How to plan a successful book launch

 Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Organising and running your book launch is certainly an exciting and important step in your publishing journey. Aside from planning the drinks and nibbles and which excerpt of your book to read, there are other even more important things to do in preparing for your launch.

Contents

1. Order your books first
2. Research venues
3. Develop and promote your marketing plan
4. Practice your presentation
5. Make sure you have your books
6. Enjoy your launch

1. Order your books first

Book launches are an excellent time to sell copies of your book to a captivated audience. Whether that audience is friends, family, and colleagues or a community who have heard about you and are interested in your work, a number of people will be buying your book and likely even wanting signed copies. This can’t happen if your books aren’t ordered in time.

We understand how exciting it is to organise and announce your launch, but doing so before you actually have a concrete timeline is a big factor in a book launch failure. The very first thing you need to do before you, even before researching venues, setting your date, and organise your guest list is to order your books.

Another reason to get your books early is to check for printing errors. There’s only one thing worse than having no books at your launch—having books that you’re not happy with.

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2. Research venues

When thinking about venues, it’s good to outline your budget, decide whether you want a public or private book launch, and figure out how many people you could be expecting.

Depending on the kind of book you’ve written and what you’re personally comfortable with, you could be looking at a gathering of family, friends, and colleagues, or you might want to open your launch up to the public. This will greatly effect the venue you choose and what your budget will need to include.

Some great locations can be:

• Local halls: Great for both public and invite-only events.
• Libraries: Libraries are supportive of authors and most would be happy to host book launches. Best for public events.
• Cafés: Some cafés may stay open after hours for your event or may allow you to book a space. Best for public events.
• Function halls: These can be more expensive but are great when expecting larger crowds. Great for private events.

Catering

Some venues may have the catering included within hiring costs, but others may not offer this. Having a few different platters and some drink options for your guests to graze on is always a good idea and can also be an enticing part of your promotions.

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3. Develop and promote your marketing plan

3.1 Have a booking system

How will you know who is coming to your launch? The best way to keep track of that is to have your attendee’s book tickets. You could DIY this through a contact form and have a list at the door, or you could use services (like Eventbrite) which let you set caps on the number of tickets available, see the details of ticket buyers, and even have dedicated apps for scanning tickets upon guest arrival.

3.2 Visit local areas to advertise

Using your library, local cafés, and other community hubs to get the word out there and promote your book launch can help generate interest and increase your attendees. Make some flyers and include a way to buy tickets to make it easier for those interested to RSVP.

If you’re unsure of how to put together an effective flyer, our designers and marketing professionals at Green Hill can help with that.

3.3 Use social media to promote your launch

Promoting your launch through your social media is a great way to spread the word and even gain readers before your “launch”. Use your author accounts and even take advantage of your local community and writers’ pages and post about the details of your book launch.

If making the content for your social media posts is a daunting task, our designers and marketing professionals at Green Hill can help!

3.4 Promote on your own website

If you have an author website, it’s a great idea to use it to promote your book launch. You can have links to book tickets, a map for the location, even a pre-ordering system for interested readers to purchase your book from you in preparation for the event. If you have a subscription newsletter linked to your website as well, use it to get the word out to readers who are already on it.

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4. Practice your presentation

A smooth book launch is what we all aim for, and the best way to do this is to practice. Prepare an outline for the order of events, write a speech, and read and reread your chosen excerpt.

You could even have some of your trusted friends and family sit for a dress-rehearsal of sorts and get them to ask you questions about your book, yourself, and your writing processes to prepare your answers in case someone were to ask you questions at your launch.

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5. Make sure you have your books

I know what we covered this in the first point, but it really is one of the most important things to get right. While your audience will be there to see you, the author, they’re also there to see your book. We always recommend scheduling your shipment of books to arrive at least a couple of weeks before your event.

Save yourself the stress of waiting on your order to arrive and make sure to organise your books to be printed and delivered well in advance.

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6. Enjoy your launch

At the end of the day, this is all happening because you’ve published a book. That’s exciting and certainly something worth celebrating. Make the most of your launch and mingle with your readers and everyone else who is there because of you and your book.

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