The Do’s and Don’ts of a Successful Book Launch by Diana Flegal

This past Saturday I had the privilege of attending a client’s book launch. Since my clients are scattered all over the US of A, it is rare for me to be able to lend my physical support to them all, as much as I’d like to.

 Author Amy L. Sullivan did a stellar job hosting a fun, creative and successful book launch both online and within her local community. I thought I would interview her and pass along some do’s and don’ts in an effort to assist you in preparation for your launch event planning.

Do’s

Do Become Visible Online

Amy purposefully supported others online. She joined groups, wrote articles for websites, completed interviews via Skype, committed to pray, and became genuinely interested in the projects other people were doing. She sought out those who had similar missions as she did and joined forces to work on new endeavors together. 

Do Share Your Vision

Since Amy’s book is on generous living, in addition to an online book launch, she wanted to host a local event where families and nonprofits could meet one another with the hopes of becoming involved with each other.

Amy prayed about a venue for her local event. She wanted a place in the midst of her community where families could come and children were welcome. Once the venue was found—a perfect place in answer to her prayers—she assembled her event team—comprised of 6 local people. This team met twice and communicated regularly through email. 

Once Amy shared her vision with others, she was surprised how many people wanted to rally and help her.

Do Assemble a Team to Get Behind You

Three months before the book’s release, Amy also assembled an online launch team. Amy had been building genuine online relationships for a few years, and at this time, she simply asked people if they would be interested in helping her spread the word about her new book when it released.

Three weeks before Amy’s book released, Amy gathered the people who said they would support her in a Private Facebook Group. Forty-seven members participated in challenges and online sharing about the book.

Do Plan Out What You Will Ask of Your Online Launch Team

Examples of things she asked them to do were:

§  Share about Amy’s book on their blog.

§  Tweet and retweet: Amy provided them with already made tweets to share.

§  Share photos of the book’s cover and quotes from the book online.

§  Amy sought 100 people to participate in Thuderclap (an online platform which allows tons of people to share about the same message) and CLAP her book once.

§  Pray. Amy felt prayer was of extreme importance in her book launch’s success. One launch team member’s sole contribution was to pray every day for the book launch and the local event.

Do Brainstorm    

Amy’s wish list for her local event included a face painter, live music, a graphic designer, fun decorations, and kid-friendly food. By the end of the first meeting with her local team, all items from Amy’s wish list had been assigned to others.

Don’ts

Don’t Forget to Reciprocate. Amy made it a priority to share about what others were doing. She made sure to highlight the successes of those around her, and she worked hard not to make things all about her.

Don’t plan to do everything yourself.

“Taking on too much will burn you out and steal your joy. People love to help out—delegate!” Amy knew she wanted to share photos with quotes from her books on them so she asked her photographer friend for photos and a techy friend to place the quotes on the pictures. This was the result.

Don’t be afraid to ask people and agencies in your community to attend local events.

Although Amy’s book is Christian, she invited nonprofits which were not, and guess what? They came.

Amy’s nonfiction topic related to the entitlement of today’s children and how parents can help their children be more “others-centered” lent itself to her inviting and building the event around eight nonprofit organizations. The nonprofits were happy to come and share what they were about with Amy’s community, and many of them provided the children with hands on things to do. This photo is related to Project Linus.

Don’t Exceed Your Budget

There are many venues in your community that you might be able to use free or pay little for. Check with your church or synagogue. Many of them prefer their buildings be used for community events. Consider bartering, offering to help them set up and tear down for their next event.

Amy can you give us an idea of what this event cost you and how you budgeted for it? Overall what did you spend?

“Prayer was a huge factor –An online group I started called #RiskRejection presented me with a donation of $800.00 to hold the event, and I stuck to that amount, but I used every cent.

“Besides showcasing the nonprofits, face painting, photo taking and snacks, I wanted to hold a drawing in which one of the organizations would win a $100.00 donation, but I ran out of money. So we held a drawing, and instead of a financial prize—I gifted the winning charity with a media promotion I created and will implement for them. Who can’t benefit from online promotion?” 

That is a crazy cool idea Amy, and I loved the scratch off cards you had that each of the guests took to each of the nonprofits table and had scratched off. It was a great way to see that each nonprofit was visited by your guests. Then turning them in and choosing our favorite charity to gift the prize to- brilliant.

