Social Media Tips For Release Day

Ask the Author Podcast Transcript

Episode 40, 11th March 2024

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Ready for the best piece of writing advice ever? Jodi Gibson, author of REINVENTING EMILY BROWN shares a tip that will transform your craft.

Intro

In the intro, Jodi Gibson talks about about her technology challenges and how she keeps things in perspective. She’s also trying out some writing by hand!

Show Notes

• Tip 1: Have a plan
• Tip 2: Do a cover reveal
• Tip 3: Take pre-orders
• Tip 4: Use a design template
• Tip 5: Share interesting things about the writing of the book
• Tip 6: Share early reviews
• Tip 7: Don’t be shy
• Tip 8: Post snippets of quotes
• Tip 9: Create a release day post
• Tip 10: Things might get emotional…

Episode Transcript

This week's question comes from someone who would like to be referred to by their initials. So this is from AK.

**I have my debut novel coming out later this year and I'm wondering if you have any tips for the lead up to and the actual release day with regards to social media. **

Thank you so much for the podcast. I love listening and I can't wait to hear your response. Okay, thank you very much.

Okay, and firstly, obviously, congratulations. Having a debut novel come out into the world is absolutely fantastic, exciting, emotional, unbelievable, all of those things. So no doubt you've gone through all of those emotions already and it's great to see that you are thinking ahead up until your release day. Okay, so, some tips leading up to your launch or up to your release a publication date and for the actual day Okay.

Tip 1: Have a plan

So my first advice would be to have a plan. You can go in and just throw stuff at the wall, so to speak, and see what sticks, or you can have a plan and have an idea of what you want to do and how you want to put your book out into the world. So, first of all, announcing that you've got your book deal, which you've probably already done, and then announcing that your book is coming out. That's the next thing. So you've probably done all this, and I'm not sure which platform you are using, so I'm just going to keep it fairly general, with tips that can be used on all social media platforms.

Tip 2: Do a cover reveal

The next thing would be your cover reveal. Now, I'm not sure if you have your cover yet or if it's still in the process of being designed. It's a very exciting moment to see your cover, whether you're working with a designer yourself or your publisher is working that three for you. When you actually see the cover, it's really exciting. And when you actually get the green light from your publisher or you decide when you want to reveal the cover, that is a huge moment. So you definitely need to share that. So you make it a big deal and you'll have a cover reveal post, whether it's on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, whatever it is you use, make sure that you make a big deal about your cover reveal.

Tip 3: Take pre-orders

And next up would probably be pre-orders. So, thinking about pre-orders Now, if you are working with a publisher, they will have a pre-order opening date and that's when you need to start promoting that your book is coming out and people can now pre-order it. One of the number one things to make sure is that you have all the links in your social media profiles up to date, so where they can go and buy the book with as few clicks as possible, because if people have to click through 10 times, they might just lose interest and not click through.

So if you can have it one or two clicks that gets them to their pre-order page, that is the best way to do it. Make sure your bio is up to date, your website is up to date, everything is ready to go, because you don't want to create any barriers for people when they decide Okay, I'm going to pre-order, this book sounds great, so I'm going to pre-order. So you want them to be able to do that nice and easily and efficiently, so share your pre-orders. You might want to have a pre-order competition. If you're indie publishing that works well, might have a prize that if people pre-order and they send you confirmation of their order, then they go into the Draw to Win a Prize. That's a great way to boost pre-orders.

And speaking of pre-orders, they are vitally important, particularly for traditionally published authors, because they show that this is interesting in the book, which is always great, and, of course, they're great for indie authors as well. So you might want to do something based around your pre-orders .

Tip 4: Use a design template

Now, just keeping in mind I probably should have said this first, but make sure that you have some sort of design template. So, whether you're using Canva or whatever sort of program that you're using to design your social media posts, make sure it fits with the theme of the book, your colour scheme of the cover, perhaps, or your branding covers, but just keep it nice and consistent and always be showing your book cover as well. That's really important, because the more people that see it and the more often people see it, the more it will stick in their mind and they'll be like I've seen that book a lot. Now that must be good. Let me check it out again. So really important to have all your branding ready to go, and Canva is a great program to use for designing social media templates and tiles and posts and that and they have a really nifty little feature now that you can design something and then you can click on the magic resize and you can create an Instagram post, an Instagram story, a Facebook story, a Facebook post, all that sort of thing with one click. You might have to move a few things around, but you don't have to just keep designing different posts for different social media, so that's really handy. So if you haven't looked into Canva, you can click on the link in the description below. I really suggest you do.

