Being an Indie author means a tremendous amount of pressure lies at our door as we release a book. Without the backing and promotional support of a publishing house, we are on our own. Success or failure is up to us, and to capitalize on the buzz rush that accompanies a book launch, we must work hard, think creatively and have a wide reach to give our book the strongest start possible.
For many this is daunting to say the least, especially when there are hordes of other books to compete against—both Indie and Traditional. Many authors are savvy with social networking as well, making it all that much harder to be heard in the tumult of other book releases, sale promo, tours and events that populate social media each and every day.
So, how to stand out? How to draw attention? Once you have done all you can to produce a quality book, blurb and cover, how do you launch it and not simply become one more droplet of water in an ocean of books?
Know Your Audience
As you brainstorm launch possibilities, take some time to really think about your reader. I don’t just mean people who like a particular genre, but the people who are most likely to love your book. What sets your novel apart from all the others like it? What themes or interests will speak to a certain type of reader? Who is your ideal readership?
Becca and I have noticed that many authors make the mistake of focusing promo far too much on other writers for their fiction. The fact is, while writers are readers, they are not the target market. So why spend so much time marketing to this group when it is only a fraction of the audience? Think bigger.
Decide who your core reader is—the guy who loves tough heroes, science fiction and problem solving, or the woman with strong family values who was touched by the loss of a child? Is it the girl who is growing more curious about relationships, loves anything to do with witches, and so is perfect for your Wiccan YA sweet romance?
Decide who your core reader is—the guy who loves tough heroes, science fiction and problem solving, or the woman with strong family values who was touched by the loss of a child? Is it the girl who is growing more curious about relationships, loves anything to do with witches, and so is perfect for your Wiccan YA sweet romance?
Once you identify the type of person best suited for your book, think about where they might hang out online. Run internet searches for key words that tie into your book and will match their interests. Where do they go to find books to read? What blogs do they visit? What forums might they join? How can you find the communities that will be most receptive to your readership, and are you willing to get involved in them? If so, what can you do to add value to these communities?
The reason I pose these questions is because your goal should not only be to reach readers during your book launch, it should be to create FANS. These are the people who will leave reviews, try to help you gain visibility, and offer the most valuable currency of all: Word Of Mouth. They become part of your promotion team, just because they love your book and want the world to discover it too!
Think Creatively
Okay, moving on. You know who your audience is, and that is half the battle. Now it’s about creating a launch that will attract their attention. The problem is obvious…the online world is already bloated with promotion. The good news? Many authors stick to what they know. They repeat what is done. This means opportunity for you, so turn on those creative juices and come up with something unique that will blast through all the usual book launch fare.
Becca and I believe that a book launch should be fun, unique and hold to the essence of the book. Once you understand more about your audience, you can think about what might appeal to them specifically, encourage them to participate and keep them entertained.
Do some investigation—read up on what others have done for book launches. Then, think about other industries. What neat or unusual ads have caught your eye? What contests, giveaways and themed events ended up crazy-popular? What was the appeal? When Lisa and Laura Roecker released The Liar Society (which rocks a pink-haired heroine) they donned pink wigs, and every blogger who promoted their books did so with photoshopped neon do’s. It created quite the buzz.
So, is there an idea out there that you could adapt to your book specifically, creating an impactful launch? Because when promotion has turned so much of Social Media into white noise, you need to find an idea to center on that is full of vivid color. Capturing attention is important, because you can encourage participation and maybe go viral as your audience shares word of this event you’re hosting!
Entertain, Satisfy a Need and/or Add Value
We can all agree there is far too much promotional noise out there. Everyone is shouting the same thing: buy my book! Worse, many authors use social media poorly. They send Twitter DMs and email blasts, asking people to check out their books. They join groups on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn just to have another place to push their novel. I’ve seen authors join forums and events just to market to others. We all see twitter feeds full of promo-saturated tweets. This behavior reflects poorly on all of us, making the job harder.
So, how do we launch a book without becoming lumped in with this bad chorus? Easy. Instead of thinking about what you can get from people (visibility & sales) focus on what you can give. Your audience is tired of Buy this! Buy that! Build your launch around something you can do for others. People respond to altruism and kindness. Figure out how you can incorporate this into your launch. What can you do that will encourage people to get on board and support you? What can you do that makes people FEEL GOOD about joining in?
· Satisfy A Need: At their deepest, people like to do things for others. They like to pay-it-forward, to help, or in some way add to the world. Give them this opportunity and use crowd sourcing for good. An example would be building your launch around achieving the goal of donating to a charity through book proceeds. Have a giant meter on your blog. Have mini goals. Agree to do crazy or fun things if these goals are reached. If you can, find a tie-in to your book so you can use fun taglines. Think “Help me buy a cow!” if it’s one of those gift-based charities, especially if your book takes place on a farm, or in the third world. Find some altruistic sponsors who are willing to match your funds. Think big, then bigger.
