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Anti box thinkers - ideas for a product launch...for fiction??

by Kezz
10 replies
In around a month or two my partner and I will be launching a novel - well, he is writing it and I'm playing the role of publisher.

As far as printing we're all sorted - we'll go via CreateSpace so we know we'll get onto Amazon, no problem.

But, I'm not intending to go with the "throw it up and pray" approach. I want to adapt the tried and true principles of a successful non-fiction IM launch, mix them up with the principles often used behind movie launches, and build us up some hype before the book comes out.

So I'm thinking list building will work just as well as ever, but with a slightly different angle.

I'm also thinking viral marketing of some kind should play a part, but I haven't figured out what yet. Skill wise I can make flash movies, games, I can create artwork - just about anything is an option.

The book is a vampire / sci fi / action story and, (everyone says it but I'm legit) it will have a completely new take on the whole genre. I'd like to play on that if I can and build anticipation in people to find out what's going to happen in the story.

So here's an out of the box challenge / ideas request for you Warriors. If you were going to build hype, anticipation and prospects for a novel, what ingenious methods would you use?
#anti #box #fiction #ideas #launchfor #product #thinkers
  • Profile picture of the author IdeaLady
    Make a video trailer for the book and post it to video sharing sites (YouTube, et al). You can find examples by searching for "book trailer."

    Set up profiles for the lead character(s) on social media sites. (Don't set up a profile on Facebook--only real people can have Facebook profiles. Do a fan page instead.) Tweet, blog and otherwise interact with potential readers as the character.

    Release excerpts from the book, or create new content (a pre-quel?) to get people excited about the story and the characters.

    Hold contests to give away a few signed copies of the book. You can not require a fee or purchase to enter (that opens a can of legal worms) but you can require people to submit a video or tell why they want to read the book, or something else that gets them excited and involved.

    Create an iPhone app, or a widget or something similar. Or a game. Or a quiz.

    I have a couple of articles on this that came out of some Facebook "chats" I did with authors:

    http://www.sellingbooks.com/characters-in-social-media
    http://www.sellingbooks.com/selling-...ke-non-fiction

    Hope this is helpful--good luck with the book!
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    Cathy Stucker, http://www.IdeaLady.com/
    Get Content, Get Links - Free! http://BloggerLinkUp.com

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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    Now that's what I'm talking about! Excellent suggestions, thankyou!

    I especially love the idea of creating online personas for the major characters. That could work really well with this particular book.

    Thanks for those links too. Looks like your site has a lot of the kind of info I'm after so I'll spend some time reading.

    Cheers!
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  • Profile picture of the author Loren Woirhaye
    I have no idea how much it costs to participate, but you should
    look into the Amazon Vine program. I'm a reviewer with it and
    kind of enjoy the process... I've seen vampire novels come up
    in Vine but I seldom read genre fiction so I haven't asked to
    be sent anything in that vein.

    Participating in Vine will pump up your visibility on Amazon like
    crazy. In today's marketing environment peer opinion caries
    probably more weight than most other factors combined. Even
    ordered a book because you liked the peer reviews?

    I pretty much skip the publisher's copy and read the peer
    reviews. I'll reckon a lot of other readers do the same.

    Your core market is the folks who consume all vampire novels -
    so while your idea that your product is unique in the crowded
    marketplace may help, understand that you'll be selling mostly
    to people who read several vampire genre novels a year, watch
    "TrueBlood" religiously, etc. It's a fandom thing. Think product
    splintering - approach small comic presses, role-playing game
    designers, and so forth.
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    • Profile picture of the author IdeaLady
      Originally Posted by Loren Woirhaye View Post

      Participating in Vine will pump up your visibility on Amazon like crazy. In today's marketing environment peer opinion caries probably more weight than most other factors combined. Even ordered a book because you liked the peer reviews?
      I am also a Vine reviewer, but have never been on the other side and offered a product. Most Amazon marketing programs are VERY expensive (multiple $1000s) and recovering the cost through sales could be difficult for a small publisher.

