Carol, it means publishing the book on Amazon and promoting it to a limited audience that you can count on to read and review the book, and post their reviews on Amazon, BN.com, Goodreads, etc. How you define “limited audience” depends on what’s available to you. It can include a launch team and review services such as BookFunnel and NetGalley. Your goal is two-fold: To make sure there are no errors in the book (typos, grammar, erroneous or outdated info, etc) and that you’ve got reviews in place before you announce it to the world.

Sandy

I am not clear what you mean by “soft launch”. do you mean to publish the book on Amazon and only promote it to your launch team? I don’t see how to post reviews without the book being on amazon. I thought of doing a pre-order just to get the url to include in the request for a review a the back of the book.

thanks, carol March

You’re welcome, Olga. It will still be here when you’re ready for it. ; – )

Sandy

Your event sounds WONDERFUL, Alicia! As for reviews, first you have to get them to READ it, right? I’m sure you’ll get tons of questions about how to write a book…maybe you can answer them with references to the book’s content: “Flashbacks can play an important role in storytelling, so when you read the book, notice how I handled that in Chapter 7….”

I’d also print postcards asking them to write a review to help other readers; include a shortened URL for review links on Amazon and Goodreads. Some of the language in my article here might inspire you: https://buildbookbuzz.com/letter-to-readers-who-love-books/

Sandy

And I’m planning an actual, in-person, book launch party created by an event planner (small) because, at the retirement community where I now live (about 250 people in Independent Living), 30-40 have read PURGATORY, and have claimed to be waiting for the next book.

We have had so few community events this past pandemic year that I think a nice celebration will be fun. I didn’t have a party for the first book – not enough people nearby to do so – so this should be fun.

Now to figure out how to goose those who come to the party for the cupcakes into actually writing a review so as to be ready for the wider launch.

Have bookmarked this post, and will be mining it for ideas when the time comes. Thanks!

Aw, thanks so much, Tricia. That means a lot to me.

I’m glad you’re taking your time with this. There’s a lot to learn. From a marketing perspective, the first step is creating a quality product. That’s so essential to success.

Sandy

Thank you for this information. I love your newsletter. It has so much information in it. Thank you for doing this. I just wanted to let you know it is much appreciated. (I’m launching my book later this year, and I’m trying to take it slow and figure out what steps to take first. I’m sure I’ll be taking your course.