· Offer Value: People like things they can use. Clearly, swag is often used in this regard, but it can get expensive. For me, this is where the freebies are best used—offer your audience a free story, a novella or something that ties in to your book. Then, host an event on your blog that showcases big names to your blog, like well known authors who write books similar to yours (say, Cozy Mysteries). Maybe you can team up to write a one week, blog-only Cozy Mystery in real time, and readers can guess who-dun-it. You could offer free books as prizes—both yours and theirs, or offer prizes like a private skype chat with a book club or classroom. Or name a character in an upcoming book after the winner. Cross promote with these other authors and share your audiences. Think big, and then, yes, bigger! For Jody Hedlund’srelease of Unending Devotion (which has a photography slant), she hosted a contest on Pinterest, inviting readers to pin a creative photo of her book. She was also able to give away a Nikon camera as part of the launch. Through these creative methods, she included swag and entertainment that pertained directly to her book.
· Entertain: I can’t underscore how important it is to think outside the box. Building your launch idea with a high entertainment factor ensures people will tune in, and the more they are exposed to you and your book, the more you help anchor it in their minds. Does your character love cupcakes and baking is a big focus of the book? Do something cupcake themed—a surprise cupcake delivery to someone who enters a contest tied to your launch. Or share the favorite cupcakes of celebrities on your blog, holding people’s interest! Stage a live cupcake eating contest vlog between you and a few other people who are well known to your audience. Maybe they are your readers, or other authors of books like yours. It might be blog personalities that your readers will know and love to see. Heck, it might be real celebrity types that you know or simply have the courage to ask! Jessica Bell, a author and musician, went with a Amazon Chart Rush with her novel, String Bridge, offering a free MP3 music album to everyone who bought on her date of release. This positioned her well in the charts, helping her discoverability. So ALWAYS think big, then bigger.
WHAT WE DID: Becca and I wanted to stay centered on the book’s concept by doing something that would evoke emotion, a tall order seeing as our book is a writing resource–a textbook, if you will–not a typical fiction novel built for emotional escapism. Still, we made it work by targeting a specific emotion that would appeal to all writers, no matter what genre: GRATITUDE. Our idea, the Random Acts of Kindness for Writers Blitz, allowed writers a way to show their deep appreciation for others who have helped them on the writing path. This allowed us to tie the launch to the book, satisfy a need and offer value both from giveaways and a free writing tool we gave away called Emotio
n Amplifiers. It also entertained,offering new prizes each day. Also, readers could to visit the participants’ blogs to discover who was being honored and why, and then read the heartwarming replies from the writers who were profiled. It offered warm and fuzzies all around!
n Amplifiers. It also entertained,offering new prizes each day. Also, readers could to visit the participants’ blogs to discover who was being honored and why, and then read the heartwarming replies from the writers who were profiled. It offered warm and fuzzies all around!
Identify Your Resources
Okay, you now have a great idea. Congrats! Likely this is where doubt settles in…can I pull it off? Can I make it work?The answer is always yes, if you are willing to do what needs to be done.
Here’s where you need to ask: What are my strengths and weaknesses? Who will help me? How big is my personal network? What resources are worth the time and money to pursue? Who are the influencers with my audience, and how can I get them involved?
WHAT WE DID: None of us are pros. There are always gaps in our plan, weaknesses to overcome. For Becca and I, our biggest problem was…ourselves. Neither of us liked the idea of putting ourselves out there in such an overt way. The very idea of joining the Buy Our Book! way of promoting almost made us break out in hives. We struggled with the very idea of doing a book launch—a time where it really is all about us and our book. Yet how can a person launch anything without being its champion?
What helped us look at the whole thing differently was going back to our roots, our brand. Becca and I are Writers Helping Writers. This is who we are. Helping writers succeed is what we are about. We decided that in order to have enthusiasm for our release, we had to find a way to add value and/or be altruistic. If you are struggling with any aspect of your launch, think about how you can bring it closer to who YOU are, and YOUR brand.
Take Some Risks
I know the gut reaction to risk is to avoid it. But here’s the thing—we perform our best when we challenge ourselves and have a little ‘skin in the game’. So don’t fear it. Use it to push yourself harder to make your launch the best it can be.
WHAT WE DID: Becca and I took many risks, but two very big ones. First, we decided to sideline our book during our week long launch event. Yes, you read that right—we mentioned that our book was releasing, and that was it. No cover splash. No book giveaways. No excerpts or interviews. (This all came later.) For RAOK for Writers to really work, we had to make it 100% about celebrating writers, not our book. We even requested that the original participants NOT give our book away as a RAOK gift to reinforce this message.
