Blog: Treat Your Book Launch Like a Wedding

If you've started writing a journal or a book and plan to publish it, you might not realize that promotion is a huge part of the equation.

Whether you have grandiose ideas of becoming a well-known bestseller, or you prefer to stay "small," one thing you will need to think about is your book launch.

Finishing a manuscript and turning it into a published book is a huge accomplishment, often compared to "giving birth." As I mentioned in a previous post on how to turn your writing dreams into reality by keeping a journal, more than 80% of people say they want to write a book, but less than 1% do.

I would like to share with you some ideas on how to do a book launch that’s not your usual type. I have a podcast you can click on if you'd like to hear me speak on this topic. I have also written out the script below to help you follow along.

Hi, I’m Sonia Marsh, the founder of the weekly “My Gutsy Story” series and the author of Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island, which will be available on Amazon and bookstores on August 21st.

Today I’d like to give you some ideas on how to do a book launch that’s not your usual type.

How many of us enjoy sitting behind a desk and waiting for people to come up to us?

Here are some ideas

• Do not call it a book launch, but a book launch party. Yes, doesn’t a party sound like more fun than a boring old-fashioned launch?

• Schedule your date and time with the bookstore manager, and start telling people about it two months before the date. My book launch party is on August 30th, and I’m bubbling with Gutsy enthusiasm.

• Talk about it with the same enthusiasm you have for planning your wedding.

As Carolyn Howard Johnson says in her book, The Frugal Book Promoter, How to do What Your Publisher Won’t”

“A book launch is akin to planning a wedding. You may not need an elaborate canopy of wedding bells but all the other elements that makes a wedding a success must be considered for a launch.”

• Make some special postcard invitations which you give away to people everywhere. Your friends, neighbors, people at the gym, store owners you know and like, I mean everyone.

• Insert 5 invitations into each ARC, (Advanced Reader Copy) you send out, or just drop them off or mail them and tell your friend to tell everyone she knows about your launch party. If she lives in another state, tell her when your book will be released and that you’d be more than happy to do a Skype interview with any book club she of her friends belong to.

• Get sponsors for your event so that you are “inviting” other local businesses to participate and this will make it easier to get press coverage.

• Walk to each restaurant or store close to your bookstore, and introduce yourself. Bring a copy of your book with you, and tell them how many people you expect to attend: I said 75, because that’s how many Laguna Beach Books can hold “as far as standing room.”

• If it’s a restaurant, ask them if they can offer an appetizer and that you picked them because they… (have a great Caribbean dish that fits perfectly with your theme.)

• If it’s a store, for example I went inside a chocolate store, a hair salon and a home linens store, and asked if they would like to provide a gift basket for the raffle at my book launch party. I told them to send me their logos to add to our publicity campaign. So far they all said yes, including a Caribbean restaurant that’s donating rum punch.

So be Gutsy, and just go out there and ask. What’s the worst thing that can happen? The word “No.” That’s not the end of the world.

Please share some of your own ideas for book launch parties that have worked for you.

Thanks, good luck to you, and keep the conversation going.

You are invited to my book launch party on August 30th, at Laguna Beach Books. Hope to see you there!