Lessons from My Book Launch
Book launch days can be stressful which is why I want to bring you some of my favorite book launch tips from my recent launch of my book, 4 Days in Paris.
Book launch days are so much fun, and yet, nail biting may be occurring as I'm refreshing the screen to check for new reviews and rank advancement. If you know, you know, right?
If you've been in our workshops, trainings, or listening to the podcast, you've heard me talk about my first novel, 4 Days in Paris by Lexi Haddock (my pen name). My book launched on December 6th!
In honor of the big day, I wanted to share some of my book launch tips and the lessons I learned from my launh. This includes marketing tools that have helped make book launch day extra special. But if you want to help me out, please at least click on the link to my Amazon page – which may or may not help the rankings increase. Obviously a sale is the biggest rank mover. Reviews right behind that. But it's been said that even activity on an Amazon page can raise the ranking. And I'm in some pretty competitive categories.
So check it out, then come back for the rest of these resources and advice! (This is not an affiliate link because that would be against KDP Terms of Services.)
Book Launch Tips and Resources
And now… here's some info to help you as you plan for your next book launch, or work to re-energize a book you've already launched.
- If you haven't listened to episode 75 of the PublishHer podcast yet, from Paris with Love, you should listen! I go through my entire process. One of our listeners, Kay, said it's the most comprehensive podcast episode on the entire book writing process she's ever heard. Thanks Kay, I appreciate that. I talk about writing, editing, and a little on the launch process. Listen to episode 75 now!
- I was super thrilled to be featured as the Book of the Day on the BookyCall app on December 6th! This is an app you should absolutely be using as an author and reader – it's a growing community of readers who are “matched” to books that all have really fun “dating” profiles. It's a really cute concept and authors are getting a ton of new readers from it. BookyCall is one of our Session Sponsors for the 2023 Women in Publishing Summit, and they'll be doing a webinar with us next year. We will also have a special discount for our conference attendees if you're interested in marketing your book through them. For now, go download the app on your phone (it looks like a little ghost with a hat) and find out which books are a match for you! Pro tip: I set my ebook to $0.99 for launch day and have it in Kindle Unlimited in the attempt to lure in new readers who are unfamiliar with me. This is very helpful since it takes time for reviews to trickle in.
- Love Book Tours is an amazing company to run an Instagram tour with! I've had a review tour and blitz happening the last 11 days and it's been awesome! The LBT organizes the tour, and you get to watch them post away. You can check out @LexiHaddock_author on Instagram to see some of the wonderful posts. I'm trying to convince the owner, Kelly, to come talk to us in the conference as well. If not, we'll get her in a webinar or podcast interview. These review tours may not always result in immediate sales, but it does create a lot of buzz and I've seen many people comment they are adding the book to their to be read list.
- Time is your friend, not your foe. Unless you make it your foe by not giving enough time in your launch preps! There just isn't enough time to do all the things. I had millions of other activities lined up I wanted to do, and just could not get to it all. Because… work, life, all of the things that compete for our time. It's absolutely critical that you work on growing your platform as early as you can and have a plan that will allow you to get to as much as you can.
What was my plan?
My plan was focused on getting the book into the hands of as many readers as possible. We did this through listing the book on Netgalley and Booksirens, the LBT virtual tour on IG, the Featured book of the day with BookyCall, running a giveaway on GoodReads (at last check, over 2700 people had requested it!), and running launch day giveaways on all of our Instagram Accounts. Additionally, I've been making it my mission to spend as much time engaging with readers and reviewers on Instagram.
What I did NOT get to:
- Blogging
- Sharing more pics from my time in Paris
- Getting on more podcasts – I did get on a couple, including a great interview on the TufFish Podcast with Jen Milius in which we discussed using pen names and book marketing – check it out here!
- Creating relationships with other closed door romcom or holiday romance authors to do group promos with.
- Get my BookBub account running and run a promo with LitRing.
- About five million other things I would do if I had more time!
But the cool part is, that while you want to create as much as buzz as possible prior to launch, which I think we did reasonably well with, the rest can continue after the launch. So, I'll keep at it. The biggest piece of this will be finishing book 2, so I can launch it and cross promote both books.
Book launch day is important but you can continue to build buzz after the big day too.
I'm so grateful to my entire community for your love, encouragement, and support as I launch this book. You've been awesome.
And if a romantic comedy set in Paris on New Year's Eve 1999 sounds up your alley, go grab your copy today!
Please do check out these book launch tips, resources, and tools mentioned above. They can make a tremendous difference in growing your audience and selling more books!
Click below for a free book launch checklist to help you with your own book launch!