Another big risk was to try and solicit sponsors for the event, one that was being put on to celebrate the release of a SELF PUBLISHED BOOK, at a time where most of the industry still had a bad attitude toward Indies. Yeah, we were scared. Big time. But we started with a business geared toward writers that we had a good relationship with, wrote a letter, and the ball started to roll. Eventually we ended up with 6 sponsors and a week’s worth of prizes, including an amazing 1-year webinar pass and mentorship from NYT Best selling fantasy author Tracy Hickman. How? We just believed in the message of celebrating the contributions of writers, and sent him a letter explaining what Becca and I were trying to do. It is that simple–you lose nothing by asking. Remember this as you approach people to help you with your launch!
Make It Easy
Once you have the idea in place and need people to participate both by spreading attention online and helping you reach your audience, make it easy for people to say yes. Be organized, and clearly outline what you want to do. Personalize your communication as much as possible. Be clear in what you need of them, and how you will support them in turn. If they need to write blog posts for their blogs, write up a template for them to use if they wish to make it easier for them. Make sure they have what they need, answer questions and always, always show gratitude for their involvement. You will be crazy busy before and during launch, and afterwards, you will be as limp as a piece of celery left on the counter for a week. So after it’s over, even though you are utterly exhausted, don’t forget to let your supporters know how much you appreciate them!
For launch events, make sure it is easy for your audience to get involved as well, be it a giveaway or commenting or any other aspect of joining in. Communicate, and interact. Enjoy the event and react with enthusiasm. Visit other blogs that are helping you with your event and COMMENT. Share their posts online, and encourage traffic back to your blog and website as much as possible.
WHAT WE DID: If you would like to see more about how Becca and I coordinated our RAOK for Writers Blitz, you can find all the posts here, and the post where we asked for help for our launch event here. We wanted to keep the RAOK event a surprise, and so we risked again and asked people to sign up without knowing the specifics. Over 100 bloggers signed up to start with, and as the week progressed, that many again joined in to keep the Random Acts Of Kindness going! This is the power that honing in on a universal need like paying-it-forward can have.
You worked so hard on your novel, and now it’s ready to share with the world. As you lay plans to launch it, remember to think big… then bigger!
Have a question about book launches? We’re happy to help however we can, so ask away!
~Angela & Becca
~Angela & Becca
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Angela Ackerman is one half of The Bookshelf Muse blogging duo, and co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression. Listing the body language, visceral reactions and thoughts associated with seventy-five different emotions, this brainstorming guide is a valuable tool for showing, not telling, emotion. Angela also writes on the darker side of Middle Grade and Young Adult, and is represented by Jill Corcoran of The Herman Agency.
Becca Puglisi is one half of The Bookshelf Muse blogging duo, and co-author ofThe Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression. Listing the body language, visceral reactions and thoughts associated with 75 different emotions, this brainstorming guide is a valuable tool for showing, not telling, emotion. Becca also writes historical fiction and fantasy for the YA audience.
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Excellent tips! I absolutely LOVED your launch!! Paying it frwd is a big thing to me and to see you guys turn your debut into a RAOK event was so awesome! You guys rock! Love you guys so very much!!!
Keep up the good work and thanks so much for all tips!
Your launch was absolutely brilliant. It was all about giving, not about taking, and that’s what made it special. Your blog reflects your giving nature, because you were listing emotional cues before you even wrote the book. You guys are AWESOME. I’m bookmarking this for the future!
Thank you, Julie. I do think that when it comes to launches, it’s all about finding that element that fits the book and is specific to your brand. Easier said than done, I know, but it is possible with enough thought and brainstorming. Thanks so much for the kind words :).
Hi S Kyle! We are happy to help! Thanks so much for the kind words about the ET too–wishing you a ton of success! 🙂
Angela
Awesome post, thanks Angela and Becca! I had no idea how a book launch could be done, and you’ve given me a good picture with tons of great ideas! Also, I love your Emotion Thesaurus, use it all the time. Great book!
Thanks so much, Kyle. We’re always so glad to hear that The Emotion Thesaurus is helping others. As far as book launches go, hopefully you’ve got a few tools now that can help when it’s your turn :).
I love your Emotion Thesaurus, it saves me every time I write! Thanks.
Christy, that is great! Music to my ears. I am so happy this little tool is helping you! 🙂
Thanks so much for picking up a copy, Christy. I’m glad it’s doing you some good!
Great post. I had very mixed to low success with a blog tour for my first book. If I can get a firmer pub date, I’m going to try again with some of the tips above.
And the Emotion Thesaurus is on my list of “to be purchased” books.
