I said somewhat viral. I'm not claiming these are crazy high numbers for TikTok. I've certainly been shown some dumb videos on there that somehow have 70million

I said somewhat viral. I'm not claiming these are crazy high numbers for TikTok. I've certainly been shown some dumb videos on there that somehow have 70million+ views. But it was certainly a big jump from the 300-ish views she was getting for her videos the day before. This was multiple videos she was getting those numbers for (like for a couple of weeks), and she was seeing her preorders go up exactly 0 from it, while seeing better returns for her time on other social media, she ended up with several hundred preorders from other sources. I don't doubt you can get some numbers from TikTok, especially if you can regularly get 100k views. But it seems to be very fickle and require constant (and as you say, uncreative) spammy videos on there to get that (at least from her experience). And it's not like it doesn't take time even to make the seemingly low-effort videos. While she was doing it, she was spending time watching other videos to get ideas and get a feel for the TikTok voice/zeitgeist, checking trending audio sources, coming up with how to do something similar yet link that idea to her book, preparing for it (like putting on make-up, making props, etc), filming it (sometimes requiring multiple takes), editing it (within the app), and then posting it. It was taking her somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours each day. I still think she could have gotten to the 100k+ views if she stuck with it, but it was taking significant time and energy away from other things, and as is she's trying to write books while also working a full-time job, so she has little energy for much else right now to begin with.