Book Launch Part 1 – How to do a Book Pre-Launch without spending Millions!

Connect To Authentic Success by Amanda Steadman

Its taken me 3 years to writing the book and about 56 edits later!! Yes I could still be tinkering with it if I hadn’t set a deadline of 13th March 2013 ( my daughter’s 3rd Birthday) as the launch date. I’d wanted to do it along with all the other personal development books that normally get published on January 1st. However with a 9 month old adorable baby girl – she kind of took priority so the deadline got shifted x2 after that! You will read in my book that goals are fab and so are time lines but don’t get anal about meeting them all as you can just add so much stress where it isn’t necessary!

I am investing a reasonable amount in getting this book launched and published, including  pre-launch doo but its way less than what I would have spent if I hadn’t covered much of the ground myself. I did outsource various things from the long list below. However I enjoyed contacting radio stations, blogging, re-editing and assisting with design. It will depend on what your strengths and budgets are. I’ll be sharing more info over the next few posts.

I have been a writer and columnist for a long time but not actually sat down and figured out exactly how to get it published. I chose the Amazon Kindle route as it is the least complicated if you just want to get your message out there. If I had really wanted to – I could have got the book out a lot earlier (I had numerous basic versions i gave away and tested over that three years to get feedback) However I did spend the cash (its a few thousand, not $100!) on getting it to the point that I was really proud of it. I had help from 5 editors – each had their own style, experience and levels of success in publishing, plus my audience tended to be more female up until now although I have received great reviews from men too, which is fabulous as the book is for people who know something is missing in their life but just can’t put their finger on it – male or female! Everyone goes on about target market and as mentioned I believe I attract primarily ladies but also guys who want MORE from life and business, as well as moms that want to work for themselves, career women that want to work for themselves and career individuals that want to get to the top. With this in mind I brainstormed how best to get the message out there for and get the best ‘bang for my buck’!

So I went back to much of my market research (I’d been researching how to write, produce, sell and launch books for about 3 years!) and took out all the key nuggets and KEY STEPS which included for example:

Pre-Writing the Book

Being clear on WHY you are writing the book
Who is your target market
Who are you wanting to SERVE and solve the challenges OF?
Why do you want to work with them?
What is the KEY MESSAGE you want people to GET from your book?
How will you sell the book (Many people pre-sell before publishing. If you feel confident, go with it, especially if you have a corporate market!)

Writing the Book

Making the time to write
Outsourcing the writing
Hiring a book coach
Getting into a group mentoring or mastermind writing group

Producing the Book

Getting the book properly edited (full/deep edit for feedback on structure, content from an editor who KNOWS your genre.I paid good money for this – don’t go cheap on editing. This is an areas you DO need external advice and guidance to CRAFT your book properly (unless its a pure lead generating book that’s less than 50 pages)
Choosing a publishing platform – traditional publishing or self publishing
Choosing a format – paperback, digital, audiobook..

It was a steep learning curve to understand Kindle but luckily I’d done my homework and worked on what was needed. The Kindle Digital Publishing Dashboard is relatively helpful: Here’s a picture of mine and the book upload.

How to upload your book  'Connect to Authentic Success' into the Kindle Digital Publishing Platform

How to upload your book ‘Connect to Authentic Success’ into the Kindle Digital Publishing Platform

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Launching and Selling the Book

Build a platform – this is a big one as it includes pretty much everything you do from social media to live speaking!
Building your social media platforms
Calling in favours from people you have helped in the past
Doing a Virtual Book Tour – this includes, Radio interviews, TV interviews, Guest Blogging as well as physical/Virtual book signings, giveaways and tele-seminars

Ongoing Marketing and PR

A consistent message and contact with your ‘tribe’
A one sheet/Media Pack
Ongoing relationships with Media, TV, Radio, Bloggers
See how you can help other authors and people in your field
Continue with Joint Ventures, interviews
Teleseminars and Product Launches

So I think I’m going to be a little busy making sure that this message and the results of the mentoring programmes are clear and easy for people to access if they need assistance after reading the book.
How exciting…
I’ll be sharing more on the Amazon Launch in the next posts!

 

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