Strategies for a Successful Book Launch

I am absolutely ecstatic to announce that my SECOND children’s book, The Little Fairy Finds Her Glow, will be published on April 6th!!! The book is about a fairy who discovers the power of love and kindness through an exciting adventure. I cannot wait to share it!

In the meantime, I would like to share my private and public launch strategy with you because sharing is caring, right?

Private Launch

Your private launch should begin 1 week before your public launch. You will take two main actions this week to build up hype before publicly launching your book:

1. Announce the upcoming publication of your book on social media and encourage followers to join your newsletter for updates. The image above is an example of an Instagram post I published during the private launch of my previous book.
2. Set your ebook for free for 3 days. During this time, reach out to friends, family, and newsletter subscribers. Ask them to download your free ebook and leave reviews on your sales page. Customers are much more likely to purchase an item with good reviews so this will greatly help your sales after your public launch. If you’re not publishing on Amazon, send them a pdf of your book instead.

Public Launch: Social Media Outreach

After you’ve gathered a week’s worth of reviews, you can start promoting it on social media. You can use this schedule as a template:

Day 1: Set your ebook for free for 2 days. Market the free promo to get more reviews. Many people will go on to buy the paperback version so don’t worry about losing sales.

Day 2: Share how many sales or downloads you had. Market the free promo once more and thank those who have supported you so far.

Day 14: Provide a status update and request your followers to spread the word.

Day 15: Provide another status update and share your personal story. How did you get where you are? What was your inspiration?

After this point, you can advertise your book as a holiday gift and do occasional promotions and giveaways, but don’t stretch yourself too thin. One post per week is more than enough.

You can take a look at my Instagram and Facebook for more ideas. And follow me for brownie points. 😀

Public Launch: Traditional Outreach

While social media outreach is a fantastic way to update followers, broadening your audience will require a bit more legwork. Here are some ideas to get you going:

1. Contact bookstores and pitch them your book.
2. Reach out to professional reviewers. Here is a great website with indie reviewers.
3. Offer to write a guest post on blogs that relate to your work.
4. Visit daycares, schools, or wherever your primary audience is and ask to do readings.
5. Connect with librarians and see if they will add your book to their shelves.

I will be posting templates in the following weeks to help you write your own pitches so stay tuned!

Successful Launch Examples

Full disclosure here, I didn’t feel like scouring the internet for hours so the following examples are generated by Chat GPT. Here is an article about why I love it so much.

These examples show methods self-published authors have used to launch their books and marketing campaigns:

1. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter: Beatrix Potter self-published the first edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1901. She initially printed only 250 copies and sold them privately to family and friends, but the book was so popular that it was soon picked up by a traditional publisher. Potter’s marketing strategy was to create beautiful illustrations for the book and to use word-of-mouth marketing to generate interest.
2. The Adventures of Bella & Harry by Lisa Manzione: Lisa Manzione self-published The Adventures of Bella & Harry series of children’s books, which follows the adventures of two Chihuahuas as they travel around the world. Manzione’s marketing strategy included creating a website and blog to promote the books, as well as using social media to connect with readers and promote giveaways and contests.
3. Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker: Sherri Duskey Rinker self-published Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site in 2011, and the book was later picked up by a traditional publisher. Rinker’s marketing strategy included reaching out to bloggers and book reviewers to generate reviews and buzz for the book, as well as creating a website and using social media to promote the book to parents and educators.

As you can see, each author has defined their own marketing path. No one can do everything. If you are new at this, I suggest experimenting with a few different strategies until you understand what works for you and then just focusing on those.

I jumped right into marketing here, but if you are still at the formatting stage of your book, check out this article. And if you are looking for resources that go more in-depth into self-publishing, take a look at this post.

Regardless of how you choose to market, always have a call to action at the end. Such as…

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