Prepare the launch materials
Prepare launch-day and publication-week assets
Have the announcement email, social posts, images, and links written and scheduled before publication day, so the week is spent talking to people rather than making things.
Authors often hire help with this: design or production.
Why it matters
The week the book comes out is when the most people are paying attention, and it is also when an author has the least time. Assets made in advance mean the announcements go out on the day, with working links, while the author is free for interviews, events, and replying to the people who write back. Assets made on the day go out late, with a broken link.
Your part
- What you do
- Do it. You normally do this yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Author and Publisher and Publicist. Publisher may provide a toolkit; author prepares and sends own announcements
- When
- 30 days before publication, finished and scheduled a few days before the date (Prepare the launch materials: six to three months before publication, before the first pitch goes out)
How to do it
The full walkthrough
Publication week is short and loud. The assets you will need are predictable: an announcement email to your list and your personal contacts, a set of social posts with images sized for each platform, a graphic or two with the cover and a line of praise, the final purchase links for every retailer and format, a short thank-you note for the people who helped, and the updated website with the book page marked as available now.
Make them in the month before. Write the announcement email and the posts in plain text first, then build the images. Collect the purchase links and test each one, because retailer links change between preorder and publication more often than they should. Schedule what can be scheduled and leave a list of what has to be done by hand on the day.
Traditionally published authors should ask the publisher what it is producing (a graphics pack, a social toolkit, a press release timed to the day) and what it needs from you. Hybrid and self-published authors make everything, and should keep it small enough to finish.
A note on tone: the announcement is news to the people who like you, not a sales pitch. Say the book is out, say where to get it, say thank you, and stop.
Common mistakes
- Discovering on publication morning that the retailer link still points to the preorder page.
- Writing the announcement email at midnight the night before.
- Posting the same image on every platform at the wrong size.
- Forgetting the audiobook or ebook link in the announcement.
What done looks like
- Announcement email drafted, with tested purchase links for every format, ready to send on publication morning.
- Social posts for the platforms you use, with correctly sized images, scheduled or queued.
- A short thank-you message for endorsers, contributors, and early supporters.
- The book page updated from preorder to available, with all retailer links checked.
- The publisher's launch materials received and aligned with yours.
- A one-page run sheet for the day listing what goes out when.
Ask your publisher
Copy this into an email. Replace the bracketed parts with your details.
Sources and last checked
- Official source
- No single official page for this step.
- Last checked
- Not checked against its source yet.
- How confident we are
- Verified