How to Pre-Launch Your Indie Book

While you’re closing-in on your Indie book, there are several steps you should be taking to pre-launch. Besides the obvious things like writing a great story and hiring a qualified editor, you’ll want to make sure you have started a blog of some type so you have a home base for all your readers to hear about your progress.

Don’t have any readers yet? That’s alright; it’s never too late to get started. To do the job, you’ll need some social media working for you. Unfortunately, self-publishing indie artists have to do all their own marketing. Without it, you’ll never get seen and your book will die on the vine.

So, get over to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest and get your accounts started. Use real photos and make your pages look inviting. You don’t have to go crazy, but some type of similar branding helps.

Once you’ve got your accounts set up, schedule yourself a couple of hours two or three times each week to post a little update about your work, a funny thing that happened on the way to your computer, a few words of wisdom and encouragement for other authors, and whatever else can help draw interest to your work.

And, make friends on each platform by liking posts, retweeting, and posting great photos to your Pinterest boards. That alone will get you, followers. However, you’ll get the most by tapping into your friendly email correspondents and your family members that post to social media. Ask them to be friends on your sites and you’re on your way.

That five or six hours of work each week may sound crazy, but it builds a following. Satisfied guests to your website and social media will be happy to consider your new book. And, you might want to reward all of them with some free short stories!

Now that you’ve got that started and are making headway, get ready to choose an interior layout and book cover (Amazon KDP has reasonable covers, but they aren’t too professional looking). You can find pre-made covers for $35 to $100 and even Fiverr Gigs for $15 that look great.

The layouts at KDP are actually nice. They will be fine if, even if you are only slightly talented. People buy books for the story, not the layout. However, that cover is super important, so don’t skimp on that.

Then, get ready for the next big step, which is launching your book, both locally and through social media. Your story’s important, but marketing will make or break you.