Welcome Ginger Monette who is here to show us how to build an author platform and send your book off with a bang!

Your manuscript is in the hands of your editor, and you’ve got the big release day circled on your calendar.

What now?

Should you start advertising? Tweeting?

It’s little early to alert the media, but there are a host of pre-launch foundations new authors need to put into place before they release their baby to the world. Let’s get right to the checklist.

-Create a new email address to use exclusively for your author correspondence. It will keep your writing correspondence separate from your emails from Aunt Sue and Old Navy and allow you to see at a glance any unopened correspondence and emails needing immediate attention.

–Create an email signature line and maybe a “one-liner” that describes in a nutshell what you write.  Begin using it so your friends and associates will know you’re an author. Mine is:

~Ginger Monette

Author Wholesome WW1 and Historical Fiction

www.GingerMonette.com

-Research web hosts and build a website. If you’re leery about making a long-term financial commitment, choose a free hosting service that has the option to upgrade later.

Before you start designing, take advice from experts like Tim Grahl and Jane Friedman. Then look at other authors’ websites for ideas and inspiration.

-Research social media platforms and start getting active on those that best reach your target audience.

-Develop a bio—a short, middle length, and long one.

-Create an author page on Goodreads. And when your book goes live, add your bio to your Amazon author pages in ALL the countries where you’ll be selling.

-Get a headshot. Add it to your website, Amazon and Goodreads author pages. Use it as part of the header of your newsletters as well. Readers are more likely to remember you if they can attach a face to  your name.

-Will you do a blog tour? If so, research blogs that could be a good fit. Make a spreadsheet that includes blog address, contact email, number of followers, and a few sentences about why it made your list.

-Subscribe to book marketing experts like Nick Stephenson, Tim Grahl, and Chandler Bolt. Take notes on what you read/watch.

-Make a list of potential people to be on your launch team who will be willing to leave a review of your book on launch day and share it on their social media. Friends and family are fine if that’s all you have, but readers who love your genre are MUCH better.

-Start formulating a long-term (written) marketing plan: Who specifically is your audience? How will you reach them? Will you offer your book for pre-order? What pricing strategies/sales might work well? What book marketing services/promotors look like good fits? What’s your marketing budget? What are good places to advertise?

-Will you offer some sort of freebie to entice people to sign up for your newsletter or pre-order your book? If so, create it now. Authors commonly offer a short story, bonus chapters, downloadable notes, or other exclusive material.

-Will you need a book cover? If so, what ideas do you have how it should look? Browse other covers in your genre for ideas, then search stock image sites to find appropriate images. If you are self-publishing, research designers, or choose a service like 99Designs, Upwork.com, Reedsy, or even Fiverr.com if your budget is bare-bones.

-Compile a media kit to have all the necessary advertising elements in one place: blurb, bio, excerpt, book info, images, etc. Mine is here.

-Choose quotes/excerpts from your book that would make good teasers. Maybe even play around with Canva.com to learn how to easily make free teasers, Twitter banners, FB headers, etc. (All the graphics in my media kit and the video slides on my FB page were created at Canva.com.)

-Search for images appropriate for your cover and for graphic teasers for your book. These sites have free public domain images: Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash, and Wiki Commons. (Not all Wiki Commons images are licensed for commercial use, but they have oddball stuff you may not find anywhere else.)

Feeling overwhelmed? It is a LOT of work, and most of these tasks take an ENORMOUS amount of time. If you have deep pockets, you can hire experts to do many of these tasks for you, but they will still require your input. So start early and give yourself plenty of time. I spent nearly three months just educating myself on current trends in book marketing. (Yes, I believe in being thorough.) But when I launched my book with a 23-day blog tour, I was able to do it with confidence as I had my marketing foundation firmly in place.

What do YOU still need to do?

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Join us on Friday for Laura Stapleton’s recap of RT!

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Bio: Ginger currently writes riveting romances inspired by Donwton Abbey and Jane Austen. Her use of compelling plot, vivid historical detail, and deep point of view has earned her stellar reviews for her Darcy’s Hope saga and a grand prize for flash fiction. Living in Charlotte, NC, Ginger enjoys Pilates, period dramas, public speaking, and reading—a full-length novel every Sunday afternoon.

–www.GingerMonette.com

-If you love Period Drama or Jane Austen, join Ginger on Facebook at Ginger Monette Author.

Darcy’s Hope ~ Beauty from Ashes

Downton Abbey Meets Pride & Prejudice:

Escape to the era of Downton Abbey and experience all the drama of World War 1 alongside Jane Austen’s iconic Elizabeth Bennet & Fitzwilliam Darcy. You’ll watch their tender love unfold as they learn to work together and reconcile their differences at a field hospital only miles from the Front.

“…an exceptionally moving story complete with a compelling plot, danger, mystery, action, introspection, vivid detail, and an emotionally wrought romance.” ~Austenesque Reviews

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