Tip 5: Share interesting things about the writing of the book

Another thing you can do in the lead up to launch on social media is share interesting things about the writing of the book. So, whether it's the inspiration, the setting, the writing process, the book, readers love this stuff. They love connecting with the author and learning more about the book, and the more you can put interesting information out there that's engaging and it creates a conversation, the more you are connecting emotionally with your reader and they are connecting emotionally with you, and that creates loyal readers and people who want to read your book. So be really mindful and really conscious of what you are creating and make the content interesting, engaging. Ask questions, really interesting tidbits about your book or your characters, the quirkiness of your characters or the importance of the setting or the historical aspects, depending on your genre. You'll know what you can pinch out of your book and what you found interesting writing it. The reader is going to find interesting about the book as well.

So make a list, do a brainstorm of all sorts of things that you could post in the lead up to give little bits of information about your book. That's going to really create some interest there.

Tip 6: Share early reviews

Another thing you can do you'll probably have ARC copies out in the world, so that's advanced reader copies that are going out to reviewers and book bloggers and bookstagrammers. And if you're getting some early reviews in that are great, share them, absolutely share them, because that's what's going to create interest.

Not only are people are going to be able to be seeing all of your stuff, because you've shared your cover, reveal your pre-orders, you're sharing information about your book and then people start seeing reviews and seeing that it's coming out in the world and it's getting some positive feedback. So all of this works together to create that. It's that seven stages of marketing that you often hear talking about and that that's basically just the more times people see your book and they say it's up to seven times, then it starts to sink in.

Tip 7: Don’t be shy

So the other point I wanted to make here also is that don't be shy in promoting your book. Now it can be hard to talk about your things on social media and put yourself out there and put yourself forward, and there is a fine line between posting too often and too much and not enough, and it's a really fine line. No one knows where that line stands because of the mysterious algorithms out there. But my suggestion is post more than you probably think you should because, when it comes down to it, not everyone sees everything that you post because of that algorithm.

So if you're posting, you know, say you're posting every day, for example, so seven days a week. If four of those posts are about your book, that's perfectly okay and what that means is probably 20%, maybe less. We'll see one or two of those posts. So, although it feels like a lot to you, to the people actually seeing what you're posting, it won't be that much. So we need to try and get over that mental barrier of, you know, tooting our own horn and sharing too much. So keep that in mind.

Tip 8: Post snippets of quotes

The other thing you can do is post snippets of quotes out of the book. So if you've got a nice little quote, depending on your genre, you might want to pick something really interesting If it's romantic or if it's a thriller, you might want to pick something that has a lot of tension in it. Just a quote that you can put up and again, you're just creating that interest. You can also do a countdown. So if there's 10 days to publication, seven days, five days, you can do a countdown on your social media. That's always exciting. And, of course, if you are doing events or if you're having an actual physical launch day or release, you can post about your events library talks, author events, those sort of things make sure you put them out there as well. And, of course, when you actually get the copies of your book the physical copies, if you have physical copies doing that, that special moment of opening the box and showing your readers the copy and holding the book in your hand, that's always a great thing for authors and readers love seeing that and other authors love seeing that too, and they love sharing it and wishing congratulations, which is always nice.

Tip 9: Create a release day post

Okay, so when it comes to your actual release day so the big launch, the big casting your book off into the world there is one thing that I highly recommend that you do very early on your release day. Now, this is a bugbear of mine. But what a lot of authors don't do on their social media is they don't make sure that they have their latest post with simply a picture of their book cover out now, something like that them holding the book, whatever it might be, but a shareable post. Because what readers and other authors will do is they'll go to your profile on release day. They'll look for a post that they can share to their stories or their grid and they will want to click on it and say congratulations, happy release day, happy publication day, something along those lines. And if you don't have a post that is just of your book cover and is quick and easy to share and they don't have to go and find a copy of your cover or they don't have to crop anything out, it is so much easier and you'll get a lot more traction with your release day.

