excerpt. Readers love excerpts, and excerpts are a great way to pull a reader in and make them want to buy your book. Without some good excerpts to reel new readers in, you may as well forget about making book sales. Excerpts are one of your most powerful tools and if you’re not taking advantage of posting them, then you’re doing yourself and your readers a disservice.

2. #mustread. Want to catch reader’s attention? Just put this hashtag next to the title of your latest release. Any reader worth their salt is going to click at least once just to see what all the excitement is about!

3. #reading. Don’t just share your own books, share the books of your favorite authors! When you share the books you love in addition to your own, you’ll gain even more followers and readers because readers will see you as not just an author, but a person. So use this hashtag with both your own books and the books of your favorite authors.

4. #whattoread. I think this is one of my favorite hashtags, after all who hasn’t asked themselves what they should read next? If you want to grab those readers searching for what to read next, then use this hashtag by your latest release, or even some of your backlist if you’re trying to bring up sales, it works!

5. #newbooks. This is a great one to use the day you have a new release out because it lets readers looking for new books and new authors to read that you have a new book out!
So, that’s it, the five hashtags authors should use. All of these are geared towards readers and getting their attention and since that is what you as an author want to do, these will help you accomplish it.