Pre-Release Strategy (60 Days Before Release)

Goals: Build anticipation, engage existing fans, and attract new readers.

Announce the Upcoming Release

Newsletter announcement via BookBooster's email marketing tools.
Social media posts on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter (+ any other) about the upcoming book.

Cover Reveal and Title Announcement

Organize a cover reveal on social media. Readers love to be teased and to get excited about your upcoming releases. So have a bit of fun with this and do a cover reveal. You could even do a partial cover reveal the week before to raise anticipation. Make sure you talk about when the book is releasing and offer links (especially pre-order links if they’re available) Covers can make or break a book. And they also create such a strong psychological connection to your brand.
Utilize BookBooster’s social media tools for creative posts.

Pre-release banners on social account headers

Create and add coming soon or pre-order banners to the header of your social pages to help build awareness of your upcoming release.

Add cover and blurb/buy links to your website/blog

link to all of the sites that you want your readers to focus on. Obviously Amazon is king, however, don’t discount the rest.

Create a short list of four to five tropes or key characteristics

Create 2 - 3 one-liners indicating tropes, character types, and potential conflict that you can display as easily scannable bullet points. This is perfect for sharing on places like Twitter or Amazon sponsored product ads, where character count is limited. Be creative and think of straplines that will grab attention!

Build Email List

Use BookBooster to create a lead magnet related to your book series.
Send a series of pre-launch emails with teasers and exclusive snippets. A great way to build the excitement for an upcoming release is by sharing an excerpt. And don’t be stingy. If you’re having them buy the book on pre-order, then give them the first few chapters to really get them excited!

Pre-Order Campaign

Set up a pre-order option and promote it through BookBooster’s email and social media tools.
Offer incentives for pre-orders like exclusive content or discounts.

Content Marketing

Start a blog series or vlogs using BookBooster’s content creation tools.
Discuss the writing process, series trivia, and character insights.
Don’t Waste Anything and Collect Some Deleted Scenes - This is more for authors who write series, or write in a very defined genre, but readers love insider info. And deleted scenes from previous titles can be fun ways to reward established fans for pre-ordering. The parts that you cut end up living a new life and supporting your brand loyalty! You can create blog posts too to share this type of content.

Cross-promote with author peers

keep growing this group. Focus where possible on authors who have books in the same genres or sub genres as you, or author friends who you know will help you to promote your releases. Ideally work with authors who have the same size mailing list or bigger. The aim of the game here is to increase your reach to readers who like reading your sub-genres and to grow your own mailing list. Reciprocal newsletter sharing is a must! We send out a monthly newsletter giving you details of all of the upcoming releases from our imprints, so it’s easy enough for you to reach out to other authors and arrange.
That fabulous group of authors that you’re now friends with? Set up a like-minded FB reader group with them that will attract readers to your sub-genre. This works especially well if it’s a niche, but is a great way to build a following between you all, and to be able to show off your books, offer incentives and competitions and get to know your readers.

Engage with Readers

Create a Book Trailer or 10!

Develop a book trailer and share it across all platforms.
Use BookBooster’s video script generator for compelling content.
Video is important for social media exposure for more interest and engagement. You can literally make a video about anything! Announcement (pre-order, general release, giveaways, discounts, etc) BUT as a minimum you want one for general release, but ideally one shouting about your book being on pre-order - whether you’re running a discounted pre-order price or not. There are different things to consider here, like whether this is a single book or series release, and if it’s a series, what number release, how many in the series, what your series release schedule looks like and then what needs to be included in your trailer.

Reach Out to Reviewers

Share book trailer and graphics

Those book trailers we mentioned - now’s the time to start posting them on social media/your website/blog/get your author peers to share/mailers etc.
At the same time, start sharing your pre-order graphics.

Pre-release promos

If you’ve got a budget to play with it’s worth considering setting up a Bookbub or Goodreads ad (or any of the other myriad of promo sites that do a decent job). Readers love getting advanced copies of books. The more you give away the better chance you’ve got of getting reviews. Bookbub ad costs are dependent on what parameters you set and what you’re accepted for (as it can be tricky to get a spot).

Plan special pre-order pricing

If you have a series and this book release is book 2 or further down the series, it's always a great idea to offer earlier books at a discounted price when you release your latest book in a series. Give your readers the opportunity to get book one in your series heavily discounted for a short period of time. You could run a price campaign for the first week of release offering book 1 at 99c, book 2 at 1.99, book 3 at 2.99 etc. Obviously, this depends on how many books are in your series and which book you are currently releasing.

Countdown

Set Up a Countdown to Build Last Minute Buzz. This is a super simple strategy that doubles as a social media marketing strategy as well. Plan out and schedule posts that push the pre-order and remind people when the pre-order ends. This strategy is particularly effective for selling more books when combined with a special pre-order discount price.