Nonfiction titles can easily have themes built around them, but fiction titles could be fun as well. If your book is a Historical, consider dressing in period costume, and preparing snacks relevant to that time period. Check with historical groups in your area and see if they would be willing to present a table about them and what they offer to the community. Ask Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Pioneers or other youth groups if they would provide a type of entertainment for your event.

I hope this interview with Amy has been helpful. 

By the Way: Amazon just put Amy's book on sale today- the print version is  now just $6.17
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1941103243/

 $6.17

• List Price: $13.95
• Save: $7.78 (56%)

In Stock.

Your turn: If you have published a book, tell about your book launch. We’d love to hear ideas and strategies that worked for both online and local events.

Late Night Launch Party by Diana Flegal

I stayed up late last night to participate in a west coast book launch on FaceBook. The book is: Living Like Lions by J.R. Duren and the launch began with this video of quotes from C.S. Lewis.

Nice touch. 

J.R. is an author, artist and musician who lives in Spain with his wife Heather, and their cute dog  Charlie. 

In the course of the conversation with guest and worship leader Kennon Bickhart: mention was made of The Imposter Syndrome.

J.R. asked Kennon:  "This internal struggle...the fluctuating between feeling inadequate and feeling over-confident...do you think this is something common among all artists?"

Kennon Bickhart: "I do. You even find it in other professions. I see many web programmers who struggle with this as well. They call it the imposter syndrome, which I think is accurate."

Wikipedia defines it as:  The impostor syndrome, sometimes called impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome, is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be.

Have you ever felt like a 'poser'?

I have heard from some very well published authors that they feel as if one day they will be discovered to be the fraud they are. Silly.

But then  I recall the time I went to Haiti as a medical missionary, pulled teeth and performed minor mouth surgeries in the poorest of conditions; how at times I couldn't believe the patient actually got numb after an injection, or was so thankful, having been alleviated of their tooth and toothache.  But I have the photos to prove I was there and did those things. I wasn't posing (slang for pretend or mimic) after all.

Our mind can play tricks on ourselves.

Objective feedback is so important for writers. It keeps your feet on the ground, and ones head out of the clouds.

 

But when it is your day to celebrate your books launch- go for it.   Have a party, invite your friends. 

 

Failure to Launch...your book by Diana Flegal

I spoke with a publisher the other day about the disappointing sales of a few titles recently released. He used an analogy as an example of what went wrong and gave me permission to share it with our readers here.

At the starting line of the Boston Marathon, everyone is fully committed to running the race with the hopes of finishing, but eventually only a fraction remain and one wins. Their intentions were good yet for one reason or another, they didn't finish. The serious runner builds his or her endurance by running smaller courses throughout the year, works out in the gym and eats a special diet. That days race began months or years before.
 
So many authors picture their book launch as a 'sprint' when instead it is a marathon. They celebrate their books sale by telling their family and friends and set to work on their editing process.They piddle around with social media, start and stop blogging, open a Goodreads account but fail to add friends. They mean to begin the preparation for their books launch, but keep putting it off until later.

Later never arrives and when their book is released, it makes a tiny splash, then sinks.



Their book failed to launch.

  

And down the drain goes all their hopes and dreams.





What happened? Wishing your book were a New York times bestseller will not make it one. Hoping alone doesn't produce results. It takes a focused plan and lots of hard work and then you have to do it all over again and again, month after month. 

Launching a book begins 6 months to a year before your book hits the virtual shelf. And the best way to do that is to make genuine connections with readers of your genre through social media outlets. FB, Twitter, Pinterest and Goodreads are key. Blog once a week and write articles for magazines.

Maintaining a steady and consistent online presence is vital but be genuine about it.
Do not SPAM your followers.

Condition yourself and soon you will find social media can be done effectively with minimal time and the bonus of making real life long friends.

Let this be the nudge or kick in the pants you needed. Get started and ready, set, LAUNCH!

Timeline for Book Launch Campaigns by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

So much goes into launching a book whether it is your first or one of many. Most likely, you'll know the release date a year in advance. Some smaller publishers may give you six to nine months notice. This will give you plenty of time to save and plan for your book launch as you continue writing the next book and revising macro and copy edits on soon-to-be-released book. 

If you receive an advance, my advice is to keep your day job or let your spouse keep supporting you, and plan to use a good portion of it, perhaps all of it, on your promotion efforts. You can write the next great American or European classic, but if no one knows about it--your book will remain one of the world's best kept secrets. Therefore, the best thing you can do for your writing career is to invest in it--wisely.

