Today, one of our WANA instructors is here to talk about a topic that makes most of us want to throw ourselves in traffic. BUT Angela Ackerman, our marketing maven is here to demystify Sasquatch the book launch party….
The Book Launch—WTH? What AM I THINKING?
The book launch. The discoverability blog hop. The big Christmas sale. You know you need to do it, that it will be good for your book, but the MOUNTAIN of work looming makes you want to run for Netflix and Big Bang Theory reruns.
After hosting many successful online events, I’ve learned a few tricks to making it through them alive. It involves a lot of coffee, frozen pizza for the family, and these ten steps.
1) Pick a Theme
Every event needs something jazzy to make it stand out. Pick a theme for your event that makes it fun and different. Think about your audience, and what they might find entertaining or valuable, and then pair it with a unique element from your book.
Is your book about pirates? Create an online treasure hunt. Is your hero a safe-cracking thief? Host a bank vault break in (Becca and I did something similar HERE.) The goal is to attract YOUR IDEAL AUDIENCE by tailoring your event to something they specifically will enjoy.
2) Marshall Your Forces
Put a call out using your blog, Facebook feed, twitter and email–anywhere you have a platform. If you want to run a successful event, you can’t do it alone–you need your friends and connections to build an Awesome Street Team. I find what works best is to blog about the event well in advance and request help (& share links to the post across my networks) and then to supply a simple Google Form for interested people to fill out so I can contact them with details.
This works well if you need a few different “types” of helpers…people can sign up for what they want to do. Here and here are some sample forms I have created in the past.
3) Outline How the Event Will Run
What needs to be done in advance? DO those things.
Need a blog banner or badge for your event? Create one. Need to drum up prizes? Secure them. In advance, prepare the book launch/book event day post for your blog (and one for your street team to use on their blogs if needed). Gather any links you need (Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook page, etc.), craft tweets to use during the event, and create an event #hashtag. Doing these things now saves you time later.
4) Email Your Volunteers
Send a group email, thanking them for stepping up to help–make it personal and genuine. Then, clearly describe how the event will run and what you would like them to do. Explain how long the event will run, when you need their blog posts up, and when you will announce winners or simply end the event.
Give people a chance to ask questions, so everyone understands what the plan is. I recommend creating a distribution list for your team so you can keep emails private. (I learned that lesson the hard way when my first event someone got upset that her email was exposed to other members of my street team.)
5) Stay in Touch
Once it gets closer to the date, let everyone know you will soon be sending them an email package with “cheat sheet” instructions (to remind them of how the event will run and their role in it) and everything they need for the event. Tell your team that if something has changed and they can no longer participate, you understand but now’s the time to let you know.
You don’t want to be sending out a lot of email so people feel spammed, so try hard to be very organized. If you did get questions about the event from multiple parties and they are valid questions or concerns, answer them in a Q & A in this group email so everyone is on the same page.
6) Send Out the E-Mail Package
A week in advance of the event, give everyone a package that contains a “cheat sheet” of instructions, an image of your blog banner or badge you will be using, and an attachment “template post” that they can cut and paste onto their blog (short and sweet, so all they have to do is write up a quick intro). I send 2 versions: a Word document, and the HTML code that has the blog badge, pictures and formatting already in place.
Bloggers who can support HTML can just cut and paste, and the work is done. I always tell people they can write their own post if they prefer, but it’s my goal with events to make life as easy as possible for my team, so I give them everything they need to save time if they wish. (Here’s the blog post I sent to my street team for our event, The WHW Amazing Race.) Also, remember to tell them the event #hashtag you picked for their tweets.
7) Be Present
When your event launches, stuff might go wrong. Make sure you are available to help your team in any way they need. Tell them to email you if they need help and monitor your inbox. Check everyone’s blogs to make sure the posts are up and that links work.
If you can, interact in their comment sections as well as your own. On social media, drive traffic to your street team people. With a large group, I create a Pinterest board of participants (like this one), and then tweet links to it during and after the event, telling my followers that these are really great people & to check out their blogs. This is a nice way to say thank you to them for participating.
8) Be Enthusiastic
For this event to be memorable, your energy needs to be up. Try to engage people, encourage them to participate, and make it super fun. (This is where having a kick ass theme comes in.) Make sure your high level of positivity is in every email you send to your team.
Be pumped, let them know how excited you are to be doing this event with them. They in turn will spread that high energy along.
