You need a plan.

Releasing a book isn't an easy task. And if you are a new author, putting all of the pieces in place can be confusing and overwhelming. I borrowed a video from my How to Market Your Book course, one that breaks down your release timeline, and everything you need to do. 

Discussed in this video:
- setting a release and cover reveal date
- the best day of the week to release
- when to contact blogs and send out ARCs (Advance Review Copies)
- deadlines you need to set for yourself
- formatting, preorders, and distributors
- cover design, graphics, blog tours, and more! 

Again, this video is part of my How to Market Your Book course - so please ignore any other videos or notes it references, those are all part of that course.

If you'd like to enroll in that course, please click here, or check out my others:

How to Write Your First Novel: http://bit.ly/writeati
How to Publish Your Novel: http://bit.ly/pubati
 

Full Transcript:

This is an exciting moment because they're going to talk about your book's timeline, the things you should do pre released during release and post release. It's just going to be a quick summary of that and setting important dates because it key to successful marketing of your book is to plan, plan, plan, not to just wing it. We want to have a dedicated plan and let's stick to that plan. And so to do that, we need to set our dates early. So I don't know where your book is currently, but we're going to assume it's done or you are in the process of getting it done. Hopefully in a perfect scenario, you're in the midst of writing it, and so we have all sorts of time to plan. But let's set those dates right now and I'm going to walk you through your book's marketing timeline.

So, here I have your release. This is your release. As you can see, there's lots of things to do prior to release. So hopefully, you have not hit your release yet. First off, important dates. This is the start of your pre-release; important date. Red line means you need a date. You need to set a date for your cover reveal. You need to set a date for your actual release. And then at the end of this, we're going to set a date for your first sale; the first time your book is discounted. And I'm going to have a separate video about pricing strategy, so we can talk about that in a little bit, but right now we're going to talk about cover deal and release date. So pull out your calendar and let's pick a release day. Today, the day I'm filming this video, it is May 10th, and I am going to right now and walk through a hypothetical scenario about a book. Let's call it Blindfolded Innocence. I got my book Blindfolded Innocence, I need to pick a release date, a cover reveal date, and I'm going to pretend right now like Blindfold Innocence is my very first book. I am a debut author, let's go through this exercise. So, debut author means that no one knows who I am. I am going to have to do... This timeline is going to have to be much longer for me than if I am an established and well-known author.

So as a debut author, I'm going to pick a release date that is three months out, okay. I know that you are anxious to get your new book baby into the world and you don't want to wait three months. In the scheme of things, what is three months? It is not that long. It doesn't have to be three months. It could be two months. We'll say two months, just to make you happy, okay, so two months out. Today is May 10th, I'm going to look at my calendar; I've got May, June, July 10th. So let's look at a calendar. July 10th is a Saturday. I do not want to release on a Saturday. Let's talk about the best days of the week for you to release. It used to be... The New York Times had an ebook list and that ebook list dictated everything thing in the world, in the world of Indies and publishers, and really dates.

The New York Times did away with their ebook list. And when they did it really opened up every day of the week for release date, which is really nice. Everybody used to only release on Mondays and Tuesdays. Now that we don't care about that, then it doesn't really matter. If you care about USA Today list, then you might want to release on a Monday. But the negative to release it on Mondays and Tuesdays is that you're competing with everyone else who's releasing on Monday and Tuesday, and it's harder as a debut author for your book to be seen. I really like Friday release dates and I liked them for a number of reasons. First of all, people get paid on Friday, so they've got extra money, they're ready to spend it, and they might go buy a book, your book, which is great. Also, Friday is right for the weekend so people can spend Saturday and Sunday reading your book.

The negative is that Saturday and Sunday, not as many people are online, not as many blogs are working. So it's a little bit harder for this first two days for you to really be out there screaming about your book because there might not be anyone there to listen. So I like Thursday or Friday, but it's totally up to you. You can't go wrong. Just be aware on Monday and Tuesday, you're going to be competing with a lot of space on blogs. So, it can be a little more difficult for blogs to talk about your book and also for readers to see your book because they're looking at a lot of books being pushed on them at that point in time. So, I'm going to say Thursday, Thursday, the 10th is a Saturday. I'm going to say Thursday the 15th, sounds good, looks good to me.

