Where should you launch?

How do you get people interested?

Online of offline?

Offline.

(Please be aware of any restrictions or social distancing laws in your area before going ahead.)

If you have the time and a budget for an offline event, then great!

1. Try to be original. Book a strange place that fits with your genre, a haunted house for a horror, a charming wood for a children’s book, a stable if you feature horses, a roof party, a poolside party. You get the idea. An offbeat place will get the press much more interested than the local community centre, but if that is where you want to do it, then go for it.

2. Advertise it well, flyers, newspapers, radio, social media.

3. Ask other authors about their launch parties, get some hints and tips.

4. Plan a few readings. 

5. Have activities. Pin the tail on the werewolf, decorate your own monster mask, a wine tasting, a quiz, a treasure or ghost hunt. See this article on how to wow your guests https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/blog/10-tips-for-a-fun-book-launch-event-ds00/

6. Engage with people. 

7. Have plenty of copies of your book for sale.

8. See if another author of the same genre wants to come along, sell their book and help with events.

9. Have some food and drink, if you can. It keeps people there for longer.

10. Have promotional items to give away.

11. Have competitions to win signed copies or other prizes that tie in with your book. https://writingcooperative.com/how-to-throw-a-successful-book-launch-party-43f91a842d71

12. Have a question and answer time but keep it short and be flexible with the times you do things. (Don’t block out an hour for questions when you only have 20 people and it will take about ten minutes or try to announce a question time when the room is packed.)

13. ENJOY your moment!

An online event

Online events can be run through social media like Facebook. They are cost effective, but it is harder to engage guests. On a plus you will get a wider range of people from around the world and not just locals turning up.

1. Arrange the date. Then start to advertise it all over social media.

2. Have promotions and giveaways

3. Use helpful extras that the social media site offers. Like prescheduling posts on Facebook events.

4. See if you can get another author or two to join you and help with adding some posts or engaging with readers. They can also help with advertising the event.

5. Put on questions, quizzes or activities like find your fairy name or how many of these books have you read? These can be found as gifs or meme formats.

6. Offer signed copies of the book. Look here for ideas https://insights.bookbub.com/virtual-book-launch-events/

7. Put on excerpts from the book, and teasers.

8. Ask for questions from guests.

9. Link to the book.

10. Link to your webpage.

11. Ask for likes.

12. Ask for followers.

13. Link to other sites. 

14. Tell your guests about you and about your book.

15. Link to interviews etc. The article can be a great help. https://write2ignite.com/2018/04/18/how-to-host-a-virtual-book-launch-party/

And don’t forget to invite your family, friends, illustrator, publisher, agent or anyone else that has helped you with the book. They may also help with carrying some of the load, if you would like them to.