Book launch teams are a fun part of the publishing process!
I know everyone doesn’t do a Book Launch Team, but I would highly recommend it. In this series, want to post a little bit about Book Launch Teams (BLTs) and my experience with them.
You can gain so much from a Book Launch Team (BLT). You get some much needed feedback, you get some fresh eyes going over the book (to help you make some last minute corrections) and you can ask them to give reviews.
This matter of reviews is so important. Since you will be running the book launch team prior to the launch of your book, you will have a number of people who have read your book and are, hopefully, ready to give a review the first week your book comes out!
In this series of blogs, I want to explore some of the benefits of doing a book launch team and how to go about it (setting it up and organizing it). I have a lot of content here, so decided to break this up into four blogs. Here’s how it’s divided up:
Blog # 1: Benefits of a Book Launch Team, Goals for a Book Launch Team and The Give and Take of a Book Launch Team (what I offered them, what I asked of them).
Blog # 2: Content and Focus of the Book Launch Team
Blog # 4: Interaction and Responses with your Book Launch Team
Blog # 5: Steps to Run an Effective Book Launch Team (not part of the original four-part plan)
Benefits
Editing: One of the HUGE benefits of running a BLT is to have a whole lot of extra pairs of eyes look over your book. For me, I had 17 readers in my BLTs. I had already had a lot of people (proof-readers, editors, alpha/beta readers, etc.) go over the book, but I was still amazed at how much these 17 young readers found. You will not likely ever make your book perfect, but these BLT readers will help you with this!
Don’t underestimate the value of a group of people who can tell you directly and to your face that there’s a problem. Remember, you can adjust and change your book up till a matter of days before it goes live. Take advantage of their editing skills.
Reviews: As mentioned above, there is also the benefit of getting reviews right out of the gate when the book goes up for sale. You cannot guarantee that one single BLT member will actually leave a review (some will forget, some won’t bother). This is, perhaps, why it is helpful to have a large BLT. Years ago, my wife was a part of a BLT where I think they had over 100 members. In the end, the author still struggled to get 40 or more reviews from her readers. It’s not that people didn’t like the book; they just didn’t get around to leaving a review. You will likely find the same thing.
Feedback: You can hear from a lot of readers, exactly what they think. Some of the feedback I received was useful for my Press Release. It’s also very encouraging. As an author, encouragement is nice.
Hype: You also have to keep in mind that BLTs can create hype. People talk and when someone shares with a friend that they are reading a book for a Book Launch Team and they love it, that’s great promotion.
Goals
You should sit down and ask yourself, “What am I hoping to get out of this BLT?” Make yourself a list. Once you have your list on paper, you can steer the BLT meetings in that direction.
One of my goals was to get reviews. You can’t ask for five-star reviews, of course, but you can certainly ask for reviews. Since reviews on Amazon, Goodreads and more are so important, it was worth doing the BLTs for this purpose alone.
When I advertised the BLT, I laid out my plan of what I was going to do (talk about the book, writing and publishing). I also told potential BLT members that I wanted them to give me feedback on the book. I even asked that they give me suggestions on how we could promote the book in our town, our county, our province, our country (we’re in Canada), the entire world and a little bit into the solar system.
I also had a goal of being able to pour into some younger readers/writers in the community and to meet some more people. Through the BLTs, I was able to reach these goals!
What I asked of them…
1) I asked that they commit to the time we had. This was a bit of a challenge for some. Most committed and were there unless they were sick or something happened. I did, unfortunately, have some sign up and then just not come (which meant someone who would have liked to have come couldn’t because we thought the group was full).
2) I asked that they be prepared to read the book.
3) I asked that they be prepared to give feedback.
4) I asked that they give reviews at the end. Note: I did not ask them to give four or five star reviews (although I would certainly prefer that). I asked that they post reviews based on what they thought of the book. I pointed them in the direction of the sites where they could give a review and away we went. I’ll be blogging soon about Amazon reviews (and how to navigate through the system in terms of asking for reviews). Keep your eye out.
5) Finally, I asked that they have a sense of humor. There are, sadly, people who struggle with the laughing emotion. Since my book is geared toward people who like to laugh, it really wouldn’t be helpful if someone who frowned all the time read my book. They would do nothing but complain and declare that they didn’t think any of it was funny. I already know the humor won’t connect with everyone. That’s life.
You might say, “But you want to hear from people who don’t find it funny.” True… kind of… but at that point in the process, I wasn’t about to change the book to appeal to people who don’t find anything funny. I needed people with a sense of humor.
I would recommend you fill your BLT with people who want to read your book. You should have already received a wide variety of feedback from Alpha and Beta Readers. Focus in now on people who want to read your style of book.
What I offered them
Okay, so… the question you’re probably asking is, what do you offer people to join in?
1) You do not necessarily have to offer people a lot of stuff to jump on board. Let me touch on a few things. First, keep in mind that reading a pre-release copy of a book is pretty awesome. Don’t underestimate the attractiveness of that privilege. Second, my mind slipped and I don’t remember the second thing. Third, people like to read and a BLT is a fun, cool idea. People will jump in for the experience.
2) I also offered them a signed BLT copy. This was an important gift. It is always hard to know how well a book will sell prior to when it hits the shelves. I told my BLT readers that I was going to give them a copy of the book and sign it as a BLT copy. I told them I would only sign those books as BLT copies and, as such, if the book sold a HUGE amount of copies, their signed BLT copy would be one of a select few and could be worth a fair amount. I told them as well that if we only sold two copies then it would not be worth that much. 🙂 Part of the thank-you gift I gave to them was to give this exclusive, signed copy.
On that note, I obviously gave them each a print copy of the book. The cost of that adds up. Keep that in mind when deciding numbers for your BLT.
3) I gave them a gift of a lego chicken (actually, a lego human wearing a chicken suit. One of the main characters in my book is a very strange chicken).
4) The BLT was a chance to interact with an author about his book.
5) The BLT was a chance to speak into the book before it was published.
6) The BLT was a chance to learn about the publishing/writing process. We spent time talking through the process.
Alright, that’s enough for now. To check out all the blogs in this series:
Blog # 1: Benefits of a Book Launch Team, Goals for a Book Launch Team and The Give and Take of a Book Launch Team (what I offered them, what I asked of them).
Blog # 2: Content and Focus of the Book Launch Team
Blog # 4: Interaction and Responses with your Book Launch Team
Blog # 5: Steps to Run an Effective Book Launch Team (not part of the original four-part plan)
Here’s a photo of one of my book launch teams.
Comment below with your own BLT experiences!
Shawn
4 responses to “Book Launch Teams Part I”
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