I am thrilled to share her knowledge with all of you and I KNOW you'll love her tips for a great book launch!
Aloha from Maui! I’m the self-published author of the Lei Crime Series, with three novels and one minibook, Building an Author Platform that can Launch Anything, out in one year. I wrote the minibook last summer after Blood Orchids, the first in the Lei Crime Series had debuted to commercial and critical success. Here are some fresh tips that I’m using now to build on the momentum of my books—hope you find some of them helpful!
1. Build your platform prior to your launch by PIF’ing. PIF is the phrase I’ve borrowed and used in my minibook to describe “paying it forward”—the process of building enough social media collateral to support the favors you will call in for your book launch. This takes the form of hosting other bloggers, retweeting/tweeting others’ posts, promoting others’ books you love, posting reviews of others’ books, etc.
2. Top Quality. Don’t put your book out until it’s as great as you can possibly make it, and then revise some more. Don’t stint on editing. The best marketing in the world won’t sell more than a few hundred copies of a mediocre book.
3. Great cover. In a world of DIY covers, make yours truly outstanding. Raine Thomas and Kendall Grey are authors whose covers I’ve consistently found to be of the quality a traditional publisher would put out. I’m proud of my books’ covers; I have original photographs done for each one by my pro photographer husband, combined with the exceptional design skills of Julie Metz Design in New York. I spend $2,000 on each cover (and that’s my “frequent customer rate!)and it’s the biggest expense of a new book—it’s money well spent, because people DO judge a book by its cover.
3. Great cover. In a world of DIY covers, make yours truly outstanding. Raine Thomas and Kendall Grey are authors whose covers I’ve consistently found to be of the quality a traditional publisher would put out. I’m proud of my books’ covers; I have original photographs done for each one by my pro photographer husband, combined with the exceptional design skills of Julie Metz Design in New York. I spend $2,000 on each cover (and that’s my “frequent customer rate!)and it’s the biggest expense of a new book—it’s money well spent, because people DO judge a book by its cover.
4. Build brand recognition: this goes along with your cover. Once I had my Blood Orchids cover, my web designer then coordinated my Twitter, Facebook page, and Mailchimp account. All three Lei Crime Series covers have the same “look and feel” so that readers can easily spot them in a book lineup, grabbing new ones (hopefully!) when they come out with easy recognition. For a great coordinated site and package, check out my webgal Betsy Cohen at http://www.positiveelement.com/.
5. Build anticipation with your blog networks with a hoopla launch date. Have a countdown, a contest, schedule a blog tour, etc. This is the time to begin to call in those favors you built up with your friends and fans through PIF!
6. Send out Advance Reader Copies (ARC) to some of your fans in return for immediate reviews when your book goes live. These fans are worth their weight in gold—and for the privilege of an advance read of your book, all they have to do is post their review of your book when it’s available for purchase. Try to have at least 5 reviews that go up immediately upon the book going live. This will help the book “storm the lists” with a good initial rush and again, will help with visibility. (This is perfectly ethical—publishers do it every day!)
7. Load your book to Amazon with careful attention to categories and tags. I’m no expert on this, but from what I understand, choosing these carefully helps your book achieve “bestseller” status and also targets it to readers accurately through Amazon’s algorythms. (for more information, consult Rachel Thompson at BadRedheadMedia.)
8. Mailchimp Campaign: I’ve written a blog post on this with all the good reasons to build an email list of dedicated fans. Develop an email announcement of your book with embedded purchase links, and when your new book comes out, hopefully they immediately buy it, resulting in that initial boost that helps your book ride a wave of visibility to bestseller.
9. Contests, giveaways and other events. Use your blog and FB for these, and have other bloggers (with good reader traffic!) host your contests. This builds goodwill with them, since your giveaway attracts traffic to their blog, and is good for you because hopefully their followers will also become yours. Do A GOODREADS BOOK GIVEAWAY! Huge exposure on this—both my book giveaways attracted over 800 people competing for one book. Hopefully these folks will go on to buy my books after one of them wins. In any case, they will recognize my books again when they see them. (Caveat: Goodreads does giveaways for hard copies only.)
10. Submit the book to review sites. I think this is more effective than a blog tour; all that work, writing blog posts, is great for building relationships (and should be more of an ongoing) but submitting your book to a list of book reviewers who will read and write about it, posting directly to READERS—is what you want. I did close to a hundred guest blogs with my first book and about killed myself. Now, I focus on writing the next book and I cultivate relationships with book bloggers and reviewers, and get them copies the minute my new book is ready.
One of the tough things about the new Wild West of self-publishing is that you have to do it ALL—not just write a great book. That’s just step one! Embrace the idea that you’re not just a writer—you’re a businessperson. I hope some of these ten tips help you have a great book launch.
Do you have any tips that have helped you have a great launch?
5. Build anticipation with your blog networks with a hoopla launch date. Have a countdown, a contest, schedule a blog tour, etc. This is the time to begin to call in those favors you built up with your friends and fans through PIF!
6. Send out Advance Reader Copies (ARC) to some of your fans in return for immediate reviews when your book goes live. These fans are worth their weight in gold—and for the privilege of an advance read of your book, all they have to do is post their review of your book when it’s available for purchase. Try to have at least 5 reviews that go up immediately upon the book going live. This will help the book “storm the lists” with a good initial rush and again, will help with visibility. (This is perfectly ethical—publishers do it every day!)