9) Wrap It Up
Publish your closing post for the event (if there are winners to draw and announce, do this) and thank everyone for joining you in the event. Send out emails to winners, and distribute any prizes. Keep a list of the winners so if you don’t hear back from someone, you can try again.
10) Say a Heartfelt THANK YOU to Your Street Team
Don’t be afraid to show your emotion–let them really know just what it meant to you that they shared time with you and made it so much fun. In the days ahead, remember to tweet them, and tweet or link to your Pinterest board from time to time. If you can help them get exposure in return, do! Some people offer a prize draw or give small gift to members of a street team. This might be something you may wish to do as well.
BONUS TIP: Buy a nice bottle of wine, or expensive box of chocolate (or both!) and take some “me time.” Relaxing and recharging after an event is important too!
Thank you ANGELA! I know this blog is a HUGE help, but need more? Angela and Becca are holding a WANA class The Marketing Marriage: Creative Social Media Solutions to Help Get Your Book Noticed. And all our instructors teach the WANA WAY, which is devoid of creepy, spammy, try to make you into a marketing Pod Person tactics.
Angela will be around for questions and I hope you guys show her some love. What are your greatest challenges? What makes you panic? Why? What have you tried that worked? What have you done that was in your comfort zone? What is keeping you from stepping out into the “unknown”?
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Great tips! I feel overwhelmed when I think about planning an online book release party, but having a plan should keep that at bay. 🙂
Let me just say that I love Angela’s The Emotion Thesaurus book! *waving hello and giving cyber hugs.*
I am not going to lie…hosting an online event the right way means work. BUT, the rewards can be AMAZING if you really put in the time and create an event tailored to your specific audience!
If you organize and plan before the event, it is so much easier during, and energy goes into the people who participate, which is what we should be doing. What a great opportunity to connect with our actual audience, and find new readers! 🙂
And THANKS for the kind words, hello and cyber hugs! So very happy you are getting good mileage from your ET book! 🙂
Thanks for the information.
Thanks for stopping in, Shonda!
I was excited to recently host my first ever blog tour stop for a book release. The book was one I truly loved and the author is someone I have followed for more than a year.
I will say I was disappointed that I didn’t see a boost in traffic to my blog on the day I hosted. I hope this doesn’t mean the release wasn’t successful. Because for me , the biggest thank you I could get for helping an author who writes in the same genre I do is adding more followers for my platform. Was this a wrong expectation?
I appreciate these steps (very straight forward) and will be printing them out for future reference (when I have a book to release).
I don’t think you had a wrong expectation at all…one of the great things about any sort of blog hop or visibility event is the new traffic that your blog is exposed to. Because of this, I always suggest people get involved in events from time to time they think their own audience will enjoy.
Without knowing the situation, I can’t say what went wrong, unfortunately. It could be something technical, like a link from the host’s blog to yours not working, to there just not enough word being spread about the event by the organizer. It could just be bad luck, running an event at the same time that the intended audience’s time and attention was taken up by something else.
I do think that results vary, and it was a very nice thing for you to help this author. Too, a lot of what we do is trial and error, so all experiences are useful in the end. Hopefully the next one will have a different result 🙂
Kristen, always a pleasure to be here, so thank you for having me! And haha, the PICTURES! I am thrilled Sharky made it in there. It just wouldn’t be right if he didn’t!
Kristen and Angela,
This post is truly serendipitous. I am doing a happy dance right now! Thank you? Nah, that phrase doesn’t come close. I am a, completely green, newbie to the self-publishing world. After I drop my son off at school, I usually spend the rest of the day diving into online haystacks, hoping to find a needle for my self-publishing compass. Each day I am blessed by “Cyber-Samaritans” who come forth, like Yoda (I mean that in the best way), helping me to use the Force. Thank you for sharing your experience with online book events. I am also new to social media, so finding your post today was an extra bonus. I am excited to utilize your blueprint as I take on the challenge of promoting my children’s picture book.
Thank you,
Michelle Eastman
Hi Michelle,
So very glad the post came at the right time for you. Your comment about “Cyber-Samaritans” is right on the mark. I have learned so very much from all the great people in the writing community, and one of the very best of those is our own Kristen. She has taught me so much, and she gives so much to others, which I really admire!
