Planning A Book Launch

Writing a book is fun and has so many benefits attached to it. A couple of reasons people decide to write their own book could be:

• Sharing their personal story purely for enjoyment. This can also be rewarding in many ways because achieving this goal is very satisfying.
• Give away their book for marketing purposes or as a gift to customers.
• Gain more work by writing a book.

I am in the process of planning a book launch, for my third, soon-to-be-published book. It’s a very time consuming process but when done well there are a lot of advantages to launching a book properly.

Let’s take a look at some of the things I have done to ready myself for this process:

• Set a goal to start writing my book, with an attainable finish date. It can be easy to procrastinate and make excuses as to why it might take someone longer than it need to when writing a book. The problem can arise if someone writes a book that’s time sensitive but it takes them a couple of years to complete. Maybe the book would be out of date by then?
• Work backwards and list all the tasks that have to be done to not only write the book but also complete all the relevant tasks before the book is sent to be published. Some of these include editing, layout, graphics, to name a few.
• I decided to slightly re-brand my business, Motivational Steps a couple of years ago. It does take a long time to complete this process, because in my case I have been in business since 2001 so have a lot of collateral and other such related items to work through. Getting the brand ready and consistent is critical.

The above list is not complete but everyone has different tasks to complete when writing a book.

Why do I want a book launch is the next question? In my case because my business includes a lot of travel and speaking at conferences I gain a lot more exposure for myself and of course my book by hosting a book launch. This enables me to plan ahead for 2017 to establish a schedule that works for me.

I am a huge fan of social media platforms, when used properly, for gaining more exposure, brand recognition and of course more businesses. I have been gently showcasing my new brand over the last 6 months on these sites to ease my new brand into the limelight and ready myself for sharing my newest book.

This adds even more excitement and anticipation for my book launch, and when it is launched here in Canada I have a good idea how many books will be sold during the book launch.

I also hosted some small pre-launch events when I was in Europe earlier this year and I already have some pre-orders ready and waiting.

My third book will be available on Amazon, so I have taken the time to research the process to make sure when it’s available people can purchase the book from there.

I am also in the process of producing an e-Book, which is something I have not done before so it’s exciting, but also a lot of work involved. Other authors have shared with me an e-Book is the gift that keeps on giving!

There are a lot of other things involved working up to my book launch, including making sure my brand, the look and feel, are consistent on the website as they are on my social media platforms, Amazon, and my new Motivational Steps Store which I will share more about closer to the time!

A book launch is a great idea, my experience in the past when launching my first two books has always been positive and they turned out to be very successful.

It has taken me approximately 9 months from the time I started writing my book until it was sent to the printers. That time frame includes all the above tasks, waiting time for other people to complete work for me and of course some ‘me’ time which is essential.

If you are thinking about writing your own book I can definitely recommend hosting one or more book launches; it really is fun and sets the stage for your future success!