Monday, July 13, 2015

Book Launch Day is Approaching ... Are You Ready?

Plenty of authors have winter and spring books that are now at printers. AuthorU's question is: what are you going to do to launch your book?

book launch 
In fact, there are more questions. What did you do before you sent it to the printer? What was your prep work for your book day? Are you planning an all out blitz to the world? Or are you doing one with mini-steps? Or, is it possible that you haven't really thought about it.
Ideally, in the months before your book launches, you were up to your eyeballs with marketing related tasks. Creating mass social media contacts; figuring out what technology you would be using; who would be part of your marketing/shout out team; who in your circle of friends and colleagues would be in your camp to eblast their worlds that your book was HOT and that they should get a copy on your big day/week; contacts for guest blog posts; even pitching media and journalists.  
At the AuthorU Extravaganza in 2015, Bill Van Orsdel of BookFuel.com gave an excellent presentation on Super Readers and Super Fans. You want them--in fact, in marketing your books, they are your secret sauce. The prepping for the book launch includes finding, cultivating and keeping them.  You can order Bill VanOrsdel's CD # E8 from his presentation here.

Why? Simply this: Super Readers devour anything in the genre that

PhotoELF Edits: 2013:05:30 --- Batch Resized Created with GIMP

they love; Super Fans are authorcentric ... whatever has your name on it, it's inhaled. At one of the Extravaganzas, best-selling author and entrepreneur Guy Kawasakai was the opening speaker. His books were gobbled up by all as they became Super Fans.
This is the army you want to build--Super Fans and Super Readers ... and you start building it as early as possible. With Blogs, Tweets, Postings, Author Chats, Podcasts, Blog Tours, Book Clubs, Book Signings and Events ... anywhere you can create the hook and following for you and your book.

Is Your marketing Boring










In other words, they are in so many places--visible and buried. The Internet is your town hall ... where you get to stand on your soap box and announce the birth. When you do all the set up pre-book, you have supplied our building army with great ahas, content, resources, ideas ... they will be ready to follow and support you. If you haven't said hello to Goodreads and Amazon's Author Central, it's a must do. Add Facebook, Twitter,  LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram on to this list. If you are writing for the YA crowd, then SnapChat and Tumblr is important.
And a website is a must have--one that is visitor friendly and easily collects emails by offering a great take-away. Some FREE. Once you have emails, you have gold. You can regularly stay connected with them. They have become Fans ... you great content provided as you communicate will turn them into Super Fans.
Author overwhelm can set in as book day approaches. Finding Super Fans to celebrate your book launch and fuel your book marketing is key to its success.
Your book launch day is approaching ... are you ready?