Hopefully I can help you a little more as well…I remembered seeing a post a day ago on marketing children’s books at Joanna Penn’s, another fabulous person who gives back wholeheartedly. I’ll leave the link here for you to check out: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2014/01/14/books-for-children-karen-inglis/
Have a great day, and congrats on your picture book! 🙂
Reblogged this on My Fifth Journal and commented:
Follow the Unicorn! ….and the author’s advice, of course!
The unicorn knows all, sees all. Haha, thanks for the share!
Thank you so much for your post, the 10 tips are great and very helpful!
Glad to hear it Nicholas! Happy Book Eventing!
The pictures made this a really fun post to read! 🙂 I’m still in my second draft (perhaps wandering in a sagging middle, I’m not certain) but I will file this away for some future book launch day. 🙂
Happy Friday!
Glad you’ll be able to use this down the road. Oh, the saggy middle…been there! I have a post for you to read if you like: K.M. Weiland is a WIZ about middles! http://writershelpingwriters.net/2013/08/sagging-middles-fix-your-storys-muffin-top/
Wow! And Oy! I have been a real life party planner (weddings and Bar Mitzvahs) and I cannot even wrap my head around what actually HAPPENS during one of these online events. I am new to all this social media and high tech, so are people skyping in to these things or ? It sounds like such fun– I must attend one (or many!) before I even think about throwing my own. This makes a book signing in the library seem like a real snore!
Weddings? You are a brave woman! I had a hard enough time planning my own–I can’t even imagine the workload and emotional-bride-wrangling planning those would be!
Online book launches happen all over social media–Google hangouts, here on FB, on twitter, on blogs, pinterest…there are many great ways to use social media creatively to bring about a fun and engaging event. These days, our audiences are global, and so online events are the way to find them and have some good times!
I am with LMM, above. I still don’t understand what the “event” is or what happens. Thanks.
HI guys,
I have had a few questions about this, so I have answered fully below–check out comment #33. Plus I have left links to a few events to check out. 🙂
The event is something that happens online, using social media (it might take place on a blog, twitter, facebook, Goodgle+ or several) and is when the author of a book tries to get visibility for her book by hosting a fun or entertaining event, often that has a contest or giveaway component that will bring people in contact with her book cover and blurb. Often at these events, people discuss the book, what they like to read, or common themes in the book (for example if a book was a Paranormal romance about witches, a possible discussion could be about wiccan culture in today’s world, or a game where people are encouraged to choose a spell they wish they could cast and why, etc.) The event will draw participants into the story’s main topic or theme a bit, reinforcing the book’s special elements and hopefully generating some interest in reading the book.)
Thank you so much. I am a fan of Joanna and Karen Inglis. Karen was so kind to help me out at the very beginning of this crazy adventure. I would have never come this far, this fast, without the support I’ve found in Indie Author circles. I wish you the very best in all of your endeavors.
Michelle
You as well! 🙂
Great info! Thanks, Angela and Kristen. I’m contemplating doing my first FB launch party and your tips are giving me more confidence to dive in and just do it!
That’s great Kassandra! I know many people who have run successful FB events, and I am sure yours will be lots of fun too!
Reblogged this on A Shot and a Half Pint and commented:
Helpful to-do-list for your first book launch party! (Here’s to hoping I will need this someday)
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the great tips! Very helpful!
Glad to hear it! 🙂 have a great weekend!
Hello Kristen,
I am writing to ask your help in promoting my next release. This full length novel is one that I am very excited and anxious about. It almost feels like my first release in a way. It is my first contemporary full length romance. I hope that if you have time to read it, you enjoy it.
After doing research on PTSD for the hero Adam Ford, I decided to donate a portion of the proceeds to Pets for Vets, an organization that pairs vets with shelter animals trained to deal with the affects of PTSD. I fell in love with Adam and it was eye opening to learn the horrible things that our young men and women returning from the war zone are dealing with.
I am attaching a copy of the book along with the ad that I am hoping you can post, your thoughts and the ad on your FB page on Nov, 11th, 2014
Thank you so much for everything dear friend. Of course, please let me know when I can return the favor.
Hildie
Amazon order link: http://goo.gl/Q7VHii
Western Historical * Contemporary * Romantic Suspense * Paranormal
There might be a few tips here that we can use.
Sent from my iPhone
>
Very timely, since I’ll be doing this soon. 🙂
I love it when the right information comes along just as it is needed. Good luck with your event!
