Book Launch Ideas - Tips for Authors
/
Launching a book and planning your book birthday events are fun, exciting, and often overwhelming. These are suggestions that I’ve learned over the years:
Organization
Get organized. Create a four-month calendar (2 months before the date and 2 months after). Record all of your tasks and promotional events.
Make a list of all the places (physical and online) where you’d like to promote your book.
Be creative. Look at your list above and think of other options to add. For example, we had wine-themed anthology, so we looked for wineries, wine festivals, and wine shops that would host of us for book signings.
Tasks
Make a list of all the places you need to update with your book information (e.g. social media biographies, webpages, blog, Amazon author page, BookBub page, etc.).
Update your blog and website with your book information.
Order swag for events and give-aways. Make sure that what you order is easy to mail.
Send out press releases to your local media outlets. Don’t forget the weekly publications and the shopper give-aways.
Create a book information sheet with your synopsis, updated biography, social media links, and book links. Make sure you include this with all blog tours and interviews.
Create a page on your website for all of your books. Include a short summary and buy links for multiple outlets.
Look at your task list and add “tell everyone you know.” Don’t forget to submit your announcement to the member news sections of groups you belong to. Many groups have newsletters where they recognize accomplishments. I send all my releases to all my alumni newsletters.
Promotion
Contact all your writer friends who will help you promote your book on their blogs or newsletters. Schedule those on your calendar.
Decide how much and what you’re going to spend your marketing dollars on. What are you going to spend on pre-sales, launch events, and after-launch? Are you going to pay for blog tours, email blasts, or Facebook boosts?
Decide if you plan to host Facebook parties, Facebook takeovers, newsletter takeovers, or Twitter parties. You’ll need to schedule, plan, and recruit other authors to help with the promotion and give-aways. (Check out my past posts on Hosting Twitter and Facebook parties and Facebook Hops. They are fun, but they take a little bit of work to organize.)
I also look for volunteer or charity events for causes that I support. I often donate a prize and book basket for raffles or give-aways. And these are always stocked with book swag.
What else would you add to my list? It’s a time to celebrate your accomplishment!
