The On-line launch

This is very easy to do and best set up via a Facebook Event. 

On-line launches, also known as cyber launches can be great for inviting to your book launch a lot of people who are not geographically near to you, who are pressed for time or who don’t like travelling.   

Logistics

Use Evenbrite or Facebook Events to create the invite. Use your own time zone but make sure that is clear to everyone. You can make the event all day long or just restrict it to a couple of hours. If the latter, a good time is 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. Invite all of your friends and put it on your Facebook timeline and on Twitter at least once a day, at different times of the day. If you use Eventbrite you’ll need to create a Facebook page for the event as well. This page will remain active after the event. If you use a Facebook event, you might still like to create a page as well for post-party discussions and the party anyway is a great opportunity to invite people to like your page.

Prepare in advance

Get as much ready as you can in advance. Save all of your links into a file and all of your files into a folder. You can actually start posting ahead of the event. Whet your guests' appetite. 

Some activities:

Pub Quiz

Make up about half a dozen questions to do with the book. The answers shouldn’t be only found in the book. They can be to do with the background of the book or easily look-up-able in the Look Inside bit on Amazon.

Here is an example for Salford Stories:

Pub quiz questions:

1. Look at the cover of the book. Where is this photo taken from?

2. Can you name a story that is to do with water?

3. Can you name a pub mentioned in the book? Hint: you don’t need to have read it yet.

4. Salford always was a very forward-looking city. It was the first to provide three public amenities. What were they?

5. Easy one now. Famous painter from Salford. Hint: look at the pictures in the "Dirty Old Town" video. And Salford's theatre?

6. Here's a tricky one: why is the Ship Canal called the Manchester Ship Canal when most of it's in Salford? There are many acceptable answers.

Notice how number 6 is a tie-breaker?  

Notice also how there is also a subtle call to action here. The link on the title of the book takes them straight to the Amazon page.

If you’re working on an anthology, encourage each contributor to offer one prize and one question. Suggestions for prizes: another of the writer’s books, stationery, an object to do with the theme of the story, a service.

Raffle

Assign each guest a number as they come into the “room”. About twenty minutes before the end use a random number generator to pick a number. Again, if working with an anthology, you should be able to get a lot of prizes. However, don't offer this book as a prize. You may prevent people from buying it. Offer something from your back list or perhaps a short story.  Or you might have some merchandise – a mug or T-shirt with your book cover on.  

Entertainment

• Find music that goes with your book.
• Find excerpts of films that are similar
• Post a few extracts of your text. Imagine doing one five minute reading every hour.
• Give some back ground to the book – just as you would if you were chatting live at a party.

Food and drink

This sounds a little crazy, I know. But yes, post up pictures of the food and drink you would like to offer at this party. It helps to set the mood and you never know if you put up a picture of something your viewer fancies and they go and find that or something similar, they might be more inclined to stay longer and buy a copy of the book. Take care as always about copyright. Free pictures are available from Pixa Bay   

Call to action

Make it easy for your visitors to buy the book. Avoid “Buy Now” buttons though you can have one of those on your Facebook page. Perhaps have a pinned notice at the top of your Facebook event or page linking to Amazon and every time you mention the book create another hyperlink.

How to be a host

Try to respond to every comment. If it gets hectic, at least “like” comments. If it’s slow, try to post something new at least every ten minutes for a short launch, every twenty for minutes for a longer one. You can also post on your Facebook timeline and your Twitter feed reminding your followers of the invite.

Give a good sense of starting and ending the party just as you would in real life.  

How to be a guest

You don’t need to be there the whole of the time but do pop in. If you intend to buy your friend’s book, this is probably a good time to do it. Seeing the sales go up will boost her morale. You can set your Facebook to notify you of all messages and you can get on with something else, only responding to what really interests you. You can also of course take along a contribution to the food or drink. Again use Pixa Bay.  

Milk it

Make this a real opportunity to network. Invite your guests to sign up for your newsletter / mailing list. Do you have one? I recommend Mailchimp. The free account goes a long way and by the time you need to pay you can probably more than afford it.   

The "Tupperware Party" Launch

Not feeling up to a full physical launch? Why not try something a little more intimate?  

Remember those "parties" where the hostess gets to sell Loads of useful plastic containers and earns the power to buy based on the commission on what she sells?

