In this post, an excerpt from The Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing.
Your book launch is your first step towards establishing your book’s discoverability, so it is worth doing some careful planning. While we indie authors don’t have the resources of a publishing house to place ads in the New York Times book review, get reviews in glossy magazines, and throw parties with jumbo shrimp and champagne, we do have friends and families who want our books to succeed, and we can count on them to be excited when we set our books loose on the world.
Things that help your book launch:
1. A strong press release. Two to three weeks prior to your launch date, send a well-written, third-person press release to all of the local news sources in your region—daily newspapers, weekly alternative newspapers, monthly local magazines, online news journals—as well as your college and high school alumni offices, and any other organizations you belong to that has a newsletter, such as churches or fraternal organizations. You may even want to list your press release with PRLog or other services. Also post your press release on your website.
A good press release answers the basic journalist’s questions: Who, what, where, when, and why. Use short paragraphs, like a newspaper would, and even include direct quotations. That’s right, write about yourself in the third person and even quote yourself. If you have any advance reviews, quote them. Be sure to provide contact information.
If you live in a small town, the local paper might pick up your press release and publish it word-for-word just as you wrote it. That’s happened to me for both of my books in the newspapers in the town where I grew up and where I currently teach. If you’re lucky, they’ll contact you to do a full-length story, which is what happened to me when The Latecomers Fan Club won an Indie-Reader Discovery Award.
Press coverage helps drive traffic to your sales page because it adds legitimacy to the endeavor of self-publishing. If you made it into the newspaper, you must be the real deal! Also, it improves the likelihood that you’ll be invited to give workshops and readings. Thanks to coverage of The Latecomers Fan Club, I was invited to be a mentor at a writing conference for teenagers and to be the featured speaker at a monthly lecture series for writers.
To view my press releases and the news coverage that resulted, visit my website.
2. An in-person event or (even better) series of events. While live events won’t necessarily drive traffic to your sales page, you are much more likely to get coverage in the local press if you do a live event than if your launch is only digital. If your press release includes the detail that you’ll be appearing in person at your local bookstore/coffee shop/library/church basement, etc., you’ve given your local newspaper a concrete reason to mention you and your book, either in the form of an article, announcement, or calendar mention.
Live events can range from readings with question and answer, signings where you sit at a table and look pretty but don’t do an actual reading, writing or publishing workshops, or any combination of these things. Do what you feel comfortable doing.
By day I’m a teacher, so I am very comfortable as a public speaker. As such, I prefer to do readings, give talks, and offer workshops to just doing signings, but many authors prefer signings.
If you can schedule several events over the first 4-6 week period of your book’s publication, you’ll further increase your chances of press coverage. Make sure you have business cards or postcards to hand out so that potential ebook buyers walk away with something tangible to remind them to check out your book!
3. Fans who have already read your book and are ready to review it. You want reviews to begin appearing as soon as your book is for sale. You want these reviews to be from people who do not share your last name. You want these reviews to be from “verified purchasers,” meaning people who have actually paid for your book via whatever channel they are reviewing it on. You want them to be four or five stars.
These reviews can come from friends and family, although, again, it’s best if the reviewers don’t have the same last name as you. You can also arrange paid reviews from high profile sites like Kirkus and Indie Reader, and then plan your book launch to coincide with their publication, although this is tricky since reviewers seldom give you a precise publication date. More on this is the chapter on Getting Reviews.
You can also set up inexpensive, paid reader reviews through Fiverr. Many reviewers there have a turnaround time of under a week and for an added fee will buy the book in order to appear as a verified reviewer. Be careful with this option, though, as we run into some ethical gray area here. My personal opinion is that it’s okay to pay for HONEST reviews, but it is not okay to pay for glowing reviews. That said, when paying for honest reviews, you might end up with bad reviews. Still, in order to get reviews from people who are not related to you, and to get those reviews quickly for your newly released book, selecting four or five Fiverr reviewers might not be a bad idea.
4. If you are making a POD edition, set up a GoodReads giveaway as discussed in the previous chapter, for all the reasons discussed there. In addition to the items above, you can improve your book launch by impressing upon your friends and a family a sense of urgency. Get them to visit your sales page TODAY! On book launch day! Right now! Most people do not realize how important a steady stream of traffic is to discoverability. Now that you know that, convey it to your loved ones, your social networks, your colleagues, whoever cares about you enough to click a link!
Further, your loved ones want to support you, and they are usually more than happy to pay a few bucks for your book, so resist the temptation to give your book to them for free. And even if you gave a few friends and family members advance copies, you might gently remind them that it would be a big help if they bought an official copy.
People who care about you are likely to want hard copies of your book (which is why it’s worthwhile to have a POD option), and they will probably ask if they can buy those copies directly from you. When they ask, let them know that it actually helps your book far more if they order your book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. If they buy the book directly from you, those sales don’t count towards your official sales total and they don’t help discoverability, so if your loved ones are comfortable with online shopping, tell them they can do their part by buying your book that way. Of course, you’ll be happy to sign copies once they arrive!
I mention all of this because it was initially hard for me, personally, to accept money from friends and family for my books. I gave away copies when people told me frankly and in no uncertain terms that they would be happy to pay for copies. I did this largely because I didn’t understand discoverability. Now that I know, I’ll be taking a different approach for my next book!
In fact, recently my dad asked if he could buy some paperbacks from me to give to friends. He would pay me back, of course, but could I just send him them? Instead of saying yes and assuring him he didn’t need to pay me back, I explained to him how much it would help me if he bought them from Amazon, and he was thrilled he could help my book by doing so.