Thank you and yes it is great when what you need just shows up. 🙂
Thank you again, for this.
Oh, love the unicorn in the van. Where do you find all these fantastic pictures?
How do you participate in a book release party? If they have twitter or a blog, do you just comment? My sister’s book is scheduled (so far) to be released in Jan or Feb, so I want to make sure I help her. Do you just set a time to post about the party? Is it the same post, or do you each craft your own. I guess I’m trying to find some examples of people who have done this on WordPress and twitter. Very helpful post btw.
There are lots of different types of events you can run. Most people pick a theme to build around, something that makes their book unique. Then, they plan some fun, entertaining or informative events for their readers to join in, and perhaps win some fun prizes along the way.
One friend of mine released a book about a girl putting her life together after being stalked. She chose to celebrate her book launch by raising awareness for those affected by stalking, and invited people to post something about stalking on their blogs–either a personal story if they have had experience with it, or resources people can turn to if stalked, or safety tips to be safe and minimize one’s risk. Many people participated and it generated a lot of discussion and visibility for this topic, one that is not often discuss but should be. People participating visited one another’s blogs and shared links to posts. This event was shared so widely that larger stalking awareness organizations got involved and sent traffic to the author’s site, exposing people to her books.
Other times, a book release might have a “game” type element, like a scavenger hunt or trivia game attached to it, where participants have to search for something hidden on the author’s site, or a blog of one of the street team members who is helping.
You can participate by commenting, playing the game (if there is one), or volunteering to help out with the event, say by hosting part of it on one’s blog (many of these events take place over several blogs to increase exposure for a book). Some use Facebook or twitter to run a “party” where a live discussion takes place, prizes are given away and fun information about the book is shared. Often several authors “guest host” these, attending during a specific time slot and drive the discussion to encourage conversation, questions and to keep the event fresh.
I will leave a few links to events I know of to check out.
The YA Scavenger Hunt: http://yascavengerhunt.blogspot.ca/2014/10/welcome-to-ya-scavenger-hunt-fall-2014.html (current)
http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/2012/12/win-kindle-fire-17th-century-italian.html (past event)
And our own Emotion Thesaurus one: http://writershelpingwriters.net/2012/05/random-acts-of-kindness-blitz-for-writers/
(past event)
Hope this helps!
Thank you so much for your time and help. I will check these out.
Reblogged this on Write of Passage and commented:
Since my sister’s book is scheduled to be released hopefully in January, I’ve been doing some research on this topic. Check out Kristen’s tips. As always, very helpful.
This is exactly what I needed – thank you! I have a book launch to plan for soon and your post is perfect. The recommendation about the wine is key 🙂
Mmmmm…wine…. LOL
This is such a great post, and I can’t wait for the webinar! I’m bummed I can’t attend live, but will devour the recording.
I saw your name on the list Julie–I wish you could attend live as well, but glad to have you on board. Life is busy, and recordings are handy, aren’t they? 🙂
Reblogged this on Reece Evhans and commented:
Great post about organizing an online launch event. I recommend following Kristen’s blog.
Thanks so much for this great post! New writers like me need so much help and encouragement! I look forward to learning a lot from your blog.
Very glad you find this helpful!
Thank you Kristen and Angela! My writers’ group here in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, is planning a launch for their first anthology of short stories. Hope you don’t mind that I sent the members a link to this blog to see it.
That’s great–I hope this helps them. Thanks Shirley and wishing your group much success with their anthology launch!
Hey, Angela & Kristen. Thanks so much for this – I loved the steps and pictures, but especially the examples! I did some guest posts for my book launch, but I’ll wait until I have several to put the time and effort into this. Bookmarking it for next year!
But Angela, up on one of your replies (comment #19), you said “I have had a few questions about this, so I have answered fully below–check out comment #33. Plus I have left links to a few events to check out. :)” But it’s not there – help! I’ve been at a few WANA facebook launches, but would love some other examples.
Also, several commenters have mentioned that they “reblogged” this. Does that mean they talked about it and linked to it? Copied an excerpt and linked to the rest? Put the whole thing in? I see “Reblog” at the top of the WordPress menu, but I’ve always been afraid to use it. Thanks much!