Of course there is more to these parties. Some jolly banter. Good company. Some nice refreshments and if you're into that sort of thing, it can be a pleasant way of spending an evening. 

There are some things we could emanate here. You could start off just inviting a few personal friends to your launch party. Supply a few delicious refreshments.

The "demonstration" element of your party is about your book. When it's your turn to be under the spotlight, talk about how you came to write the book. Read a few extracts. Allow time for questions.

Offer the book and signed copies but be very laid back about this. Forget about the cost of the refreshments. This is just you enjoying friends' company. Don't have too many books on display. Maybe half as many as people. You can always whip a few more out later. 

If appropriate you could devise a few light-hearted games based on your book. 

You can further replicate the "Tupperware" model. Explain that you would like to extend this party idea across the country. Would anyone else like to host a party? Maybe you could give them a free copy of the book now and allow them a % commission on anything they "sell" at their party which they could spend on books.  This may work well if you have several titles and may help you to shift some of your backlist.             

The Physical Launch

This is something we don't always get involved in. We are dealing with over 200 writers in our various imprints. We do hold two special celebration events each year to which all of our authors are invited. More details about that later.

 

Where and how

A launch may put you out of pocket. You're going to have to sell an awful lot of copies if you're going to cover a hire of venue fee and pay for refreshments for your guests.

There are ways of making it cheaper, though. Consider the following:

• Look out for bar or café that will give you a free space because you are bringing in a fair number of guests. Note, some venues will expect a minimum spend. Make sure you can cover that. If you get this right, the venue will be free and guests will pay for their own drinks and nibbles. 

• Host the launch in your own home. Yes, only a few will fit in but you can often sell just as many books at these as at bigger events. Extend this idea by getting friends to host you. This could also be up and down the country.
• Consider some of the more quirky examples mentioned on the previous page.   

 

Who to invite

Everyone you can think of! Do you want to open it to the general public? This might affect how you advertise it. Remember we all know about 250 people. Invite them all even if they're too far away to come. Invite your Facebook and Twitter friends but don't rely just on this group of people.

Then think of other people you know who might be interested in the book. Think locally and a little further afield. Will the theme appeal to certain people? Are there geographical locations that might be of interest? Is a certain period in history portrayed? Will your book appeal to certain experts or certain categories of workers? Is it of use to schools and teachers?

 

How to invite

Certainly use a Facebook Event invite. If you have a limit on numbers, use something like Eventbrite as well as they can ticket even for free places. You can also handily email all of your attendees from your Event.

However, the personal invitation is by far the best. Design an appealing invite and email, snailmail or hand-out them out.  You should also start building up an email list of fans who will be happy to hear about your work. So your invite should include the RSVP via the Eventbrite Event and an invite to join the mailing list.

 

Help on the day

You certainly can't do it all especially if you are providing the catering and especially if you're expecting more than twenty guests.

You'll need people to help in the following ways:

• Setting everything up
• Book sales
• Marshalling guests
• Serving refreshments
• Introducing you
• Tidying up afterwards

 

On the day

Don't be tempted to read too much from the book. Much as your guests will love the book later, listening to someone read for a long time can be quite tiring. Your total "performance" should be no more than half an hour – the launch maybe lasting a maximum of two hours.  

In that half hour:

• Let your "host" Introduce you.
• Tell your audience a little about how you came to write the book.
• Read a few short passages from the book
• Take questions and answers.  If your launch is a little more formal, you can have a set of questions and answers set up with your host and then take a few more from the floor.

A typical timetable for the two hours would be:

First half hour: mingle. Refreshments could be offered and books should be on sale.

Second half hour: author spotlight as described above.  

Third half hour: selling and signing books

Final half hour: more mingling 

Remember when you book your venue to allow enough time for setting up and clearing up.

Do be aware that you may have to regard your launch as a loss leader.  However, in the following two posts I'm going to suggest two other types of launches that are virtually free.         

Contacting bookshops and other places about possible signings

 

Author Kit

This is something we offer authors for the imprints we manage. If you can arrange your own book tour, we can provide you with twenty books up front. Shops can put them through their till and we'll invoice the shop. Then we'll top up your supply. Please leave at least ten days between venues. At the end of the tour, you can buy any remaining books at cost plus 10% to cover admin, or wait until you can sell them and buy them at normal author discount. We can if necessary allow this against royalties.

