Want an easy way to organize for your book launch? And repeat it for the next book, and the next, etc…? I’ll show you how organizing your materials before the book goes live ensures you will have a great launch.
My last blog post went into how to research and develop an idea (from the marketing standpoint, not the creative viewpoint), and discussed some of the technical details of getting your book ready to go such as who to use (Amazon and/or Ingram Spark?), and what to check off to get your physical book prepped for a book launch.
All of the things discussed below I have done, so it comes from my personal experiences. Your experiences may differ, so be sure to adapt my plan to suit your needs and budget. If you have a better idea or suggestions, be sure to comment and share.
Organizing your book launch
Before you begin, you need a way to get organized. I use two methods: a Google calendar (any electronic calendar app will work); and Workflowy where I can make bulleted lists like the one below.
Here is the bulleted list calendar for my latest book Breathings of the Moon in 2025 I’ve made in Workflowy. The book has already been developed, written, edited and formatted at this stage (see my other blog post on this subject as this is a big topic with too much to cover in on blog post).
In Workflowly, I’ve made a bulleted list with a bullet for each month. Under that month I will list tasks I will need to do to get the book launched and marketed.
Each of my books has a hashtag with an abbreviation (#BOM for this book). Workflowy lets you use hashtags so you can narrow your larger task list down to a specific topic. It’s why you don’t see my other books here, even though my master list references them all.
One of the things I like about Workflowy is I can highlight words and these colors could mean certain things. You can also start to type in a date, and it will give you a condensed calendar date (see the ones in gray). What information you want to track is up to you, but I generally like to know dates something will be happening, and what stage it is in (need to do, in process, done, or ongoing). I also keep hyperlinks to docs or websites that are relevant to that task right there so I can click and go.
Publicity materials you will need to launch your new book
Be aware that Publishing, Launching, and Promoting tasks often overlap each other on a task calendar. This is merely a checklist to know what you might want to do (again, these are just suggestions), but it should give you a general to-do list you can sort for your own books.
Website: be sure to update with your book cover, description, and buy links. In all the excitement you may forget this! I have!
Author Newsletter: Keep updating it with news about your new book. How much you want to reveal is up to you. Some authors like to hold back their covers and reveal them slowly 14 days up to book launch (this doesn’t work if you have listed your book for pre-buy). Others like to give a lot of teaser quotes or do online videos about their book.
Book cover: Make sure you schedule it so your cover artist provides it early enough so you can make your publicity graphics (at least 30 days out, 60 days is better).
Social Media and Publicity graphics: You’ll need various graphics for social media which includes videos.
If you are up to doing this yourself, consider Canva (I’m using the Pro version) because they offer a lot of choices. They offer a team option which I find too expensive, but if you have a group of authors willing to chip in for the fee it can be a great deal.
Some authors like Book Brush (they offer Black Friday deals in November as does Canva). Book Brush can be very helpful if you plan on doing ads on Bookbub or Facebook. However, I still think Canva is more powerful.
I did use Snappa in the past, but after working with Canva prefer their wider capabilities.
Ideally, I like at least 30 square sized 1080×1080 graphics with quotes from my books and my book cover. Having 60 or 90 is even better so you can rotate through them on your social media. (NOTE: Instagram may be changing the size of their standard graphic to 1080 x 1350, so just be aware).
Social media graphics should have the name of the book, or your website. Both if you have the room. I also like to chose backgrounds that have similar colors or a theme to the book, so when I post them they give a nice visual continuity.
Quotes from your book: having key quotes ready from your book gives you an easy way to publicize your book.
Short and long descriptions of your book: Short descriptions are useful for listing on ads and social media. Long descriptions for pitching it to readers, librarians, and bookstores. Keep refining your descriptions – use ideas your best reviews give you or if you have editorial reviews, look in them for those key quotes.
An ARC copy ready for your Street Team about 30-45-60 days from the book launch date. This list comes from your newsletter subscribers. What are ARCS? These are advance reader copies of your book that you will be giving out to readers so they can give you advance reviews. Be sure to read my post about Alpha, Beta, and ARC readers to know the difference and when and how you can use them.
Book cover graphics
I like to have my book cover designed as early as possible. I won’t go into here about finding a book cover artist or how to design one as I’ve done that in other blot posts. See the Writer’s Life category of the blog to find those articles.
Once you have your book cover, you can make graphics for all sorts of social media marketing and publicity campaigns. Some times your cover artist will make these for you as part of a marketing package, so ask what the package includes up front.
If you don’t have these images from your book cover designer, you can use BookBrush to set this up, or I like to use this free page to do it. Another option is AllAuthor which has some options that are especially good if you have a series and you want the book cover graphics grouped together.
A Question & Answer sheet for your book
You can use this in the editorial section in the From the Author area on your book listing at Amazon. It’s also good info to give to bloggers, interviewers, podcast, and reviewers. Feature questions that show what makes this book stand out from the crowd. It’s a good place to discuss tropes your book has, what genre it is, and if you information you want your readers to know that isn’t covered in your book description.
For example, why did you write this book? What do you think is special about it? What are things readers would enjoy about your book?
