Book launches can be fun, but they can also be an incredible amount of work. So how do you pull one off successfully?
This post will just give some high level tips and tricks for pulling off a successful book launch.
Know Your Why
The first time I gave a workshop on this topic, I asked the group: “Why are you planning a book launch?” and someone looked at me with a very confused expression and said, “Because I’m launching a book?”
I laughed, but what I actually meant was: what is the why behind the why? What are you hoping to achieve with a book launch? What is the goal of the launch? What are you hoping to get out of it?
A few common reasons might include:
Book sales
Rankings on Amazon or another platform
Celebration of an achievement
To create buzz around a brand
To tell your friends about it
Less common reasons might include:
As a demonstration of personal growth or healing
As a marketing event for a non-book-related business
To connect with a specific group of people
To make a specific type of impact
Your “why” can be whatever you want it be, but I highly recommend taking a few minutes before actually diving into the nitty gritty of planning a launch, and asking yourself: “What do I hope to get out of this?”
And write it down. This can help you during the process, giving you some context as you choose what launch tactics you are planning to participate in, as well as after the fact, when you are trying to determine how successful you were, as well as help you make decisions about future launches.
Launching a book, especially if it’s your first or second one, is a really emotional process, and it can be easy to get caught up in the minutiae and the feelings and the momentum, but taking a few minutes at the beginning and at the end can help you refocus on your purpose and goals.
Types of Book Launches
There are two types of book launches: hard book launches and soft book launches.
With a hard book launch, you pick a day, plan the event, and build all of your marketing tactics to coalesce on the day of the book release, sort of like a very slow explosion. With a soft book launch, there is a lot less planning, it doesn’t have to be on a specific day, and it focuses around a simple announcement.
The key difference between the two types of launches is this:
For a hard book launch, the communication about it is focused on the day of and before
For a soft book launch, the communication about the launch focused on the day of and after
Hard launches have a set date, are usually organized around an online or in-person event, and are designed to slowly build buzz and momentum while pulling other people into the process and getting them excited about the launch.
Soft launches have no set date or time. They are more nebulous and vague, and typically start with the launch of the book. They don’t often have a specific event, though some authors will plan a last-minute Facebook Live or Instagram event. Fewer people are involved in it, and it tends to focus around communicating about the launch in whatever way is most convenient for the author.
I have done both for various reasons. I tend to use hard launches for the first or second book in a series, and then switch to soft launches for later books in the series.
Most authors choose which type of launch to do based on either their personality or their marketing strategy. Some people love the adrenaline and the excitement and build-up of a hard launch; other people prefer for it to be a quieter and simpler event. In addition, certain marketing methods rely on hard launches to build buzz with every release; other methods (like the backlist method) don’t rely on the hard launch and so author opt to save time and money by going for a soft launch.
Step-By-Step Book Launch
Technically, you can plan and organize your launch however you want to. And you should do whatever makes the most sense for your brand, marketing, and personality. But for anyone who likes to have some sort of format to at least start from, I’ve put together a series of steps you can follow.
For a hard launch:
Pick a date.
Decide on your marketing tactics.
Build out a schedule.
Develop any required content or tools.
Schedule as much as possible in advance.
Launch the book!
Review the process and outcome.
The steps are pretty self explanatory, but a couple quick notes:
When selecting a date, especially if you’re working on your first or second book, it pays to wait until the book is done. The reason for this is because the publishing process always takes longer than you think it will. Once you get a few books under your belt, then you’ll have a better idea of timing, but you don’t want to keep moving your pub date out if you don’t have to—that will likely mess up your marketing and launch plans.
When you decide on your marketing tactics, it can seem overwhelming. There are a lot of options. A few I recommend considering (though there is no guarantee they will work for you) are: sending out newsletters to your own list, posting on social media, paying for newsletter promos like BargainBooksy or RobinReads, setting up paid ads if you know how, getting a few reviews with ARCs, and setting up some kind of event on launch day, like a party, a FB live, or something similar.
When creating the schedule, start at launch day and work backwards. There should probably be more content, posts, and event-type things closer to launch, and fewer farther away.
If you need ideas for potential social media content, check out this blog post.
When you review the success of your event, ask yourself: Where did I start and where did I end? What small or big successes did I have? What didn’t work so well? How can I change or adapt my strategies to have a better launch next time?
If you want steps to do a soft launch, I have those too. But keep in mind that a soft launch is a lot more nebulous than a hard launch.
Here’s what I do:
Launch the book.
Decide how to communicate about it.
Send out a newsletter and post on social media.
Do any other necessary stuff.
Continue with your regularly scheduled programming.
Common Mistakes When Launching A Book
I’m a big proponent of the idea that you only know what you know once you know it. So I don’t think there are a lot of “mistakes” when launching a book that aren’t worth making. The best way to learn it is to do it.
However, these are three mistakes that I think can be avoided, and which I see new authors do a lot:
Not having a good product.
It always hurts a little when I see a new author put immense amounts of time and energy into launching a book—only to have it essentially be unfinished. Poor quality cover design, unedited, incomplete books won’t sell well no matter how good the book launch is.
Oversharing.
There are a lot of ways to overshare, but the two most common ones I see are spam posting on a particular social media platform about your book, while never posting about anything else or considering what the followers might actually be interested in; and, sharing information that makes the person reading it uncomfortable. That might mean literally oversharing personal information about health or relationships or even content in the book that is uncomfortable, or trying to get people to engage intimately with a world or universe or characters from books they haven’t read or have no interest in.
Targeting other authors instead of their target audience.
The argument goes: “Well, other authors read too!” and technically, that is correct. But other authors don’t care what you’re writing because they’re not your target audience. Even if you write books for authors, all other authors are not your target audience. “Authors who need help with marketing” might be your target audience. "Or “Authors who are interested in learning about dialogue.” But no. Please stop telling other authors that you’ve published a book with the expectation that they’ll care.
Conclusion
A book launch can be as complex or as simple as you want to make it, and you and only you get to define what success looks like for you, your brand, and your book. And no matter how much work and effort you put into your launch, and no matter how much response you get (or lack thereof)—don’t forget to celebrate, even if it’s just you and your cat and a pizza.
Because here’s the thing: the book launch is just the beginning.
