The book launch is the most exciting time in an author’s career and also the most challenging. It’s a time that requires a lot of planning, organization and hard work. It’s your chance to get the word out and let people know about the story you’ve spent months or years writing.

If you want to launch a book, you need to make sure you have all the elements in place — from social media posts to reviews and everything in between.

Today we’ll look at the ultimate fiction book launch checklist. This list contains everything you need to do before, during and after your book launch to make sure it’s successful.

 

The Ultimate Book Launch Checklist for Fiction

Fiction authors are sometimes guilty of skimping on this kind of pre-launch marketing, but it’s a mistake. Readers want and need to access that background information to get a deeper understanding if an interesting new fiction title pops up on their radar. This checklist will take you through everything you’ll need to market your next fiction book.

Two Months Before the Book Launch

In fiction, the most important part is building your audience and creating a buzz for your book. You need to sell your book before you even publish it. So your pre-launch checklist should contain everything you can do to build up that buzz leading to the day of the launch.

Decide on a Launch Date

Decide when you want to launch your fiction book and mark that date on your calendar so that you can plan out everything beforehand — from writing blog posts about what you learned while writing the book to scheduling blog tours for future publications or giveaways for readers.

Create a Pre-Launch Email List

You can send regular emails about the pre-book launch and keep your subscribers interested and ready to leave a review once your fiction book is out. Create a separate email list for your book launch and send them emails with updates about the process as it unfolds. This will keep them in the loop and build anticipation for when it does happen.

Build Your Platform

If you haven’t already done so, start building up your platform on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter before your book comes out. Make sure you have profiles on all relevant platforms and start posting about your new book release on various platforms.

Plan Speaking Events

If you want to expand your reach, you need to go out of your comfort zone and try landing some speaking events — both online and offline. You can participate as a guest speaker in webinars, social media live interviews and local library events. This will help get the word out about your novel and rope in a few more extra interested readers.

Have Your Promotional Materials Ready

You must have many interesting and attractive promotional materials ready to promote your book at least a few weeks before your launch date. Make sure to have a variety of materials instead of using the same ones.

You can try AllAuthor’s Magic Tool and Mockup Banner Tool to create beautiful and lively images that you can use for book promotions. You can further use the Image Editor to add simple messages about your fiction book launch date on your images.

 

One Month Before the Book Launch

Now that we’re nearing the release date, it’s time to go on full throttle and accelerate your book promotions.

Warm Up Your Email List

The first step is to warm up your email list by sending them a series of emails about your upcoming book launch. Make sure to include all the information they need — when and where you’ll be releasing your novel, an idea of what your book is, and any other enticing offers.

Set Up the Amazon Page

You should have already set up an Amazon Author Central page for yourself, but if not — do it now! This is a critical step, so don’t forget about it! It will help you rank higher in search engines and give readers more information about you and your work. Also, remember to place some keywords on your book’s description and keywords fields to boost its visibility in Google Search results.

Offer Freebies for Emails

Send an email to all your subscribers and social media followers about your upcoming book release and offer them something in return if they sign up for your list. This could be anything from a free chapter or part of the story to a free copy of your book upon release or even a discount code for purchasing the novel through Amazon KDP Select.

You may also want to consider giving away some exclusive content only available through email subscriptions, as this will encourage people to sign up or stay subscribed!

Launch Your Book with Price Promotion

This is one of the crucial aspects of launching a book, especially on Amazon. The main goal in the initial few days of your book launch is to get as many eyes on your fiction book as possible. And this is best done by offering discounts or limited-time free offers to increase the number of purchases on your book. This will also help you climb the Amazon ranking, further boosting your book sales.

You can either introduce a discount in the initial week of your book launch or make it entirely free. This will help score some great reviews for your fiction book, which you can leverage in the next few weeks to bolster your numbers.

You can also use the paid ads feature to build up the pre-launch promotions, leading to your book release.

 

On the Day of the Book Launch

The day of your fiction book launch is finally here. It’s time to get out there and sell some books!

• Create an email template to send out to friends and family announcing your book launch. Include a direct link to your book page along with any other limited-time offers.
• Write and schedule tweets promoting your new book. These should include information about what people can expect from reading it and links to the blog post or Amazon page where they can purchase it.
• You can feature your new book on AllAuthor to maximize your promotions. Your book will be featured on AllAuthor’s social media platforms as well as websites to get more publicity.
• If you have very active Twitter followers, consider doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread as part of this promotion.
• Make sure all evidence of pre-orders is gone from your website. This includes any social media posts that mention pre-orders and any kind of countdown clock or timer on your website.

 

A Day After Your Book Launch

Now that your fiction book is already out in the world, it’s time to do some extra promotions.

• Reach out to all your subscribers, requesting them to leave your book reviews. You can use the Review GIF Maker tool to create beautiful reviews of your book and use it for your promotions. This is a great way to increase your credibility and build up your book’s reputation.
• Continue posting about your new novel release on social media platforms along with the countdown to the offer you’re currently running.
• Create healthy discussions on social media about your new fiction book, its theme, characters and any other details your readers will be interested in.
• Reach out to your author community for cross-promotions to get more exposure for your new book.
• If you’re running any paid ads, it’s time to check its metrics and see if it needs any tweaking.

 

Two Weeks After Your Book Launch

Most often, this is when your book discount and offers have ended and are listed at the actual price. This can slow down your book sales, but don’t be deterred.

• Keep promoting your fiction book with different marketing materials. Keep playing around with different themes and have a regular schedule to promote your new book.
• This is the time to magnetize your good reviews. So share the tall praises your book has received to entice more readers to buy.
• You can also edit your book description to add more details, like your best reviews, magazine features, and your Amazon rankings.
• You can use the guest blogging opportunities to get the word about your novel in front of a new reader base.

 

Wrapping Up

Launching a book is hard work, no matter what size your list is, —and the rewards of successful online marketing are well worth it. The book launch checklist is designed to keep you focused and organized so that you can accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. By using this checklist as a go-to resource for your marketing efforts, you can ensure that you are doing everything possible to get the word out about your book on its launch date.