Number one thing make sure you have a post, get up early, get it done out now, book cover, it's all you need. And then, of course, in the comments you can write it's my release day, so exciting. Whatever you want to write, but just have that post there. Have it up early, ready to go, because, as I said, people will share that post and, of course, when people are sharing that post on their social media, reshare them. So, if it's on Instagram and they're sharing them to their stories or their grid, reshare them to your own profile, to your own stories and, of course, thank the person. Now it can be quite overwhelming when you're getting a lot of these and you open up your social media and you'll see you've got five notifications, ten notifications of people sharing your book cover. It's exciting and it really does make the day amazing. It really does. But it's very important to, of course, thank all of these people for their congratulations. Another thing to remember is you can also post some reviews, possibly in your stories, a review with a link to buy the book because it's out now. That's the thing you can do on release day and sharing anything else that you might feel appropriate for release day.

Tip 10: Things might get emotional…

My biggest, apart from the number one thing of having that post there first up, the number one thing on release day is to remember that it can be really emotional and really overwhelming. You only ever release your debut novel once. You can't do it again. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and event and you want to savor it, so you want to take every moment in. It will be a bit like a blur. If you have an actual event on that day, it will be really overwhelming and I guess it'll be like wedding day or the birth of your child almost, because it just happens so quickly and it's all over and done with and you go oh my God, what just happened? Take a moment, take a few moments throughout the day to just breathe. Take the day off work. Not everyone can do that, but if you can just take the day off or you might want to go to work you might want to just forget about it and just get home and open your social media and see what's happened. It can be overwhelming and the other thing is it can almost be sometimes and I've heard many authors say this a little bit underwhelming as well.

You're expecting this big fanfare. You've released a book into the world. This is amazing feat. Why isn't everybody in the world celebrating? Why isn't there Ticotapes Brurée down the main street of the city? But it is just a book coming out in the world too. So be prepared for that feeling as well, because it is real. It's absolutely real to feel this rollercoaster of emotion on release day. So really important to prepare yourself for that.

But I say, keep it simple. On release day, you know, have that post there ready to go. Be sharing things if you can, saying thank you and just enjoying it. Like I really wouldn't put any more pressure on yourself to do more than that on release day, obviously the next day. Then you can keep pushing the book and you can keep adding some reviews, sharing some reviews. If it's doing well in the charts on Amazon or wherever it might be, you want to share that news, of course, and any orders or sales that you have on the book. If you're going digital, only those sort of things you'll share down the track.

In Summary

But for release day, keep it simple and just enjoy it. That is my main piece of advice. The other thing I wanted to mention that if you are doing a physical release event, launch day event, whether it's on your launch day or not make sure you're sharing that as well, because that's always a great thing to get readers. Readers love coming along to things like that. So make sure you're sharing that in the pre-release and up into that event as well. And look, you might want to. I know some indie authors who do this. They often have online launch parties. So you might go live on Instagram or Facebook or whatever your preferred social media platform is, and you might have a little party and a little celebration, and that's always fun. So, depending on your personality, depending on how much time you have, depending on whether you're indie or tread published, that's another option to on or around release day. Anyway, but yeah, for release day, my main advice keep it simple and try and enjoy it, because it does only happen once.

Social media tips for release day, a very exciting day. Whenever you get the chance to experience the highs and celebrate the wins, do it, because there's not all that many on this author journey, so it's really important to celebrate even the littlest of wins, even if you wrote 500 words today and you only thought you'd write 200, celebrate those things. Celebrate the big things, like your release day, and just enjoy it, because I think once we stop enjoying writing and we stop enjoying and taking notice of the little wins or the big wins along the way, that's when we should probably stop writing, and we don't want to do that. So enjoy. That's my number one tip, I guess. Okay, thank you so much for listening.