If you are or become a prolific seller, we can offer more books on this arrangement. 

We ask you to contact the bookshop or other venue and copy us in. We can then have a three-way conversation.   

Template letter

Here is a letter we use for our imprints:

Dear (name of bookshop owner),

I wonder whether you might consider letting one of our authors run a book singing at your shop? We operate a WIN, WIN, WIN policy for bookshops and authors. We supply the books to our author who brings them on the day. They go through your till and we then invoice you for any sold at 65% of RRP. Any unsold copies remain with the author. We normally supply about 20 but this is up for negotiation.

We promote the event and we hope that you will as well.

A little about the author. There is an example in brackets here.  (xxx is a frequent delegate at the Winchester Writers’ Festival. She blogs regularly for Chandlers Ford Today.)

I attach an Author Information Sheet.

Perhaps you could negotiate with xxx directly if this is of interest?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Author's name 

How to find bookshops

If you're an indie writer or working with a small publisher it's notoriously difficult to get into the big chain stores. However, most of them have a brief to work with local authors and its worth pushing for this. Get to know the staff. Also, it's sometimes possible to hire their events room privately.

If you are in the US try:

 https://www.indiebound.org/indie-bookstore-finder

 The UK equivalent is:

 https://booksellers.org.uk/bookshopsearch    

I'm also beginning a summary of useful contacts – booksellers, media contacts, reviewers, bloggers who host others and other places that host author events. You can find this here:

 http://apublishersperspective.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html       

      At the time of writing this is empty, but as the weeks go by I'll add to it.  So please let me know of any events that have been successful. Please provide as much information as you can and especially the name and email address of the person to approach.     

Venues other than bookshops

How do these sound?

·         A railway station

·         A beach

·         A kite festival   

These are just a few quirky ideas and have actually been used rather successfully.

If your venue has a retail outlet, you can still use the Author Kit mentioned before.

Sometimes another type of venue can be more helpful than an actual bookshop. I've run several signings in cafés very successfully.      

Creating an Advance Author Information Sheet

These can be really useful. You can send them out to media outlets, bookshops, festivals and other places that might be interested in your writing.

They should never be more than one side of A4. Get one done as soon as you have all of the details of the book. Then you can proactively send it out to people who might be interested in your work and also you can respond quickly to people who ask about your book.

Here are some tips:

The header  

ADVANCE INFORMATION SHEET

Your email address

Your telephone number

Your website

In the sidebar (left)  

The Essential Details

INSERT COVER IMAGE HERE

Category:

ISBN:

Format: eBook – date of release

Paperback – date of release

Hard back – date of release

Available on Amazon, online & in all good book shops

Price: TBC

Release Date: xxx  (eBook) & xxx (paperback)

Book title

By Author name

INSERT AUTHOR IMAGE HERE

In the body of the text:

‘Book title’ by ‘author name’

Introduction to the book here – around 100 words. If you had to sell your book in 100 words what would you write. This is the section that will be read by the journalist – if any – so it needs to grab their attention, demonstrate the clear hook/appeal/USP from the get-go!

Here, write a short snippet from the book’s blurb/back cover text/synopsis.

About the author

You need a bio – an about us paragraph – that you can use across your marketing and press materials. It should include the obvious like where you live, how old you are, your family status but it shouldn’t be dry and boring. You need to sell yourself as much as your book. What makes you qualified to write your book? How long did it take you to write? Was there something exciting or different about you/your life before, during or after writing? What does the journalist need to know about you more than anything else? 120 words max.

In the final 100 words you should write comments from other people (no one related to you and not your editor ideally) who have read your book. Who do you know who is the most authoritative voice from your contacts list – ask them for a favour? Do you know someone who is already in the publishing world – it could be another author (though many are not big fans of being asked to write a review for another author in truth!) or a publisher or an agent. Either way now is the time to call in a favour and get some fab soundbite comments about your book that will provide credibility and attract the attention of the journalist.

In the footer

For more information interview requests or review copies please get in touch with xx by email and telephone xxxx

For this footer you might consider having white on a dark background.

You can tinker with the layout. However, this one works rather well.

See and example here.