I am on track to publish my 2nd book – Hyacinth – which is a follow-on to Blue Violet. As I get closer to publishing, I’ve realized that this book launch will be different from the first one. And I may need to do more/other activities to promote the book when I release Hyacinth.
With the launch for Blue Violet I did the following activities as part of the publication: create all my social media outlets, use those outlets to announce the launch, and start emailing book reviewers to beg for reviews. For Hyacinth, I’ll still use those social media outlets to announce and I’ll still beg for reviews. But now there’s a little more to it.
I’ll be honest that I’m still looking into my various options and deciding what I want to try. But here’s are options that I may or may not take advantage of…
1. ARC Reviews – This is an advanced copy for review sent to reviewers who are interested. This one is a little tricky in that I’m running up against my Feb. goal for release and may not have a clean copy ready in time.
2. Announce on Social Media – Same as with Blue Violet – only this time I have readers and fans – not just friends and family – to announce to. So possibly a different approach is needed.
3. Requests to Previous Reviewers – With Blue Violet I requested reviews from many people who’d never heard of me or my writing. 1st book and self-published. With Hyacinth I will offer it first to those reviewers who already took a chance on me.
4. Requests to New Reviewers – I will be curious to see if I have additional success with reviewers who aren’t familiar with me. I can now point to a modicum of success – good ratings and reviews on Blue Violet – to possibly garner interest.
5. Blog Tour – I had thought of doing this leading up to the release, but I haven’t set a specific date in February yet, and am getting a little to close to have time to set it up effectively. I may aim for shortly after release to help increase buzz after Hyacinth is already out.
6. Giveaways – I’ll definitely do several giveaways – both leading to the release, and as part of the eventual blog tour.
7. Blue Violet Free Promo – Previous free promos with Blue Violet have been very successful in helping reach new readers. The week I release Hyacinth I may do another free promo with Blue Violet and have links to Hyacinth all over the sites hopefully achieving a double benefit of reaching more readers in general and selling more copies of Hyacinth to get it going.
8. Enter Contests – I know that winning a contest would be huge in terms of helping market my book and reach more readers. However, that requires winning. And contests take money to enter them. I am confident in my book – but there are a lot of good/great books out there. So still debating this one.
Clearly I have a lot to think through and set up over the next month or so. The closer I get to release the more excited and the more nervous I get. And it’s a lot of work and time to dedicate to the book launch. But well worth it in the end. (I hope!)
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