      I totally agree that peer reviews are helpful, though. What you might do is look on Amazon for books that are in the same genre as yours, and approach some of the people who reviewed them. Offer to send them a review copy if they will review the book on Amazon. Many reviewers have their email addresses in their Amazon profiles, so you can reach them that way.

      Of course, you can also offer your book to bloggers who have the audience you are trying to reach. I know a lot of authors and publishers have connected with reviewers through BloggerLinkUp.

      Sending out review copies can be a very cost-effective way to promote. But don't send them out willy-nilly. Make sure the recipients are interested before sending them. Tara Hunt wrote a good blog post about this re: her book: Whuffie Math | HPC
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      Cathy Stucker, http://www.IdeaLady.com/
      Get Content, Get Links - Free! http://BloggerLinkUp.com

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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    Vine is where there are a select group of screened reviewers that will take a look at your product, is that correct? That's another really good suggestion so I will hop on over to Amazon and see what we'd need to do to get a look in.

    I totally agree that working within the vampire fan base will be really important. As much as this will be a unique story, that's also one of the reasons we chose this genre over the other available options. Even fiction still has to be niche targeted to a certain degree when you are an unknown author.

    You've given me another idea in that regard, that it would probably be helpful to start a vampire oriented fan site that is dedicated to True Blood, Twilight and so on. That should help us to build up a bit of a 'loop' of interested people.

    By product splintering, do you mean looking to create our own short comics and RPG games? Or do you mean approaching creators to see about some kind of exposure in their material?
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  • Profile picture of the author Loren Woirhaye
    umm... licensing maybe. RPG people have to crank out
    content just like info-product publishers do. If you've
    got a "world book" (the notes telling how things like
    psychic powers, mortality, etc., work in your fantasy
    world) you've got content that can be adapted to
    storytelling formats other than the novel.
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  • Profile picture of the author fitz10
    Woah, Easthampton we're practically neighbors.

    Anyway, in the genre I write in author interviews on blog and guest blogging is definitely popular. I would find out what the major blogs are in your genre and send out preview copies.

    I think Kirkus Reviews is now offering reviews for self published books as long as you pay a fee.

    Find a way to get lots and lots of Amazon reviews. You might have to pay for some of these but if it gets the author's name recognized it may be worth it. I read this story a few months back about a self-published writer who received 100 reviews on Amazon for his self published young adult novel. Young adult romance author racks up 100 reviews with self-published book Book Marketing Buzz He not only garnered incredible buzz through the reviews, but by gaining the 100 reviews he gained even more publicity in the publishing world.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    Oh that stuff is gold, sweet! In the article about the 100 reviews guy said he used Reader Spoils who seem to have a great deal going so we'll use that for sure.

    I checked out Kirkus Reviews too and they will do a review for $400. I might have to wait and see how we go with the book to start with to ensure it justifies the expense, but that's certainly an option.

    Thanks for the tip about doing author interviews on the major genre blogs. Would you mind if I asked what genre you write in, and if I could take a peek at your published titles?

    Originally Posted by Loren Woirhaye View Post

    umm... licensing maybe. RPG people have to crank out
    content just like info-product publishers do. If you've
    got a "world book" (the notes telling how things like
    psychic powers, mortality, etc., work in your fantasy
    world) you've got content that can be adapted to
    storytelling formats other than the novel.
    Oh, right, I'm with you now. Perhaps this is something we could aim for in a secondary launch phase, after we've proven that the IP has an audience behind it. Then we might be able to license the IP and run off in a few different directions to boost the overall profile.
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    • Profile picture of the author ZhaoAnXin
      1. Sometime near the official launch/live sales of the book, give a pdf version away in exchange for an opt-in that goes right up to the climax or cliffhanger point of the book.

      People will be into getting it for free if they like vampire stuff, and will likely buy the book because they want to find out what happens.

