Famous author, Diane Rapp has graciously agreed to share her wisdom and experience in launching her latest book, 'Dragon Defense'. This is book three in the 'Howl of the Wolf' series. Here is her story:
Several people who participated in my recent DRAGON DEFENSE
launch party asked me to describe what I did to prepare for the party. Since my science fiction novel was set on another
world, I needed to create pictures to introduce people to the planet Drako and
my dragons. The following suggestions
apply to any type of book.
One month before the
party:
1.
Decide on the “theme” for the party and take pictures
of food and drink that might be served at a real launch party. My food was Tex Mex, so I took photos during
a real party I attended. The people at
that party thought it was fun and got interested in attending the FB launch.
2.
Take or find pictures that represent characters or
scenes in your book. I visited Shutterstock.com
and bought background pictures, pictures of dragons, a picture of a lizard man,
and pictures of pretty girls.
3. Modify your pictures to fit your book. I used Photoshop Elements 10 to change the pictures (you can download a 30 day free trial from Adobe). I deleted backgrounds around my characters, and altered hair, eye color, and added wild colors to the dragon wings. It took a bit of practice, watching help videos, and trial/error to get it right. Give yourself plenty of time if you’ve never done photo editing before and save the finished pictures into a file for the party.
4. Write descriptions that might go with your pictures and save them into a word processing file for later cut/paste.
Arrange for guest
blogs and interviews:
1.
Line up several bloggers willing to post character
interviews, reviews, or guest blogs and take time to write these blogs. I wrote one blog about my writing process,
three character interviews, and one blog to announce the launch of the book and
invite people to the party.
2.
Get advance reviews of your book by sending volunteers
copies well in advance. The reviews help
promote your book during and after the party.
Invite guests to the
party on Facebook:
1.
I scheduled my party for a full week. This was too
long as interest waned after the first couple of days. People still looked at my pictures during the
rest of the week but I got fewer comments.
2.
When you schedule an event, you can invite guests on
your main FB account. Click on invite
guests and then click on the name of each person to send them an
invitation. Make sure to describe the
party in the invitation.
3.
Tell people how to disable the notifications if they don’t want to get constant e-mails. You may need to tell people again during the
party if they complain about too many e-mails.
(Click on the little star at the top right of the page and on the pull
down menu click turn off notifications.)
4.
On the day the party starts post a description of the
party and the page link on every FB group that you belong to. Ask people to drop by and have fun. IF you have a contest going, invite them to
enter and tell them how.
5.
Post a blog about your party, contest, and book launch
on your own website. If you’re a member
of Goodreads invite people to the party using your Facebook page as an
address. Post your blog on Goodreads
too.
6.
Tweet! Make sure
your Facebook page sends tweets every time you post something. This gets people to drop into the site out of
curiosity and some come back.
During the party:
1.
Be prepared to check in on the party often to answer
questions and make comments. Post new pictures
periodically (not all at once) with your comments on both your author’s page
and the party event page. I don’t know
why the party can’t be run from your author’s page alone but the invites on FB
take people to a new party page. It’s
easy to copy and paste. You’ll get more
people looking if you post on both pages.
2.
I changed the banner on my author’s page every day and
posted a comment that related to the banner photo. I also posted the same picture on the party
page with the description. This keeps
the party fun and keeps people interested.
3.
Run a word game to keep the party fun. Using the title of my book DRAGON DEFENSE, I
asked people to make as many four letter or more words from the letters. Since my wolves are modeled after my German
Shepherd Dog, I scheduled another game. I
posted my dog breed and the next person had to use the last letter of the name
to post another until we ran out of possibilities. These gave keep people involved.
4.
The pictures I posted were a great success and garnered
most comments. I posted pictures of
wine, margaritas, Tex Mex food and pizza.
The pictures of scenes and characters got people talking about the book. Over a hundred views of each picture
occurred, although not everyone made a comment.
Results:
1.
The goal of your launch party is to introduce your
book. Don’t expect hundreds of sales unless
you’ve already got people waiting in line to buy them. I got 1405 views on the Facebook pages during
the party. If the average return was 5
times, 281 different people learned about the book. It was a good start.
2.
I sold a few copies of the new book but I also sold my
other books. I held a contest on my
website for a poster of my cover and the winner was very happy. You might get more people to your website by
giving away large dollar gift cards. Set
your goals for exposure and follow up next month with other promotions.
Thank you, Diane, This is valuable information that will help countless authors. Thank you so much.
Here's where you can find Diane and her awesome books:
10 comments:
Kathleen,
Thanks for posting this guest blog. It was lots of fun running the launch party and I feel it's another good tool for authors to introduce a new book to potential readers. Have fun and enjoy the process.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Diane. I will be doing some sort of social media launch for my next book so I'm watching all these launches with great interest. Good luck with your book!
Thank you for the post. It was very informative. I had been one of the visitors, and I could see how your launch progressed based on your planning for the event. Like most events, PLANNING seem to be the best preparation for a successful outcome. All the best with the book sales!
Thank you for posting this. I was one of the lucky people to attend Diane's launch and it was so much fun. I learned so much just from participating and watching how Diane managed the launch. I had my own launch on www.facebook.com/KennaMcKinnonAuthor with a link to a separate launch page. I think it was quite successful, and will have another one for SpaceHive on August 10th. I'm looking forward to talking to Diane again before that, and perhaps having her participate. She is a wonderful author and a great resource.
I attended Diane's launch party also and as the party progressed my first thought was "THIS is the way to go." Second thought was "Why didn't I think of something like this?" Diane has created the model for a fun, interactive launch party and even before seeing this post, I took notes for my next book launch. Thanks for paving the way, Diane!
Thanks so much for sharing your secrets -- and all the work -- behind your great party. Inspiring!
I'm overwhelmed by all the response. Thanks for the kind words. Let me know when you have a FB party and I'll join in the fun.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I am definitely going to try this with my next book, due out around the holidays!
Thank you so much! I am planning my book launch right now!
Good luck with your launch party! Congrats! And another thank you to Diane for sharing her experience : ))
Post a Comment