So You Want to Self-Publish: Stage Eleven

STAGE ELEVEN: PRE-RELEASE PROMOTION

There are a few ways you can hype readers up for your book.

Cover Reveal – This is the first impression people have of your book. Make sure this and the blurb are attention grabbers. You can set this up yourself if you know html and don’t mind emailing a lot of blogs. Otherwise you can hire a company to help you with this. A few honorable mentions are: Xpresso Book Tours, YA Bound Tours, and Enticing Journey Book Promotions. 

Release Blitz – 1 spotlight post on a blog, multiple blogs take part in posting on the same day. Information about your book, the cover photo, buy links, teasers, excerpts, and more will be provided to the bloggers. Again something you can set up, but it is a lot of work.

Blog Tour – These can run anywhere from 5 days to a month, just depending how much you are willing to shell out. The blogs can do spotlight posts, include excerpts, do Q&A’s, and more. I would recommend going through a company the first go around just to see how it works. I’ve used YA Bound Tours, Xpresso Book Tours is another reputable agency, and Obsessive Pimpette Promotions does all of these things for free!

ARC Reviews – Providing readers an early version of your book (edited or unedited, at your discretion) to post an honest review on release day. This is a great tactic to generate buzz by having reviews when it releases to the public.

Get professional teasers made and pimp them out on all the Facebook #TeaserTuesday posts. If they have branding on them the better, even if they don’t match the book exactly. You just want something eye catching.