How to talk about your book ahead of publication
I have spoken to many authors over the years, and often before their first book comes out. This can be quite a tricky time as you navigate the publishing process, try to understand what happens and when, and probably most challenging of all - what exactly is expected of you.
A very frequent question I am asked is how to talk about your book before publication day.
At first you might think there isn’t much to say until your book is a real thing available to buy, you couldn’t be more wrong. Your job as an author is to make as many readers and other useful folk such as journalists, bloggers, other authors, booksellers interested in your book, so by the time it’s available to buy, they’ll be hovering over the Buy Now button.
This post relates to how the traditional publishing process works and will vary massively depending on imprint or publisher. You will get a different experience with an indie press to a big 5 publisher, obviously. If you are self publishing most of this can be easily adapted.
What follows is a list of things that could happen in the run up to your publication day alongside the editorial process:
Your book deal is announced (this might be in the trade press and/or on your agent’s or publisher’s website)
Your publisher will send you a book marketing & publicity plan with dates
Your publisher will send your book to other authors hoping for testimonials
Early copies of your book will be sent to booksellers, bloggers, journalists and other influencers
Your book will be made available on NetGalley (which will send it to a selection of bloggers, booktubers and others who request it)
You will start to get previews and quotes for your book
Your publisher might take you to bookshops to introduce you and your book to booksellers
Your publisher might have an event to introduce you to booksellers, bloggers, journalists and other influencers
Your publisher will send you marketing assets for your book so you can use them across your social media and on your website
Your book cover will be revealed
The narrator of your audiobook will be announced
A pre-order campaign will launch
Your book might appear in media or on blogger sites - top 10 debuts to look out for etc
You might get some other publicity that your publisher has organised (this could involve you writing aritcles, answering Q&As or recording podcasts)
Your publisher might secure festival spots for you for post publication
Your publisher might organise bookshop events for you during publication week including a launch event
Your publisher might pay for a book blog tour organiser to run a tour during publication week
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but as you can see, you’ll be able to share almost everything on it.
And, of course, you’ll also be able to talk about your writing and publishing journey during this time, including:
Getting an agent
Getting a publisher
Working with your editor
About your book
What book research you have done
What inspired you to write
Where you write
How you learned your craft (books you read, courses you’ve been on etc)
Your favourite/local bookshop
Which books and authors you love
You can also create excitement about your book by doing the following:
Post the best bits of previews and testimonials from other authors
Post an extract of your book - this could be the first few pages or a particular section of your book you think will excite readers
Post a countdown to publication day
Introduce your characters
Run a competition
Run a giveaway
Talk about your book with another author or blogger (online Q&A or post on your blog)
Write some questions for book clubs and share them
Talk about any tropes that are in your book
Talk about any locations in your book especially if you’ve visited them
It is good to get in the habit of thinking of ways you can boost everything you do, especially if you are starting out and don’t have many followers yet. In simple terms, can you:
Ask your publisher to share as many posts as possible
Share everything your publisher posts about you
Build relationships with bloggers and other influencers and ask them to share particularly important points. You’ll see bloggers doing over reveals for example
Build relationships with other authors and ask them to share. Collaborating with other authors is such a brilliant way of boosting each other’s work.
Can you re-work the content for different social media - can you turn a post on Instagram into a to-camera post on TikTok etc?
Presenting your content in different formats is also useful - think about audio and video as this will attract different readers.
Posting in established social media pages and groups - there are many Facebook groups for readers, bloggers, and authors - think about who the audience of the group is before you post & follow their guidelines - quite often they’ll have a promo post once a week or month - stick to that.
This might not be that easy early in your career, but can you work with a bookseller and encourage them to boost your posts and content. An idea here is seeing if your local bookshop will sell your signed copies and/or host an event/signing. Start building this relationship as early as you can.
Also, if you are planning an author newsletter (I highly recommend you do), then offer exclusive things to encourage new sign ups. If you already have an author newsletter be sure to share everything there too. (Your subscribers are your most valuable prospects)
These are all the free ways of boosting your content and there are plenty of ways of spending money to extend your reach too - boosting posts, paid-advertising, paid-for tools - but I would recommend you stick to the free ways so you grow organically to start with and avoid throwing money away because you’re not quite sure how and where to spend it.
You will need to sign up (it’s free) to see all of the book marketing graphics and creative examples
You will need to sign up (it’s free) to download this free pre-order report.
By the way, I have only touched on pre-order campagins, but this is something you’ll notice publishers focus a lot of energy on. I have a report that you can download which explains pre-orders in detail with lots of creative examples (you will need to sign up to The Empowered Author membership to access this - it’s FREE).
The Creative Archive is the FREE area of the site that has book marketing graphics for all areas of book marketing (again FREE when you become a member). There are two sections that relate to talking about your book ahead of publication:
Teaser content creative examples across all genres
Pre-order marketing assets across all genres