      I was watching Matt Furey do that with his bio book launch a couple of months ago and it played out REALLY well it looked like.

      2. Do a search for "Book Blogger" on:
      search.twitter.com
      blogsearch.google.com
      Facebook Search

      Contact those people and offer them a free copy (pdf) of the book if they'd like to read and review it.

      Basically good bloggers always need new content to blog about, and if they're amateurs and it saves them buying something in hard copy a lot of them will do it.

      I usually don't even offer - I just send them the book to review up front and then they can do it if they want.

      3. Repeat #2 to find thought leaders by querying on keywords related to the book

      4. Offer scarcity pricing. If you're using createspace you can change the price of the book at any time you want. Offer a much better price for the first x amount of people who buy or the first x days.

      5. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO IS BUILD A LIST . . .

      6. Create an auto-responder sequence for that list. For fiction here's what I would do:
      A. Back Stories on the main characters which are not part of the book. I'd do video but you can do PDF's, mp3's, or whatever.
      B. A 10-15 page "Prequel" to the book . . . This was done very nicely for the movie The Darjeeling Limited by releasing the prequel Hotel Chevalier on Itunes and across the internet
      C. Audio or video interviews with people who read the book

      Etc. . .

      7. Social Media. Go to search.twitter.com and follow ANYBODY who's tweeting about your main keywords and there's a good chance they'll follow you back.

      Spend $15 to get one of the myspace friend adder type of programs and send friend requests to everyone who has your keywords on their profile. Then leave comments on their profile with the book cover graphics, a video trailer as mentioned above, or anything else that's relevant to your product and their interests. They'll see it and their friends will see it. Birds of a feather and all that.

      8. Offer a downloadable bonus to your buyers. I offer anyone who buys my books a 4 hour downloadable seminar at different points in the year. You could use any kind of content related to the book. Just make it something people would want to have and something that compliments the book. Also preferably make it something that extends the "universe" that your book is set in so that you have the ability to write sequels and have people already engaged in that universe.

      My stuff is available at amazon, barnes and nobles, borders, and lots of indie book stores (pro distribution through create space).

      I tell my list that if they send me a picture of them with their receipt I'll give them the download link to the free bonus.

      This ups sales, and then I take those photos and use them as social proof . . .

      I also regularly implore my list to call local bookstores and libraries and ask them to order copies, which doesn't hurt either.

      Hope that helps a bit
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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    Wow, these are some really sweet ideas. Thanks so much everyone!

    ZhaoAnXin, each of your eight suggestions is spot on and I will be implementing every one of them. You obviously have experience in this area. I hope you have an ebook on everything you wrote, because if you don't, you should!

    Could I ask, how have you found the pro distribution through CreateSpace? Did you have to nudge anything along to help get your books into the indie stores? Or, did the distribution channel alone lead to your getting your books placed?

    That's another really solid suggestion too Cathy, approaching reviewers that have already shown an interest in the genre. I read also from one author that it can help to appeal to reviewers with as high a reviewer rank as possible. Do you think that is the case? I ask only because I never even noticed or paid attention to the reviewer rank prior to hearing about it in this author's article.

    I enjoyed the read from Tara Hunt - all very well said. It's so true that many people don't realize just how much the internet and social media have leveled the playing field now. It only takes one person to tweet something that gets retweeted by the right people, and then goes on to become a viral tweet snowball.

    This is one of the reasons I'm actually more interested in putting time into learning my own launch strategies for fiction instead of sending out manuscripts to traditional publishers. I believe there is huge potential there to do very well without depending on anyone else. Yes, traditional publishers have the capacity to get huge distribution, but even if they do pick you there's no guarantee your book won't languish on the bottom of the priority pile. If I take care of everything myself I know our titles will get the amount of marketing attention I want them to receive.

    Awesome material everyone. I'm actually going to compile all the suggestions into a mind map and form a complete launch strategy. Thanks for the great ideas!
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