On Goodreads you can use these and ask yourself the same questions so your followers see them.
Teaser quotes from your book for social media
Special lines from your book used on social media stimulate interest in your book. Keep them short and snappy. Make sure they fit the flavor of your book genre (fantasy, romance, historical, horror, mystery, etc…).
They should be interesting, but not be spoilers. I also think they should be short. No more than 2 lines or so.
Instagram square 1080 x 1080. This same size can be used at Facebook so that is why I prefer it. If doing Instagram reels (1080 x 920) or TikTok (1080 x 1920) or YouTube (1920 x 1080) you’ll want other sizes. (NOTE: Instagram may be changing the size of their standard graphic to 1080 x 1350, so just be aware).
What tropes does your book have?
Put together a list of tropes that your book hits and feature it in your advertising copy. You can find a massive list of tropes to dig into here if your mind draws a blank.
If applying to a Bookbub ad when submitting the information on your book, you’ll want to include these tropes as it helps them identify who would be interested in reading your book, so helps them target the ad to the right readers.
Tropes can also be used in social media graphics like below.
How to use comp authors in your publicity
Personally, I find this hard to do. It’s like witchcraft or something! But if you’ve done your advanced research, you should know what authors and even television shows your book can compare to. If you are mystified on how to approach this, here are a few tips:
What genre is your book? Historical Romance of a certain period, Romantasy, science-fiction, fantasy, or mystery? Start with the genre and see who else is writing books in that genre and hitting the TOP 100. If they are not well known, the comp doesn’t work.
What’s unique about your character? Are they a person of color? Have a certain disability? Hermit? Genius? Skilled fighter? Look for characters that are the same, even if they are outside the genre you are writing.
Is there a partnership in your book? Look for books or even tv shows and movies that have a similar partnership. Mulder and Scully. Frodo and Samwise. Temperance “Bones” Brennan and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth.
Use your comp authors in your social media, website, and when submitting it to Bookbub or on your Library sale sheet. Knowing your comp authors helps you understand your reader and why they would read your book.
Book Descriptions: short, medium, and long
You’ll need a lot of different ways to describe your book for various marketing. For example, your book listing online at the bookseller can be quite lengthy, but the description in a Bookbub Featured Deal must be shorter and describe your book in a sales pitch. The more you understand where you will be marketing, the easier this will become.
By short, I mean 3 sentences or less should give the reader the genre, as well as excite them to read more. This I use when telling people about my book in conversation. Also helpful for blips on various ads.
Medium is about 2-3 paragraphs. This is often the best size for advertising in book reader newsletters like Bookbub, The Fussy Librarian, Freebooksy, or Bargain Booksy, etc…
Long is about 4-5 paragraphs. I use it for Amazon, and other bookselling platforms to describe the plot of the book. Useful for more in-depth advertising, and good to hand out to potential reviewers and interviewers.
Work up a very short teaser for your book
What one line can you use to generate curiosity about your book? This line will also go on your book’s sell sheet that you would give to librarians and booksellers. Here is mine for the Madame Chalamet series that I used on my sell sheet. This is also helpful when putting together newsletter ads or ads for Facebook and Amazon.
Book summary that describes everything about your plot
This description is not for public consumption. It would be given to agents (if you were going the traditional publishing route), librarians, and maybe booksellers. If you are applying for a PCIP to market your book to libraries you will need a detailed plot summary.
Book excerpts that give clues to your readers
Choose your book excerpt to let your reader know several things about your book: your style of writing, a tease about characters and plot, and to excite them about the story. I like to do a chapter of my books as a reader’s sample on my website.
Find a short scene you can share – about a page does well for me. This would be part of your media kit and should intrigue and give an idea of the genre and style of the book. It would go out to librarians and booksellers, as well as media who would like to interview you (podcasts, television, radio, print, etc…).
How to get advance reader reviews for your book
If your book isn’t out yet but you need some reviews, there are several ways to do it.
Build a BETA or ARC team from your newsletter (more details here). They can post advance reviews on Goodreads and Bookbub as soon as the book is listed there, and it is one of the benefits of having the book available as a pre-release.
You can also put your book as an ARC at NetGalley. I’ve written about the pros and cons, how to do it in this blog post.
What are editorial reviews, and would you want them?
Editorial reviews are ones done by those in the ‘trade.’ Think magazine, newspaper, or specialized outlet that reaches booksellers and librarians. There are pluses and minuses to getting them.
PRO
- Helps Indie authors look more legit.
- Gives you quotes that describe your book in a more “librarian” way. I especially liked my Clarion and Booklife (Publishers Weekly) reviews as they gave me succinct pithy descriptions that I’ve used in a lot of advertising.
- Gives you more cred, especially if you are promoting to booksellers and librarians.
- Can be used in your advertising and marketing materials.
- Helps you enter certain contests.
CON
- Can be expensive (expect to pay at least $300 and generally around $400+)
- They will list the negative as well as the positive of your book. Don’t expect it all to be glowing.
- There have been some very poorly written reviews given especially from Kirkus.
- There is no refund or credit if you don’t like the review.