A few other things to consider; don't release on a holiday, don't release on a holiday weekend, don't release on Easter, don't release at Christmas time. The reasons is this, almost every year author plans a sale, not almost every author, a lot. Half of authors plan sales or giveaways or big events for the holidays. They go, "Oh, 4th of July sale. All of my books are 99 cents." Great. You are now competing against that author; typically it's like a big author and her 99 cent book versus your new release; that's one thing. Another thing, advertising is super expensive on holidays because all these companies are doing July 4th sales, or Memorial Day sales, or Easter sales. So you're competing against that too. Even if you're not doing ads, your normal posts are competing against those ads, and Facebook is massively pushing those ads because people are paying a lot of money for during this holiday. So avoid holidays, I would say avoid Saturday and Sunday releases because not as many people are online, might not see or remember your book. But then again, you're also not competing against other people on Saturday and Sunday. So that's up to you... And Monday and Tuesday. So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, good days for a brand new author to release.

I'm going to say again, July 15th. You know what, I was looking at June. Sorry, July 10th is a Monday; that Friday is the 14th. So yeah, I'm just saying July 14th. So that is going to be my release day. Write it down, set it in stone; make sure it works for you and your schedule. Make sure you're in town and it's not your kid's birthday party or something crazy like that and cement it because it is done. One thing to consider; do not pick a release state that you are going to be down to the wire to meet because it's going to make your life so stressful, seriously. And it's going to cause you to have a rushed shoddy product that's put together that you don't have time to fix a last minute type or things like that. Give yourself plenty of time. It will make your life so much easier. It will make your book better. It will make your sales better. So pick a release day, set it in stone, July 14th.

Cover reveal again. In this scenario, I'm a brand new author. It's my first book. I'm going to pick a cover reveal two or three weeks out from release; two or three weeks prior to release. I don't want to interfere with the holiday weekend. So I'm going to pick like June 28th, that's a Wednesday. Keep in mind, same things about Monday, Tuesday are crazy for release days; you don't want your cover deal competing with that. So Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday for release day. So let's say June 28th is going to be my cover reveal day, and later we'll pick the date that it goes on sale. We don't have to do that right now. So these are my two dates, they are now set in stone.

As early as humanly possible, I need to set up a cover reveal and blog tour with a publicity company. If money is tight and you do not want to hire a publicity company, in order for a publicist, a book publiciet to do cover reveal and blog tour, I'll put the average pricing below. But just off the top of my head, I want to say it's going to cost you about $200 for them to do both. That $200 will save you so much time. They have contacts, they already know blogs, they already know who to reach out to; they will save you 20 or 30 hours of work. And I am not exaggerating, 20 or 30 hours of work they can save you. So if you have the money, as soon as possible, reach out to a blog tour companies say, "Hey, I want to do a cover reveal on June 28th. I want to do a release on July 14th. Let's go ahead and get on the calendar."

So in order for you to do a cover feel on June 28, that means you need to have the cover by June 28. In fact, you need to have the cover two weeks prior to that, just to give yourself peace of mind. Because if you're hiring a cover designer, they stress, they get behind, they don't always deliver when they say they're going to deliver. Don't tell them your cover avail date; just say I need it by June 14th. So June 14th have the cover done. That'll give you two weeks prior to the cover reveal to get all your cover reveal information together. You can put that beautiful new cover on some graphics and cover reveal graphics, things like that. You can play around, create some graphics that you're going to use the week of and the day of your cover reveal. So two weeks prior to that, you want your cover reveal done and those are the dates that can cover up this.

If your release date is July 14th, two weeks prior to this, you need to have your ebook files formatted and ready to go. Paperback files, formatted, and ready to go. If you have pre-orders set up, you will have to deliver those pre-orders 10-days, might be 10 business days. I think it's just 10 regular days. I'll check on that… 10-days prior to release. You'll have to upload those to Ibook and Nook and Drafts digital or whoever your ebook distributor is if you're using one. So, you need to have those files around the time of your cover reveal. So if you're working with a formatter, make sure they know that deadline, and that means you will need to get your product to them in enough time that they can format it and have it ready. So way back here, as early as possible, make an appointment with your formatter, your cover designer, and a publicity company if you're using one. If you're doing all of it yourself, which is perfectly fine, a lot of new authors do it, a lot of established authors do it. If you're doing all of it yourself, make sure that you're giving yourself enough time to do all of this and to get it all ready.

