Last Friday, May 1^st, we celebrated the worldwide release of Set in Stone in both ebook and hardcover formats with a local book launch.  The event proved very successful and we had a lot of fun meeting friends both old and new and sharing this great book with many soon-to-be fans.

This was my first book launch.   Prepping for the launch was an exciting, but sometimes daunting process.  I thought it might be useful to share the journey with others.

The first thing required for a book launch is a book.  If that’s only an ebook, you can still hold a launch party, although it tends to be more focused on the online portion of the launch since there’s no physical product.  For Set in Stone, I had to orchestrate getting my 100 copies in time.  That required uploading the finalized cover and interior to the printer weeks prior.  I missed a required approval for a proof, delaying shipping, which almost wrecked the plan.

The second most important thing for a successful launch is a great location.  This proved more difficult than I had expected.  I was surprised when the local bookstore declined to host it, as did the local library.  Who better to celebrate a new book?  I still don’t get that response, but by not hosting the event at the local bookstore, I saved buyers money.  The bookstore requires 40%, and on a big book like Set in Stone, that’s a lot of added cost.  I was able to give people an excellent deal.

We eventually connected with the wonderful folks at the local Lego store.  Rebel Bricks was the perfect location.  Located downtown, right in the heart of the First Friday crowds.  The owners were super enthusiastic about the idea of hosting the book launch, and gave us use of their back party room free of charge.  They helped advertise the event and were so excited to have us there.  We couldn’t have asked for a better location or better hosts.

Next, make it fun.  What’s more fun than Legos?  With the help of the folks at Rebel Bricks, my kids designed custom Lego figures to represent each of the main characters of the book.  They were so popular we gave several of them away as door prizes.

Speaking of door prizes, we held a drawing every half hour.  Prizes included one hardcover, three ebooks, four Lego characters, and four supersized chocolate bars.  We also gave away an ebook to one person who commented or asked a question via the online event.

We splurged on refreshments, including a couple trays of brownies and cookies from a local bakery and three pounds of chocolate rocks, which tied in perfectly with the stone-based magic system.

One of the secret fears I had while prepping for the book launch was that I’d be seated behind a pile of books, all alone.  We all hear stories of book signings where no one showed up.  I swore that wouldn’t happen to me.  So that meant we had to get the word out.  We tried several different things to help advertise the event.

• Printed 500 bookmarks with the cover and information about the book launch.
• Printed 10 11×17 posters on card stock with the cover and book launch info.
• Placed posters and bookmarks with several local businesses and the local middle school and high school libraries.  The schools were very enthusiastic since they include a bookmark with every book checked out by students.
• We talked with everyone.  Whereas the book store and the local town library were surprisingly cool to the idea, we found great support from unexpected locations.  Our local bank ended up being extremely enthusiastic and allowed us to set up a display, complete with 2′ x 3′ poster of the book launch.
• Speaking of posters – we gave another big one to the Lego store.  We also made up large posters of the cover and the magic chart from the back of the book to place near the table at the launch.
• We created a Facebook event and invited basically everyone.
• We created a Goodreads giveaway.  By giving away two signed hardcovers, we got over 1000 people to sign up for the giveaway, and over 500 of them added the book to their To-Read list.  We had trouble getting our link to the newsletter sign-up page working with the giveaway, so missed the opportunity to get those interested readers added to our newsletter list.

Then the day of the even arrived and we scrambled to set everything up.  Some of the things we had to consider as we set up for the event included:

• Physical placement of tables, books, refreshments, etc.  We wanted to make sure people could see the display and signs all the way from the front of the store.  We set up the main table with books, flanked by two of the big posters.  We even set the Lego characters on top of the books, which proved to be extremely popular.
• We tried to maximize the space so people felt welcome instead of cramped.
• We smiled a lot.

Other than the physical set-up, there were a few things we had to take into account to ensure a successful launch.

1. Cash or credit?  Since we were hoping to sell books, we needed cash on hand to make change.  We also set up a mobile device (my phone) with a Square card reader linked to my publisher bank to process credit cards.  Verified everything worked beforehand.  With that advanced preparation, we processed almost thirty credit card transactions without any trouble.
2. Newsletter.  You can’t overstate the importance of building your list.  So we had an iPad on hand already open to my newsletter sign-up page.  Every person that came in was asked if they were interested in signing up.  More than a few did so.
3. Drawings.  We wanted to give away door prizes.  So we had to get people to write their names on folded post-it notes and drop them into a bowl so we could do the drawings every thirty minutes.
4. Refreshments.  Spooned the chocolate rocks into small cups to make it easier.  Worked like a charm.

Then the doors opened and people started flowing in.  With the excellent location and timing, we had a constant flow of foot traffic all night.  Many of the people were friends and acquaintances and those who saw the posters, but we did get walk-ins off the street who were just passing by and noticed the signs and the fun.