HI Jennifer,
When I responded earlier my comment was #33, but a few others posted after I did, and so it bumped my comment to #35. If you scroll up, you’ll see a comment of mine that includes links. That’s the one! Sorry for the confusions. 🙂
As well you can go to my own website and click on “past events” in the right sidebar categories. This will bring up a bunch of events that Becca and I have put on in the past, providing more examples of different themes and activities you can tie into a book event. http://writershelpingwriters.net/
Reblogging is when someone copies the blog post to their own blog, reposting it so their own audience can benefit from the information. I don’t use it myself, but I think it usually shows part of the post, and then links back to the original, in this case, here to Kristen’s blog. 🙂
Hope this helps! 🙂
Angela
So thankful for this info. My book launch is just a few weeks away and I’m hoping I can get some of these things implemented. I’m glad I read this before the launch date.
Good luck with your book launch! It is such a great time to create a lot of buzz for a book, and bring eyes to your cover and blurb. Using it to connect with your audience helps you start building relationships and fans. The book launch can really start your book off on the right foot, which is why we dedicated a webinar teaching session to it!
Thanks Angela for the great and very informative blog; my question to you is how do you get others(as in fellow authors and bloggers) to see the great value in launching an event this way? There is so much upside and from what I can see no downside at all in partaking in this marketing strategy. I’m a very big proponent for effective marketing on a shoestring budget and this is totally a free thing to do, but sad to say some authors don’t get the full gist of what this type of networking could do for them as well as for the person who the event is for. Of course we’d love to have well known authors and bloggers such as Kristen Lamb and Nikki Woods be a part of your event (who wouldn’t); their notoriety and credibility alone would increase an unknown author’s book sales in no time. So since a new author’s circle might not have a Kristen Lamb, what would be your best advice to those authors who’s hesitant to pool their followers with others so they too would greatly benefit? Thank you in advance Angela for taking time out to read my comment/question; and I’m definitely going to launch my next book using the techniques written about in this blog!
In my opinion, the biggest reason more authors don’t put on more events and organize them this way is two fold. First, it requires a lot of work. A person needs to build relationships with Influencers and fans, so that when the time comes to put on an event or one needs a bit of visibility help, those people genuinely want to help out (and this also means helping out in return–lots of people want something for nothing, unfortunately, but that’s not how it works). Once an author has build relationships, they have to plan the event. With all the spammy promo out there, this can be disheartening–how can an author make their event stand out? (This again can be done, which is why we’re putting on the webinar!) It takes time to set everything up, organize and then make sure a person is actively participating in their own event–sharing content, starting conversations, generating interest, etc. Many just don’t want to deal with the workload, and that’s their choice. But rarely does a book come about where people just rush out and buy it. We authors have to do some convincing that it’s smomething they want to read and will be interested in. If you skip events, you miss out on a big way to draw attention to your book.
The second big reason is confidence. As you mentioned, wouldn’t we all love to have someone like Kristen championing our event? But the thing is, you can! We all can! I started off as a wet nosed blogger of kidlit. I didn’t know anyone or anything, but over the course of time, I have grown my knowledge, given back whenever I can, and reached out to people and built relationships with them (or had them reach out to me first, but either way, the result is the same: if you put time and effort into someone, you grow closer and form a bond.
The big thing is for you (and all authors) to think about your writing, and your audience. Think about the influencers in your field. If you want one of them to notice you, think about what you can do for them. How can you help them? How can you help more people find their website and books? How can you start getting to know them, and start a friendship?
The writing business is one of the best in the world. Reach out to other authors who write what you do and build relationships. Share knowledge, support one another and together find ways to reach your similar audiences. Look outside of writers too, and identify other people who will have the same audience…people who have interests that tie into your books. Start conversations, visit their sites. Get to know them. Again, support doesn’t just happen here, but anywhere that your audience might be. If your book shows a window into the world of racecars, them people who love racing in general may be a good audience fit. They don’t write racing books necessarily, do they? So get out there and find out where they are, what places online and off they spend their time. These places and communities are ones that type of author should be trying to form inroads to. Make sense?
Anything is possible if you work hard, are passionate about what you write about, and you are willing to share that passion with others. 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to reply, but most of all thank you for the great advice. Very much appreciated.
These tips are great, thank you. I am new to all of this and appreciate your experienced advice.
Reblogged this on Author Mysti Parker and commented:
Having held several online book events myself, I think these are awesome tips!
[…] 10 Tips to Organizing a Kick Ass Online Book Event by Angela Ackerman at Kristen Lamb’s blog. […]
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