What I'm Doing to Prepare For My Book Launch

Which Will be Sometime in Spring 2025

Hello friends!!!

I’m supposed to get edits back from my editor this month (Stephanie, take your time!) and it’s very exciting! I’ve also seen a few cover concepts that I LOVE (no I can’t show you yet) and things are starting to feel real! Ahhhhhhh!

So what am I doing now? Well, I filled out my author questionnaire, and that got me thinking about who I might ask to blurb my book, who I want to send it to, places that might cover it in a news-y way. All those ideas are in the author questionnaire and in a few pages of a notebook.

I don’t have a firm pub date yet, but it’s going to be sometime late spring/early summer 2025, I think. That’s a year away! And I’m starting to think about what I want to do/can do for publicity. Yes, a whole year out. At this point, it’s all wishful thinking, but starting this early will show me what things I need to start working on now to have a chance at it. If I didn’t have this newsletter, I might think of starting one—with the same kind of narrow focus and not in a BUY MY BOOK WAY—so that in a year, I’d have an established (fingers crossed) following. Since I already have that going, I’m planning to read more blogs/sites/magazine to see if I could pitch them something. I’m making notes about podcasts and influencers I think might like my stuff. If I see a particularly good idea someone else is doing, I make a note in case I want to do something like that myself. Specifically, this is what I’m aiming for in terms of a publicity plan/wish list:

• Putting a preorder link everywhere I already am on the internet

• A specific book landing page on my website

• Do a subscriber-only something on here tied to preorders. Maybe a zoom or live Q&A? (Open to suggestions!)

• A non-subscriber preorder incentive something like the above

• A Reddit AMA

• (Shooting the moon here) A profile in Poets & Writers (I write for them and I know a guy)

• My normal column in Poets & Writers and maybe something more (that I write)

• An excerpt on Lit Hub, Reactor (formerly tor.com), Electric Lit, or Book Riot

• An article by me in any/all of the above

• Someone nice recommending my book on a morning show

• Some podcast interviews/guest appearances

• Some launch events/small tour (hopefully publisher funded, at least some of it). I’m thinking Brooklyn, Rhinebeck, NY, Kingston, NY, Philly, maybe DC, maybe Richmond?, maybe Charlotte?, Lexington, KY (shout out Gwenda), Gainesville, FL (alma mater), Hattiesburg, MS (same, grad school), and maybe LA, Seattle, and/or Portland, OR. Probably not all these places, but these are the cities I think I can count on some friends coming/could be in conversation with someone fun there. I’m not counting on the publisher funding this whole thing. I might be able to get my old schools to pay for me to come to talk to students (who can then buy the book). I have family in some other cities. (Do you work in a college English department? Ask your chair about inviting me to speak!!)

• A writing-related but broader scope piece in a bigger publication, like The Atlantic, NYT Times, NY Mag, or something like that.

These are the things I think I can help put into motion. Some places where I know a guy. The things I will rely on the publisher to do will trade reviews (PW, Kirkus, NYT ha ha), pitch me to news-ish type places like NPR, or bigger long-lead magazines for coverage, sending things to influencers I don’t know personally, maybe printing me some cool bookmarks or pencils/pens. (That would be good swag for writers. Ohhhh maybe little notebooks! I love little notebooks.) Together, this makes a full publicity and marketing plan.

I’m not going to get all of these things. I might only get a handful of these things. But this is what I’m setting my sights on and yes, I’m starting this early. It’s easy for me because I’ve seen hundreds of books go through marketing and publicity, I know people directly involved with mass media on my subject matter, and I’ve been writing my newsletter for 5+ years. You might not be at a place like this yet, or ever, and that’s ok. But when you’re wondering what you can do now to help yourself down the line, these are some of thing things you can aim for, even if your book is out in a month instead of a year. Want to be published in X place? Make sure you’re reading X place. There’s going to be different things on your list depending on your subject matter, and different in other ways for fiction. But sometimes it’s easier to figure out what you can do when you watch someone else do it.

I’ll keep you posted as things get rolling on my book, including pub date and preorder links. I mean obvs, you all are my primary market! And don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know.

Take care,

Kate