www.booklaunch.com Long Game Launch Plan
The Long Game Launch is focused, not on selling a ton of books the first week or even month your book is out, but on selling as many books as possible in the first year. This does two extremely important things for you: 1. Helps You Learn - Building a successful author platform for marketing your books is a learned skill just like playing the guitar, surfing, or even writing. By not putting pressure on yourself to make something happen all at once, it gives you space to learn. 2. Builds Towards Your Next Book - The process of the Long Game Launch naturally helps you build a platform that will let you launch your next book in a much bigger way. As you go through this checklist, don t feel like you have to do everything at once. Instead, focus on chipping away at each thing and learning the process over the first year that your book is out. This is a much more satisfying way to launch your book and sets you up for success in the future.
Identify Influencers Post 1 LAUNCH STEPS month until publish date Begin filling out the Outreach Spreadsheet. Go through the all of the Influencer lessons and do the research to find influencers and decide on the right ask. Plan the Content What content are you going to share from the book? How are you going to share it? NOTES: Early Readers Get the book into the hands of early readers. Their input is going to help shape what content and giveaways you ultimately choose. Initial Influencer Outreach Influencers are planning their content schedule sometimes months in advance. By touching base this early, it gives you a chance to get on their calendars and increases your likelihood of getting a yes. Since all your research is already done, this is just a matter of sending the emails.
NOTES: Create Media Kit Put everything in one place that influencers may need to help promote your book. Your bio, book cover, blurbs, back cover copy, etc should all be in a central, easily accessible location. Create Shareable Assets Setup the page, links, images and other shareable assets that you are going to make available to your fans. Again, getting this done now will save you stress and hassle in the coming months. Continue All Outreach Continue identifying new opportunities and doing outreach. With the exception of some followups and nailing down details, everything should be in place and ready for you to execute on. Launch Book Landing Page Last month you got your media kit up, and now it s time to build out your book page. Your cover art, description, headshots, blurbs, etc should be ready to go, so use them to build out your book landing page. Even if
NOTES: you re still waiting on a few things like getting your book available for pre-order in all of the stores, it s good to stay ahead of these things and have as much done as possible. Create Launch Content Write all of the emails and create all of the content that you are going to send over the course of the campaign. Create the videos, whitepapers, short stories, downloads, etc and put them all up on your site to easily share and access. Roll with the Punches Throughout this course and this PDF, I ve encouraged you to get things done far in advance. The reason is problems will crop up. Things won t work as planned. You ll have to scrap one of your launch emails and rewrite it. You might have to reshoot one of your giveaway videos. You just never know. So plan for the unknown. No launch I have done has gone 100% as planned. Get everything else done in your plan so you will have the time and focus to roll with the inevitable unplanned events that come up during the last month of your launch.
NOTES: Have Fun! You re sharing your book with the world and you ve worked hard to do it! Take at least a little time to set back and enjoy.
Post 1 POST LAUNCH month until publish date As you execute different aspects of your Long Game Launch, make sure you take extensive notes on what is working and what s not. Post-mortem Take the time now to write down everything that happens during the launch. Be thorough and specific. You ll be surprised how much and how quickly you will forget. Send Thank You Notes Make sure you thank the people that made your launch possible. Email everyone involved with the launch and take the time to handwrite thank you notes for those that played the biggest role. Plan the Future The launch is merely the birth of your book. It has a long life ahead of it so take the time to plan the next months and years of its existence and how it fits into your writing career.