7. Load your book to Amazon with careful attention to categories and tags. I’m no expert on this, but from what I understand, choosing these carefully helps your book achieve “bestseller” status and also targets it to readers accurately through Amazon’s algorythms. (for more information, consult Rachel Thompson at BadRedheadMedia.)
8. Mailchimp Campaign: I’ve written a blog post on this with all the good reasons to build an email list of dedicated fans. Develop an email announcement of your book with embedded purchase links, and when your new book comes out, hopefully they immediately buy it, resulting in that initial boost that helps your book ride a wave of visibility to bestseller.
9. Contests, giveaways and other events. Use your blog and FB for these, and have other bloggers (with good reader traffic!) host your contests. This builds goodwill with them, since your giveaway attracts traffic to their blog, and is good for you because hopefully their followers will also become yours. Do A GOODREADS BOOK GIVEAWAY! Huge exposure on this—both my book giveaways attracted over 800 people competing for one book. Hopefully these folks will go on to buy my books after one of them wins. In any case, they will recognize my books again when they see them. (Caveat: Goodreads does giveaways for hard copies only.)
10. Submit the book to review sites. I think this is more effective than a blog tour; all that work, writing blog posts, is great for building relationships (and should be more of an ongoing) but submitting your book to a list of book reviewers who will read and write about it, posting directly to READERS—is what you want. I did close to a hundred guest blogs with my first book and about killed myself. Now, I focus on writing the next book and I cultivate relationships with book bloggers and reviewers, and get them copies the minute my new book is ready.
One of the tough things about the new Wild West of self-publishing is that you have to do it ALL—not just write a great book. That’s just step one! Embrace the idea that you’re not just a writer—you’re a businessperson. I hope some of these ten tips help you have a great book launch.
Do you have any tips that have helped you have a great launch?
Posts
Great post. I agree about the editing. I recently read a book that could have benefited with copy editing. There were so many errors it was frustrated. But not as much as when I discovered the book had 111 five-stars and 45 four-stars ratings (Amazon). The rest you could count on one hand. On Goodreads, over 4000 people rated it, and it reviewed average 4.29 rating. I was shocked that the errors didn't bother all these people like they had me. If I had known the book was so poorly edited, I wouldn't have downloaded it.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree 100% about the editing and I have two myself--a structural edit with a former Big Six editor who specializes in mysteries, and a copyedit at the very last minute by another Big Six ex-employee. I like to think my books are as good as trad pub is turning out, in terms of quality, but somehting always seems to sneak by!
DeleteThanks for the mention, Toby! I share a mutual love for your covers. :) All of your points are spot-on. Especially when authors are getting started, many of these elements tend to get overlooked. Just by taking the time to set yourself up in the right manner, you could end up with the next bestseller!
ReplyDeleteRaine, your covers are gorgeous--branded, recognizable and beautiful. Those are three important elements! We can't underestimate the impact of a great cover.
DeleteAloha
Toby
Thank you for the sweet mention, Toby. You rock.
ReplyDeleteYou're a terrific example of paying attention to every detail, having GREAT covers, and understanding and embracing marketing (something many authors hate or ignore completely).
Plus, you're a great writer! that above all is what counts!
Aloha Rachel, thanks for all the mutual learning we've done over the last couple of years! All the marketing in the world won't make up for a shoddy product...but it sure can help a book get off the ground, which we all need!
DeleteGreat post!!! Lots of useful information especially for people like me who have their debut coming out in 2013. Lots to learn.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love your covers!!!
Thanks so much. :-)
Hope you have a great launch, aloha!
DeleteExcellent tips!!!! Congrats to your success.
ReplyDeleteMahalo!
DeleteGreat tips! Thanks for the heads up on this great blog post!
ReplyDeleteHope you find something useful in it! Merry Christmas!
DeleteGreat post! It takes a lot of time and effort to launch a book successfully. Good thing we get to meet so many wonderful friends along the way. :)
ReplyDeleteNicely said, Sophie, aloha!
DeleteThis is all wonderful advice, Toby, not surprisingly, given your massive determination and success! One other tip to remember is that a book launch, while important, isn't a one-time deal. The nice thing about self-publishing is the snowball effect (otherwise known as "layered marketing strategies), where you continue to promote your book on different sites until readers sit up and say, "Hey, I've heard of that one!" and finally click on the button to buy...it's like getting toddlers to recognize that veggies are food!
ReplyDeleteI like the analogy, and you are so right. I've heard the "rule of three" exposures until someone's willing to try. I think with the free downloads occasionally and free samples all the time, we don't always need 3 to try something.
DeleteToby, this is a great list of tips for writers. Thanks for the cover shout-out! My cover artist, Claudia from PhatPuppy Art does many NY pubbed book covers too. She's amazing!
ReplyDeleteI love her work and follow her on Pinterest and FB. If I ever need a digital art cover, I know where to go!
DeleteThis is excellent advice, and from one of my favorite people! And it's very timely as I'm getting ready to launch a book in a few months. I love the idea of an email list for fans.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Mailchimp, the first 2000 subscribers are free!
DeleteGreat ideas. I think of all the ones up there, the recommendation on book covers might top the list for me. I cringe when I see a very cartoonish, obviously hand-drawn cover on a self-published book. People REALLY do judge a book by its cover!
ReplyDeleteI agree. People look to a cover for all sorts of clues about the book--genre and quality are the first!
DeleteLots of useful advice, Toby. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHope you found a few ideas, Joy!
Delete