Below is a general timeline to help you plan for your upcoming book launch. This is only meant as a guideline, not something set in stone. Feel free to modify it as circumstances vary from author to author, publisher to publisher, and depending on genre and other ideas you may have. 

6-9 Months

~ Create Marketing Plan for your book launch

~ Hopefully, you already have a website/blog, but if not, buy your domain. Set up your site or hire someone to develop it for you. 

~ Set up your social media sites and link them all to your website/blog. If you already have these sites set up, be sure to update them, check their links, upload your book cover as soon as it's available.

~ Create an online Media Kit. This is a place that will have a page for your bio, photo, book covers and purchasing info, sample chapter, video book trailer, a way to contact you, a calendar with your upcoming schedule and events, and blog tour info. Even if you don't have the info for these pages yet, create the pages and set them up so you can add info as it's available.

4-5 Months

~ Schedule book tours. You can either do this yourself or hire a company to do this for you. If you have the funds, I recommend more than one book tour. Determine ahead of time how many books you plan to give away for review and/or as giveways on blogs. Be sure to schedule a combination of reviews, interviews, and guest posts so readers aren't bombarded with the same info if they follow multiple blogs on your tour.

~ Determine if you will host a contest campaign with multiple giveaways beyond mere books. You need to know where you will host it, who will help, goals, and target audience.

~ If you need to provide books and giveaway items, try to purchase a few each week. Don't wait and try to buy everything all at once. Sometimes bulk isn't the best answer--especially if you're on a tight budget. A little at a time is more affordable when you don't have bulk cash. When I buy things this way, it helps my buy out of my paycheck rather than my book money, allowing me to save it for lean months or or big item purchases. 

~ Put out a call for Influencers who will read the book and post reviews on their blogs, Amazon, B&N, and other online locations.

2-3 Months

~ Set up book signings. Check local schedules for events and festivals that might be taking place where you can bring your books. Piggy-back on their promotion of the event and utilize a location where people will already be gathering. For example, since I write Scottish historicals, a great venue for me has been the highland games held throughout the country. 

~ Start posting a few status updates regarding your book launch and what you're working on to start building excitement and anticipation on your social media sites. 

~ Start designing and ordering bookmarks, business cards, postcards, magnets, and the promotion items you plan to purchase.

~ Determine budget and schedule for any paid ads. 

~ Set up Google alerts for you author name and the title of your new book.
~ Once your book is listed on Amazon, set up an author section on Amazon Central. If you need additional information on what this is and how it will benefit you, I wrote a previous post on it here. 

1 Month

~ Fill out questions for blog interviews and return as many as possible. Submit guests posts where possible. 

~ Write press release, including first book launch party dates and times and begin submitting it to local and online media.

~ Post scheduled events on local media calendars, including public community calendars at libraries, chamber of commerce, etc.

~ Send out personal invites to people for book launch party and online blog tours.

2-3 Weeks

~ If you have a regular newsletter, send out a new one or a special announcement regarding your book release and launch party event.

~ Start posting teasers for reviews with links on blog and social media.
~ Continue answering blog interview questions and guest posts. 

~ Send out a reminder to Influencers.

1 Week

~ Post blog tour info with links on blog and social media.

~ Begin book launch contest and/or blog tour.

Book Release Day

~ Reminder announcement on website/blog and every social media channel with a link where to purchase.

~ First blog tour stop with link and keep up each day until blog tour is over.

If you have additional questions post them in the comment section below. If you need assistance with your upcoming book launch, visit us at Upon the Rock Publicist!

Feature Your Book on Doodle.ly by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

You've seen other book promotion campaigns where authors are launching their books utilizing contests and giveaways through Facebook parties, Twitter contests, photos of readers showing book covers, Pinterest story boards depicting what the story is about or the story behind a book's creation. Now there is Doodle.ly,  a social-drawing app or social-sketchpad. It's a free website and Ipad app that you can download.

Doodle.ly is creating quite a stir with the backing of Park Street Ventures, including several sports teams who have agreed to use the app, such as The New Jersey Devils. Fans were given the opportunity to doodle a sketch that would be chosen as a t-shirt design. Fox Home Entertainment is using it to promote the DVD release of the movie Chronicle. The show, Cake Boss, held a contest for four weeks allowing fans to draw their favorite cake design. The selected winner received a grand prize and their design would become a real cake that would be featured in his bakery.

