If you’re planning a book launch party or just celebrating your book release and hoping to get a big boost in sales, you’ll need to do a bit of planning. Here are some things you can do in the weeks before to start promoting your book launch.
Create Graphics/Photos for Promoting Your Book Launch
Since we humans are visual creatures, having appealing images of your book or sharp looking graphics for your announcements is super helpful.
Take some nice, clear photos of your book. Luckily with good lighting and a decent camera phone you can do this pretty easily. Prop your book against your book shelf, or a favorite plant and snap away. Just use good lighting—natural north-facing light looks best. You can even place your book outdoors (at the beach, in a tree, on a rock). Try photographing it from different angles to see what looks best. If you take several photos, you’ll end up with some good ones.
You can also create pretty neat graphics easily on platforms like Canva. Use your brand colors and font styles and maybe even make some print marketing materials. You can create everything from flyers to postcards on Canva.
Share On Social
Now that you have those lovely graphics use them for your social media posts! You can use the same ones to cross promote and share across platforms. And don’t just do this once! Because you have several graphics created for promoting your book launch, you can start sharing in the weeks leading up to it. Don’t be shy. But also don’t do spammy stuff like sharing the same post multiple times over a short span of time, or hop on threads to self-promote. Unless you’re invited to, of course.
You want people to be intrigued and to see how excited you are about it, but you don’t want to overwhelm or annoy them.
Consider Promoting Your Book Launch With Facebook Ads
The reason I suggest promoting your book launch with a Facebook ad is because you can control your budget with Facebook ads. You don’t have to spend a fortune and ads on Facebook are pretty easy to create. You can even boost your promotional posts.
These ads are also customizable. You get to choose your audience by demographic, location, and even by their interests and hobbies. If you’ve done your research and have an understanding of your target audience this part is pretty easy. For as little as $10 you can run an ad or boost a post that has the potential to reach hundreds of people a day. It’s worth a shot!
Newsletters and Other Ways to Spread the Word
Promoting your book launch is an excellent reason to send a newsletter out to your subscribers. This newsletter doesn’t have to be paragraphs long. It just needs to be engaging and informative. Make sure to:
- Include the date your book will be available
- Encourage orders or preorders with a link
- Give details about your launch party/book signing if you’re having one
- Share some details about your experience
- Ask them to spread the word
- Use a catchy subject line
This is also the time to create your one-sheet, send out press releases and ask for reviews. Having your one-sheet ready to go, in hand, and on your website will come in handy when promoting your book launch.
Update Your Website and Social Platforms
Another important thing to remember when you’re ready to start promoting your book launch is to update your website and other online platforms.
Once you start promoting your book launch you’ll probably get some traffic to your website and other social platforms—and you’ll want to be ready for that!
So go check on your website and make sure your book, pub date, and pre-order/buy now links are available. Update any relevant information in your bio too. This is also a good time to check that your site is running properly and there aren’t any broken links or other issues. Be sure to test your links and contact form before you ever do any promotional marketing.
The same goes for your social platforms! Use those images you created as your banner or update your profile pic. Set your best looking book photo as your pinned tweet. Update your bios there as well. You get the idea. Make sure everything is looking good and your book is the focus.
Ask for Help Promoting Your Book Launch
Promoting your book launch doesn’t mean going it alone. Ask your friends, colleagues and family to share your posts or spread the news. Request reviews or blurbs. See, this is where having that one-sheet ready will come in handy too.
Most of the time your circle of friends and even your followers will be happy to help you out with a review or post share. Because they’re excited for you too!
You can also reach out and get help with things like social media, creating your one-sheet, and writing your newsletter. If you feel overwhelmed, my team at Monkey C Media can help.