Now ARCs, A R C- Advance Review Copies. If I haven't told you about them already, I have a whole video of it so you're going to know all about ARCs. ARCs for a brand new author needs to be distributed as early as possible, ideally, two beforehand, in order to get big blogs plenty of time. If you are dealing with a publicity company, they'll give you their recommendations. They know their blogs, they know their blogs calendar, but if you are individually reaching out to the big blogs and I suggest you do that. If you are working with a publicist or not, individually reach out to big blogs or small blogs, any sized blogs, blogs that you like, blogs that you enjoy their reviews and things that they have a passionate following. Reach out to them, send a personalized letter, check out their website. I talked about this in another video, but send them an email saying, "Hey, in two weeks, my book is releasing... not two weeks. In two months my book is releasing, I'd like to extend an advanced copy now. Here's the cover. You're going to stand out because most authors are not this well put together. And they don't plan this far in advance. Here is my cover, attached is my blurb. I mean, here's my blurb, attached are the first three chapters of the book. Please let me know if you’re interested."

I go ahead and attach the ARC if you have it. If you have it, but a lot of times you're not going to have it two months out. But if you have it, attached to ARC, distribute those ARCs early if you're a debut author. If you are a debut author, you have to beg and plead and earn the space on those bloggers calendar. So, that is when dealing with bloggers, distribute them two weeks early or two months early, or at least a month early when dealing with bloggers. If you are dealing with normal readers, you can distribute that ARC more like two weeks prior to release. Because one, they don't have the self-control that a blogger has there. If they really love your book, they're going to go out and like be screaming about it in the streets. And you don't want them screaming in the streets about it a month prior to release because people are going to forget about it. You want them out screaming in the streets during the weeks of your release, the week prior to your release, the first week of your release, and that's when you want them shouting about it. So, you can distribute ARCs a month out to the blogs; follow your publicist advice about when to distribute ARCs, they know their list of bloggers best. And if you're distributing ARCs to individuals, you can do it a week before, two weeks before.

All right, so starting from this moving forward, far out, set up your pre-orders, I'm just talking about the listing. As early as possible, set your pre-order listing on Nook and Ibook. As soon as you set your release date, set up your pre-orders on Nook, Ibooks, and Kobo, if you're going to be on Kobo. As early as possible, set up with your publicist, cover designer, and get your blog tore ready, and your cover reveal set. If you're not using a publicist, as early as possible, start to reach out to blogs about your cover reveal and about your ARC and about your book. Try to get them to sign up for that tour if you're doing it yourself. You want to finish the cover, you want to distribute ARCs, and then your cover reveal cover reveal happens. After the cover reveal, between the time of your cover reveal and your release state, you are in pre buzz mode. You are trying to get everyone excited and you get everybody excited by posting snippets of reviews as blogs start sending you their reviews, or as reviews start showing up on Goodreads because you've distributed ARCs, grab a line or two of those, posts those on social media, posts those on Goodreads and say, check out this great review from Betsy's blog, she said, and then insert a quote. You know, Blindfold Innocence is the greatest book ever read my whole entire life or whatever it is.

So use review snippets, post teasers, make graphics, legal graphics with an image that you own using a line from your book, go through your book and pull great one-liners out. Pull short paragraphs out, post those on social media, on Goodreads; post these things. Even if you don't have a following yet, even if people aren't following your author profile, just post them because when time comes and your book release, you want your social media accounts to have some activity. You want people to be able to go there and go, "Oh, this author is active on social media. let me follow her or him." If you have a trailer, release the trailer. You can make a trailer yourself. You can hire a company to do a book trailer; book trailer is very popular, lots of fun.

And in the seven or five days, leading up to the release, post countdown post, and I will tell you how to do that in a separate video. So, countdown post leading up to release, go on Lockpad; do post every day leading up to release. You can release a chapter at a time or three to four paragraphs at a time in the days leading up to release, and then we have our release day. July 14th, everything is going to work perfectly because you will have uploaded your formatted file 10-days prior. You'll have your paperback ready, it will be live, the only thing you're doing is waiting for Amazon to make your book live. And if you pub it on Amazon two or three days prior to release, it should be up and live by release day.