Your creative juices may already be flowing in how you can use this new app for your upcoming book launch. For fiction, readers may draw their favorite characters or settings and win goodies you give away. For nonfiction, readers may draw other themed images associated with your book's content. You can gather support and momentum for Doodle.ly campaigns by announcing it on Twitter and Facebook where you already have a following.

If you're looking for something new and different from the traditional book reviews and interviews where readers merely leave a comment and a random winner is drawn, this is an idea to think about before it too becomes an old idea.

• Social Drawing, an Up and Coming Marketing Tool - The New York Times
• How to Promote Your Book with a Free Doodle App - Media Bistro
• Doodle.ly and Cake Boss to Launch Campaign to Give Fans Honorary Cake Designer Opportunity - iPhone Developer's Journal

Promoting Book Launches in Stages by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Not only have e-books brought a whole new dimension to the publishing world, but now books can be released in stages. It used to be that a book was published in print, and that first print run was the first initial launch. You only got one chance to launch your book and that was it. Now things are changing and books are being released in stages, and so our book launches will need to reflect the same timing scale. 

For instance, there are several small publishers who might first release a book as an e-book, and later if the sales do well, they will release it as a print book. My first two books were released as print, then e-books, and most recently as audio books through iTunes. With these changes, we need to begin thinking differently about our promotional strategies.

Those who are clinging to traditional promotional strategies that were strong when print books were King in the market will soon find themselves behind the times and losing ground, if they aren't already experiencing it.  Don't get me wrong, traditional promotion will always be necessary and prominent, but it will come to hold a different place in the scheme of things. 

A perfect example of this is traditional book tours where authors host book signings versus online book tours. More authors are hosting online book tours, Facebook and Twitter parties, blog scavenger hunts, and video conferencing. They are cutting back on the expense of traveling around to physical book stores, readings excerpts, and signing books. Online book stores are easier on both the author and the readers. 

It can be attended right from the comfort of their home, doesn't require expensive lodging, flights or gas mileage. The online attendance is often much better than a physical book store because readers are also in the comfort of their home where their children can continue to play, spouses can take over a other duties for dinner and baby sit while readers take a few moments to participate in the online book launch party. It isn't necessary for them to get the kids dressed, miss a church or school PTA function, and drag themselves across town or to the nearest town with a book store. 

It's perfectly acceptable for the author to plan an e-book launch, then when the book comes out in print, plan  a traditional book launch. If you know the dates ahead of time you can create a book launch campaign that includes these various stages. In my case I had no idea my book was about to come out on iTunes. My publisher sent an email out on the loop. In that case, I couldn't pre-plan so I simply tweeted and posted the news on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. 

My advice is to begin planning as soon as you can, jot down some ideas, do some research on cost, timing and the logistics on carrying out the plan. Form a realistic budget and stick to it. Be reasonable about the amount of time and energy you will be able to devote to it. If you need to hire a publicist to do a few things that you cannot do yourself or you don't have time to do, create a plan for what you CAN do and a different plan for what you expect your publicist to do. Then research publicists, talk to a few and find someone that you feel comfortable doing business with. 

Remember, think of your book launch campaign as something that will happen in stages. Times have changed.

What Genre Is Your Book Publicist?

Too many authors make the mistake of hiring a publicist with the expectation of a miracle and with no realistic idea about the buying market in their genre. I'm not saying it's a mistake to hire a publicist, but what I am saying, is that you need to do your homework about the publicist and their area of expertise. Also, you need to do some research on what to expect for your book genre for a first-time author versus a well-established author and start pulling together some ideas and goals.

You really shouldn't hire a publicist until you know what you want and what to expect. Otherwise, you're just leaving yourself wide open for a sales pitch. Publicists know their business and many of them are good at what they do, therefore, they can make it sound like a wonderful package. It's just like any other business. There are legit publicists who will do a great job and give you your money's worth. Some are not so legit, will promise the stars and the moon and you will end up disappointed. Others who mean well and will do their best for you, but their contacts and networks aren't in the realm where you need to take your next book.

It's no different in shopping for a car. You wouldn't plunk down several thousand dollars on a vehicle without doing some research and going for a few test drives, would you? Why should investing in your book or writing career be any different?

Even though you hire a publicist, that doesn't mean they will be able to handle everything and you can go back to researching and writing the next book. They need bios, book covers, endorsements, and answers to interview questions from you. They may need to clear some time on both yours and their schedule to plan and discuss things. They may need you to meet people for live interviews, to be available for podcasts and other media recordings, and give feedback on mockup designs.