Hi Mary,
Book tours are a lot of work, and there are a lot of other tours happening at the same time it seems, so finding a way to become noticeable is so important. I hope some of these tips help you! 🙂
I hope the ET helps you out as well–thanks!
I agree with Angela, that getting noticed is the important thing. Book tours are fairly common nowadays, so it’s important to find a way to make yours stand out.
EEK! I just bought the Emotion Thesaurus! I would have never thought to look for that on my own I just google everything, but this will be soooooo much better! #LoveIndiReCon !
Thanks for giving it a try, Elizabeth! Emotion is a tough one for many writers–Becca and I hope it becomes a good writing partner for you 🙂 And yes, this is a fantastic online conference–there is so much knowledge here. It is great to have access to it!
Yay! Thanks for your support, Elizabeth. I hope it comes in handy!
Angela and Becca, you guys did an awesome job. Certainly got me hooked and I was ready to get m Emotion Thesaurus quick, fast and in a hurry 🙂
Thanks Angela! We were very lucky in the sense that The Emotion Thesaurus struck a cord with readers early on, and they spread news of it all over the place. We are so pleased the book is helping writers in this area! 🙂
Thank you, Angela!
Great ideas! Thanks for giving us steps to make a book launch less intimidating.
Hi, Kathryn! Thanks for coming :).
Glad this helps Kathryn! I think we are all in this together, so it is great how we can all share information that helps everyone grow stronger, especially since we have so many hats to wear!
Awesome advice. I agree that we tend on focusing so much of our marketing to each other. We need to branch out to others who would like our book and help spread the word about it. And have something of benefit to give too. I think for fiction, well thought out giveaways, maybe one for a number of blogs, really helps promote excitement for a book. There’s a lot to think about, that’s for sure. And what works for one, may not work for others.
That’s a really good point, Natalie. I’m not in a place yet where I can publish my fiction, but I know when I do I’m going to have to change directions in order to reach a YA audience. We’ve definitely got to be strategic about finding our readers, tailoring a plan to reach that particular group of people. Indie marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing, but luckily, some ideas WILL work for a lot of people. So I truly believe that sharing and gathering ideas will pay off in the end. Enjoy the conference 🙂
Yes, it is tough, and important to realize that for fiction, while we may naturally reach out to other writers for support and word-spreading, we can’t target them as the audience. I mean, we love our writer friends, and it is wonderful that they are readers (and hopefully readers of our brand of fiction!) but we have to find ways to reach out to the people who are most likely to be fans of our novel. I think this is why it is so important to start early, long before the book launch, and really analyze who our readers are and where we can find them. Goodreads becomes very important to authors of fiction, and becoming active there has helped many make those connections.
Your book launch was nothing short of brilliant – and I think it worked so well because it exemplified how we all see the 2 of you – generous & kind. Perfect!
Aww, Jemi :). Thanks so much for your support!
Jemi–that is such a kind thing to say. I am super virtual hugging you right now!
Hi Heidi! I am so happy you’re getting good use out of The Emotion Thesaurus, and I hope our experience with our own book launch will help you, too! I see many great, creative ideas out there but pulling them off in a big way can be tough without a plan in place. With so many book launches happening each and every day, we have to find a way to both ‘break out’ and really connect with our audience. 🙂
Angela & Becca, I use the Emotion Thesarus all the time. It sits next to me–on my Kindle Fire–on my writing table. Thank you for this very stimulating and inspiring article. It is challenging to find ways to be creative, but it is so necessary. These are great things to think about.
I’m so glad The Emotion Thesaurus is coming in handy! And you’re right—as creative people, I think we expect creativity to come naturally, but it does depend on the platform. As writers, we may be able to create stories but can’t sculpt or dance or knit to save our lives. So why should we expect jaw-dropping creativity in the marketing field? It’s a different animal. Which is why I’m very excited about IndieReCon, where we can share and learn from each other!
Yay! I’ve been waiting all conference for this one. 🙂 *waves* Hi Becca, Hi Angela. 🙂
I absolutely adored the ROAK Blitz! What a storm that was. 🙂
Still pondering ideas for my book release next month. Thanks for sharing your advice with us.
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HI Kitty! So glad to see you here! There is a wealth of great advice here at Indie Recon, and I have been devouring all the posts, too.
I hope some of this is helpful to you. I know it can seem like there’s a lot of pressure on creating all the perfect elements to make a launch successful. Thinking about what your ideal readers will find interesting and fun along with some organizing and planning ahead of time goes a long way!
Hey, Kitty! Congrats on your book release! Coming up with ideas can be daunting, but you’re putting a lot of thought into it, so I’m sure you’ll come up with something that’s a good fit for you and your story.