At released week, you'll have parties, if you want to do parties, if you want to do takeovers, you can do takeovers, otherwise, post a Goodreads giveaway; that's a great way. Do Amazon getaways online; that's a great way to establish. Go into groups, offer to do giveaways on author pages. All of this, we are going to be screaming your book from the rooftops that first week. Continue doing social media posts, continue to offer ARCs to someone, continue to reach out to bloggers say, "Hey, I saw that you loved book XYZ. I think you'd love my book too, this is why."

So you'll have released week, sales will start to fall down; that's totally normal. And a couple weeks, a couple months after release date, three to four weeks after release date, it's time for you to stop celebrating this new release. It's great. It's awesome. It's beautiful. Keep talking about it, but start thinking about your next book and start the promo for that next book early on. So give yourself a month, maybe two months to enjoy this release, but then start focusing on the next book, because this is business, e got feed the animal. And then at some point, once things have kind of quiet down about your book, you want to do a sale. And the timeframe, this will vary depending on how successful you are as an author. If you're a brand new debut author, people are not going to be watching you as closely. You're not going to have a following yet. Well, you know, you'll have start to get a following, but brand new author can have a sale closer to release than an established author.

I am an established author. I have 14 books. I hit the New York Times list like eight times. I do not put a book on sale until it has been out at least a year. That is a hard and fast rule that I stick to religiously. I never put a book on sale during the first year. If I did, it would teach my readers that they can just wait because my book is going to go on sale. Now, if I have a reader who's patient enough to wait for you, if they deserve it, they can get that book on sale. But hopefully my words are so great that nobody wants to wait a year to buy to save $3 or $4 and get the book on sale.

So if you're a new author, brand new author, putting your book on sale could expose it to people who may have never heard of your book before. So I suggest a new author, wait maybe five months out of release, could be shorter. You could wait three months, but I'd wait five months, maybe six months and do a sale. Do a 99cent sale or give it away for free. If it's part of Kindle unlimited, what you might want to do is two or three months after release, put it in Kindle unlimited or KDP Select, and then do a 99 cent or free sale. Do not be afraid to give away your book for free. Let me say that again. Do not be afraid to give away your book for free. Don't, just don't, just get over it. People get all hung up on. It's okay. Give your book away for free.

Especially given back backlist, if people read and love that book, they're going to go buy another book. If you don't have a back list, but if you have a foundation in place, pillars in place, a way to capture that reader and notify them when you have a next book; give your book away for free. Best case scenario, they'll leave a review. A review is well worth a free book, four or five, six months out after release, set a sale 99 cent or free, you're going to see a spike there. It'll give you something to promote. Reach out to all of the blogs or hierarchy or company to do a one day blitz or reach out yourself to all the blogs who shared your book or readers who really shared your book and say, "Hey, do you mind sharing my book Blindfold Innocence? It’s going to be on sale. It's going to be 99 cents or I'm giving away for free. Please share it." So set a date for that.

This was July 14th. Let's say this is going to be December 14th. And sales don't stress out as much, if it's on a Saturday or Sunday; that's fine, you know. I'd still avoid Monday or Tuesdays, but it's up to you. Set a date for sale, promote it in the week up to it, leading up to it, that's when you want to reach out to all of your little people and ask if they'll share it. And then during the sale, shout it from the rooftops, post it everywhere you can find; there is a ton of great sites where you can share your sale book. I'll talk about that in another post, but scream out that sale and hopefully sales will spike, and then you will have some continual sales once you put your book back on at full price.

So this is your book's promotional timeline. I hope it made sense. If you have any questions, absolutely feel free to reach out to me. But what's most important is to pick dates early, stick by them, give yourself plenty of time; don't rush this release. Whether it's your first release or your 20th release, don't rush it; plan it out. Planning is the key to success, absolutely.

My name is Alessandra Torre. I'm a New York Times Bestselling Author of more than 14 novels. And I'd love to help you on your journey. If you visit Alessandratorreink.com, there's a ton of free resources. You can join my Facebook group or check out my online courses. I hope to see you there.