Will you have time for these things? If not, you may need a different publicist or package. Most authors work WITH a publicist. Each author is different. Their work habits and styles are varied and just as some agents work for some authors, other agents don't work as well. It's the same with publicists. Are you the type of author who really needs to develop a relationship with your publicist so that you will feel you can trust their judgment? Are you the type of author who doesn't need that tight connection and you can go anywhere as long as they give you a good price and provide quality work?

Are you an author who may want to work on one core area of your platform at a time? For instance, with your first book you just need to establish a platform, but for your second book you might need to build on that platform and make your foundation more solid. By the third book you might want to focus more on increasing your Social Media, or your public speaking engagements, or revamp your online presence to target your market and establish your message more accurately to reflect what you write.

Not all publicists offer the same services, but many offer multiple services. In spite of the wide range of services they may offer, keep in mind that they will have strengths in core areas of the business. This is important as you determine what your needs are and you narrow down your selection. As your writing career advances to various levels and you begin to concentrate on specific areas of your platform, you may find that working with more than one publicist for specific needs off and on at various times will work best for you. It will also open your platform and writing to more networks than what one publicist has established.

Know your needs. Know your expectations. Do your research. Then make a selection.

Post your questions and concerns, and I will do my best to answer. 






 

Give Your Book a Second Life by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Book titles have always been highly important, but they are even more so now--in this day and age of search engines. If you have an old book and have regained the rights to it, consider repackaging it with a new cover and title to give it new life.

Most book reviewers will not review a book with a copyright date older than 12 months. Therefore, make sure you get a new copyright date so reviewers will be willing to consider it. Often, it seems that books age faster than a car as soon as you drive it off the dealer lot. 

Here are a few ways to make your book launch last longer:

1) Never marry your book title. Publishers and publicists have lots of experience in knowing what kind of titles sell and which ones don't. Lean on their expertise in this area. My debut novel went from Promised Betrayal to Promised Blessings to Highland Blessings. The marketing department felt like people who like Scottish historicals would search more often with Highland in their search phrases. Thus, my sequel went from Secret Blessings to Highland Sanctuary.

• First Impressions became Pride & Prejudice
• Mistress Mary became The Secret Garden
• Pansy became Gone With the Wind

Give Your Book a Subtitle. This allows the book to have more search words and gives it better functionality when people search for similar topics or titles, thereby increasing the algorithm of the search engine optimization.

Plan a Second Book Launch for a Second Life. If you don't have another book releasing right away, you could establish a second book launch around 6-8 months before it ages to that 12 month stage. Traditionally, authors have been trained to plan for the initial book launch and once that happens, it's all over. Ebooks that never go out of print and new online technology is not only changing the way books are published and marketed, but how people buy them. 

Continue to Offer Your Backlist to New Tribe Members. Your books may be a year old or more, but someone that has newly discovered you and loves your work won't care. I've had several people discover my sequel before my debut novel.  People love discovering an author who has a whole package of books they can read. It's like Christmas to book lovers in your genre. Even if you have a long list of books, as long as they are available, list them on your site with a link to purchase them.

What are your thoughts? Have you found other ways to make your books last longer or to give them a second life?

Hanging Out at Google+ by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

Not literally, but there is a feature on Google+ that is called Hangouts. You don't just hangout and type/chat in a room together, but you hangout in a video/audio chat area. With the camera on your computer or tablet, it links everyone up and you can see each other and chat by audio. It's nice to see faces and hear voices. No more typing and skimming to read text to keep up with the conversation. It's better than Skype.



In September, I'm planning on hosting the Highland Sanctuary Book Launch Contest, which will run for a period of two weeks, but in the meantime, I'll be planning and possibly adding more free gift giveaways. Rather than merely listing the winners on my blog, I thought it might be fun and different to use the Google+ Hangout as a place to draw the winning names live on camera. I'd schedule the event ahead of time and announce it to my Social Media networks so people would know what time to "tune" in. For those who can't attend, I'll still post the winners on my blog the following day.

One neat thing about Google+ Hangouts is that you can also stream it straight to YouTube. Technology is changing the way authors promote books. While there are many unknowns, I think we're living in an exciting time.

What are your thoughts? Does it sound interesting? Is it something you might want to try with your book launch contests?