Gearing Up for A Book Release
How to create interest in a book before release
Building momentum for a book that isn’t out yet is one of the trickiest things to accomplish.
For starters, you don’t have any reviews yet to validate your story. Secondly, you don’t want to give too much away and spoil the plot. And third, you have to pique readers’ interest enough that they will remember it at release time.
Personally, this is still something I’m tweaking and working on every time I publish a book.
Ideally, you already have the marketing material available, right? As in the actual book content itself.
It should be easy, right?
Here are some ideas that generate some interest:
Sharing quotes from your book on social media
Sharing an excerpt via an image or being read aloud
Doing character, description, location, and cover reveals
Talking about your writing process
Sharing some details if you had to do any research
Giveaways
These are great but they are also what everyone else does too.
Sometimes in addition to these other great marketing ideas I’ve already listed, we need to think outside the box.
For example, my next book to release this summer is called Escape City with the premise of a zombie escape-room-style amusement park. Five influencer teenagers get to test the park before it opens and discover that the animatronic zombies are more deadly than they appear.
This required me to think outside the box because, for the most part, I believe I have a unique idea.
Here are some ideas that I’ve come up with so far:
Post a riddle or two from the book and see if anyone can figure it out (for this I would choose ones that didn’t need context clues from the plot as some of the riddles do)
Ask the questions on social media: If you were going to participate in a zombie escape room-styled theme park that takes 3 days to complete, would you? #EscapeCityBook and If a zombie apocalypse happened, tag someone you’d expect to be the first one to go. #EscapeCItyBook
Create a book trailer for YouTube (could prove challenging based on my topic)
Create a website for Escape City for readers to explore. Have riddles on there for them to solve and such
Research podcasts and blogs that cover the genre, follow them and reach out before the release
Make an Escape City survival manual and a brochure for Escape City
Share this excerpt from the book: “Now, the mission is clear. You will have three days to make it to the capital at the center of the city where you will be extracted from the hell hole that is Verismo City,” the general continued. “Along the way, you will encounter the undead citizens who used to thrive in this desert city. You must know that if you get close enough, they will reach out to bite, grab, or scratch you at will. If you are to encounter, what we consider, a hoard of zombies, you may find sewers or fire escapes as a means of escape or barricade yourself in an abandoned vehicle. Should you find yourself in need of defense, we will be providing a weapon to use against the undead.”
Make a video for readers using someone who looks like the general to read the intro video text that the influencers see upon entering the starting zone to Escape City
Create a map of the city so readers can follow the characters
Now while all of these ideas sound great for pulling readers in, they are going to take some work on my part.
The point of building momentum for your book until its release is to make your book unforgettable.
If you can achieve this, then your book will do well. But it takes work to do it.