In my opinion, unless you want to sell your book to libraries and bookstores, there is no need to pursue these type of reviews. The average reader doesn’t recognize these names and will buy your book due to bookcover and description.
If you want to check them out, I suggest getting a membership with a professional author organization (these links take you to IBPA which offers members a discount).
- Blue Ink
- Clarion I found very open to reviewing Indie authors if you give them a well-edited book.
- Publishers Weekly / Booklife they seem to like more traditional stories, but I got a decent review.
- Kirkus has had some very scathing reviews by Indie authors so Google first. I have heard that the quality has gone down.
- Indie Reader seems to like books that fit into a mold. If you are a little different, don’t expect them to like it. JMO.
- Book Review Directory I haven’t used.
There are many more to check out than these listed here, but these are the top contenders.
Pull quotes from book reviews
Once you start getting reviews, you can pull out key phrases and lines that serve as that “wow” criticism for your story. These can also be used on social media, as well as supplied to potential interviewers (podcast, blogs, etc…) to give them something great to say about your book.
Find reviews that highlight details YOU want to be noticed. For example, if you want the “twists” in your book to pull readers in, find reviews that talk about that. For my reviews, I usually chose ones that talk about it being a page-turner, can’t put down, and love the characters.
Here’s an example of how I used pull quotes in an Instagram Reel.
Some people like to take a screenshot of the review as it is on the website, whether that is Amazon, Bookbub, or Goodreads. It does give an official look to it, includes the entire review, and a date with a name. But I think it is type heavy and IMO most readers would scan past this on a social media feed so I’ve started highlighting some of the best quotes when I use these review blocks.
I prefer to pull certain quotes and make my another type of social media graphic (below). I believe it is easier to read, gives me a chance to show my book cover, and make the graphic into a theme that fits the other graphics I’m doing for this specific book.
Set up a Goodreads Giveaway
Most authors seem to hate Goodreads, but I love them! One of the options I really like is putting together a giveaway for my readers. This helps to build excitement for the book as readers put your book on their wishlist to be notified of the giveaway.
For my marketing I set up the Giveaway to start about 4 weeks from the release date. To make it happen, your book must be up at Amazon as a pre-release and you need to have uploaded a book file that was accepted.
I give up to the maximum number of books – 100. It’s an easy way to track to see if people are staying engaged with your series by the number requested. Personally? I think it is a very cheap way ($100) to market your book.
Find out more about Goodreads as this blog post about setting up your page, and this one about reviews and marketing.
Set up newsletter ads on dates you do a book discount
The area about newsletter ads got too big that I’ve split it into a post by itself that I will be posting in February. For a brief summary though, make sure whatever newsletter ads you do are on a standalone day so you can track their effect upon your book sales.
Below is an example of one of my months where I will be doing a promo stacking campaign for Delicious Death. When I have a promo confirmed it is in green. Yellow means I am in the process of applying/waiting. Red is a special alert for me to pay attention to something.
I have another blog post that goes into details on how to set up newsletter ad promo stacks.
Use a Bookbub pre-release alert
If you have over 1,000 followers on Bookbub, you are given the chance to buy a pre-release alert for two notifications to be sent to your followers that you have a book releasing. This is a very low cost (less than $10 for me) and you set it up via your dashboard and chose the date the notifications are sent out. It doesn’t have any of the qualifying hoops to jump through that the other Bookbub advertising requires.
Try for a Bookbub Release for Less notification
I got one of these for one of my other books even though the book was full price so you don’t have to discount it. It was a great push for the book, but I did it more to keep my name out there not to sell books. Definitely the Featured Deal option is much better if your goal is to sell books now, and then only if your book has a great price.
Some authors feel the New Release option doesn’t pay back. Only you can answer if this would be a good option for you, but some things to consider is 1.) how many Bookbub followers do you have? 2.) is the book a hotly anticipated release? 3.) Is the price really appealing?
Like all things Bookbub, you have to submit and be accepted. Details here. Improve your chances by knowing your book tropes, your comp author, and having reviews you can submit.
Should you do a social media book tour?
Back in Instagram and Facebook’s heyday, your book could be shared with several book review accounts on scheduled dates via a book tour. You would get a decent amount of publicity from it. IMO this is no longer true. Certainly try one if you want, but don’t expect much to happen.
If your books are in the romance genre, you may have better luck using book tours as they seem to be more romance, trope oriented.
The one source I consistently use is Itsy Bitsy Books, and that is only because I gain reviews from the book tour. Do I gain book sales? No.
Some other book PR websites that offer book tours (some I’ve used but with mixed results):
There’s been so much hype around TikTok but it has an uncertain future and I have yet to see any book PR group provide a package that promotes via TikTok successfully.
What else to do for a book launch?
How much you will do depends on a lot of factors, such as how much you will spend on marketing. Do you have a large newsletter list? Do you have ARC readers right now? Do you plan on doing editorial reviews? What about advertising in reader newsletters?
I’ve just covered the tip of the iceberg, but if you do the above you should be ready for almost any direction you plan on going with your book launch marketing plan.
Need more advice for writing, publishing, or marketing your book? Check out my Writer’s Life blog posts. You can also subscribe to the blog to know when I publish another one in the Writer-help series.