Your book launch is your first step towards establishing your book’s discoverability, so it is worth doing some careful planning. While we indie authors don’t have the resources of a publishing house to place ads in the New York Times book review, get reviews in glossy magazines, and throw parties with jumbo shrimp and champagne, we do have friends and families who want our books to succeed, and we can count on them to be excited when we set our books loose on the world.Things that help your book launch:
1. A strong press release. Two to three weeks prior to your launch date, send a well-written, third-person press release to all of the local news sources in your region—daily newspapers, weekly alternative newspapers, monthly local magazines, online news journals—as well as your college and high school alumni offices, and any other organizations you belong to that has a newsletter, such as churches or fraternal organizations. You may even want to list your press release with PRLog or other services. Also post your press release on your website.
A good press release answers the basic journalist’s questions: Who, what, where, when, and why. Use short paragraphs, like a newspaper would, and even include direct quotations. That’s right, write about yourself in the third person and even quote yourself. If you have any advance reviews, quote them. Be sure to provide contact information.
If you live in a small town, the local paper might pick up your press release and publish it word-for-word just as you wrote it. That’s happened to me for both of my books in the newspapers in the town where I grew up and where I currently teach. If you’re lucky, they’ll contact you to do a full-length story, which is what happened to me when The Latecomers Fan Club won an Indie-Reader Discovery Award.
Press coverage helps drive traffic to your sales page because it adds legitimacy to the endeavor of self-publishing. If you made it into the newspaper, you must be the real deal! Also, it improves the likelihood that you’ll be invited to give workshops and readings. Thanks to coverage of The Latecomers Fan Club, I was invited to be a mentor at a writing conference for teenagers and to be the featured speaker at a monthly lecture series for writers.
To view my press releases and the news coverage that resulted, visit my website.
2. An in-person event or (even better) series of events. While live events won’t necessarily drive traffic to your sales page, you are much more likely to get coverage in the local press if you do a live event than if your launch is only digital. If your press release includes the detail that you’ll be appearing in person at your local bookstore/coffee shop/library/church basement, etc., you’ve given your local newspaper a concrete reason to mention you and your book, either in the form of an article, announcement, or calendar mention.
Live events can range from readings with question and answer, signings where you sit at a table and look pretty but don’t do an actual reading, writing or publishing workshops, or any combination of these things. Do what you feel comfortable doing.
By day I’m a teacher, so I am very comfortable as a public speaker. As such, I prefer to do readings, give talks, and offer workshops to just doing signings, but many authors prefer signings.
If you can schedule several events over the first 4-6 week period of your book’s publication, you’ll further increase your chances of press coverage. Make sure you have business cards or postcards to hand out so that potential ebook buyers walk away with something tangible to remind them to check out your book!
3. Fans who have already read your book and are ready to review it. You want reviews to begin appearing as soon as your book is for sale. You want these reviews to be from people who do not share your last name. You want these reviews to be from “verified purchasers,” meaning people who have actually paid for your book via whatever channel they are reviewing it on. You want them to be four or five stars.
These reviews can come from friends and family, although, again, it’s best if the reviewers don’t have the same last name as you. You can also arrange paid reviews from high profile sites like Kirkus and Indie Reader, and then plan your book launch to coincide with their publication, although this is tricky since reviewers seldom give you a precise publication date. More on this is the chapter on Getting Reviews.
You can also set up inexpensive, paid reader reviews through Fiverr. Many reviewers there have a turnaround time of under a week and for an added fee will buy the book in order to appear as a verified reviewer. Be careful with this option, though, as we run into some ethical gray area here. My personal opinion is that it’s okay to pay for HONEST reviews, but it is not okay to pay for glowing reviews. That said, when paying for honest reviews, you might end up with bad reviews. Still, in order to get reviews from people who are not related to you, and to get those reviews quickly for your newly released book, selecting four or five Fiverr reviewers might not be a bad idea.
4. If you are making a POD edition, set up a GoodReads giveaway as discussed in the previous chapter, for all the reasons discussed there. In addition to the items above, you can improve your book launch by impressing upon your friends and a family a sense of urgency. Get them to visit your sales page TODAY! On book launch day! Right now! Most people do not realize how important a steady stream of traffic is to discoverability. Now that you know that, convey it to your loved ones, your social networks, your colleagues, whoever cares about you enough to click a link!
Further, your loved ones want to support you, and they are usually more than happy to pay a few bucks for your book, so resist the temptation to give your book to them for free. And even if you gave a few friends and family members advance copies, you might gently remind them that it would be a big help if they bought an official copy.
People who care about you are likely to want hard copies of your book (which is why it’s worthwhile to have a POD option), and they will probably ask if they can buy those copies directly from you. When they ask, let them know that it actually helps your book far more if they order your book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. If they buy the book directly from you, those sales don’t count towards your official sales total and they don’t help discoverability, so if your loved ones are comfortable with online shopping, tell them they can do their part by buying your book that way. Of course, you’ll be happy to sign copies once they arrive!
I mention all of this because it was initially hard for me, personally, to accept money from friends and family for my books. I gave away copies when people told me frankly and in no uncertain terms that they would be happy to pay for copies. I did this largely because I didn’t understand discoverability. Now that I know, I’ll be taking a different approach for my next book!
In fact, recently my dad asked if he could buy some paperbacks from me to give to friends. He would pay me back, of course, but could I just send him them? Instead of saying yes and assuring him he didn’t need to pay me back, I explained to him how much it would help me if he bought them from Amazon, and he was thrilled he could help my book by doing so.
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