Planning Tips for Your Book Launch Event
So You Fill the Room, Sell a Lot of Books, and Have a Great Time
Last week I mentioned
’s launch event for her debut memoir The Gloomy Girl Variety Show. It was a smashing success and I couldn’t be more thrilled for Freda, who did an amazing job presenting her innovative project and packing the venue. (Shout-out also to Michael Link and the amazing team at The Mercantile Library, which hosted the event). It’s always so wonderful when an author gets to celebrate the publication of their book with a really well-attended event where they get to sign lots of books and be surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd of friends, family, colleagues, and community members. This is especially so with a debut.
Events are always part of the equation of a book campaign, as they should be. Authors most definitely want to do events, and often times, the publishing team has to reign in a vision that may involve a grand tour in multiple cities across the country. Yes, that’s about budget, but it’s also bringing a reality check into just how hard it is to have successful events, especially in cities where the author doesn’t have a local tie or a strong network. It’s an important conversation to have and usually leads to a downscaled events plan.
But for sure, a celebratory launch event is a must. Here are a few key insights and to-dos I want to share with regard to putting together a successful launch event.
— Selecting the location and venue. The author’s hometown is almost always the best bet, because that is where there will be the strongest concentration of friends, family, colleagues, and community connections. The venue will usually be an independent bookstore or a Barnes & Noble, possibly a library or other type of facility that can host an event. If it’s not a bookstore, the ideal is to partner with one to handle book sales.
— Pitching the venue as early as possible. Once you’ve determined where you’d like to have the event, you have to make the pitch. This starts with an email — essentially an event proposal — in which you share details about the book and author, suggest possible dates, and make the case for why this will be a successful event. Usually the venue will have guidelines to follow when submitting an event request. Other times, you just pull it together yourself and send the pitch to the events manager/store email address. It usually takes time to hear back, and a follow-up phone call can be helpful. It really just depends on the venue. Make sure to look at the venue’s website for guidance on the best way to make your pitch and how they handle event requests. It goes without saying that it really helps if the author has a connection/history with the venue — you get a quicker response and a likelier affirmative confirmation.
Note that I reached out to the host of Freda’s event, The Mercantile Library (gorgeous space!), back in mid-October for the event which just happened on Jan 15 — so about three months before the publication date of the book. Earlier is always better! It takes time to hear back and get things firmed up. If the answer is no, you have time to pitch your second option.
Kepler’s, an independent bookstore in Menlo Park, CA, has a fantastic events program and a really rigorous event proposal submission process with very specific, granular questions — it serves as a great model to develop your event pitch. Check it out here. I’ve shared this before and believe it’s a great exercise to fill out — tough questions and your answers will be very revealing.
— Securing a venue will integrate well with your pre-order efforts, because you can promote the event and push people to pre-order from that bookstore. And the bookstore will be more inclined to support and promote your book, given that they are hosting your event and invested in its success. (Shoutout here to indie bookstore Downbound Books, which handled book sales — including a pre-order campaign — for Freda’s event at The Mercantile Library).
— Identify a potential speaking partner who can serve as a moderator, and start early with your ask to get this locked-up well before the date of the event. It’s good to have a shortlist of potential moderators, in case your first choice is not available. Note that you want someone who can serve as a rock-solid interlocutor, and will also help promote the event to their hopefully strong network.
— Make sure you do an RSVP. Don’t make it complicated. A Facebook Event can work well, as can an Eventbrite page, or even a Google Form. This just helps track how many people are planning to come. Really strong RSVPs are reassuring. Low RSVP count forces you to get more focused on event promotion. Remember also that a certain percentage of RSVPs will be no-shows — as high as 20-30%. Aim high. 25-30 people at your event is absolutely decent/solid. 50 is a very strong showing. Above that, you can consider it a massive success. If not many people show up — and this can happen for all manner of reasons — put on a brave face and lean in to the celebration. You will most certainly live to fight another day.
— Once you have the venue, date, time, and speaking partner locked, design and post an event graphic on your channels. Using a platform like Canva makes it almost too easy to design an event graphic, or any type of graphic for that matter, so there’s no excuse to delay the creation and posting of this important promotional asset. You can also provide to your publisher and speaking partner, as well as the bookstore/venue, encouraging them to share and help get the word out about the event.
— In terms of book sales at a launch event, a general rule of thumb is that about 60-70% of people who attend will buy a book. So if 100 people are in attendance, you will sell about 60 to 70 books. If 10 people attend, you will sell 6 or 7 books. Lots of caveats with this percentage/guidance (or any “general rule of thumb”), but for a true launch event on or very close to the pub date in a hometown venue, where lots of great promo was done as part of an overall well-run campaign, this projection of book sales (as a percentage total attendance) is a reasonable expectation/goal.
— Order a foam-core poster board featuring your cover (no additional info needed, just the cover) and prop it up on the stage, as well as near the signing table. It shows up so well in event photos (see examples of this here). I always recommend the vertical, 22X28 poster board option from VistaPrint. This is worth the $50 to $70 bucks (including shipping).
— Make bookplates and bring them to the event. If you sell out of books (never good, but also, kind of awesome and a sign of success), people in attendance can still buy the book (to be shipped or picked up later), and get your author signature.
— It’s tough to land local media for an author event, but it’s great to be able to include event info when pitching. Getting reviews and author profiles from local media isn’t guaranteed, but doing a local event at least ups the chance for coverage of your book.
— Consider hiring a professional photographer. Especially if you’re a debut author and this is your first ever book launch event. If that’s not an option, designate a friend (or two) to be the event photographer. The photos don’t have to be perfect. The more photos, the better. For the memories, of course. But there are also very practical and effective uses for event photos — they send a message of positive energy and momentum around your campaign, they can be shared on your website, newsletter, and social media, and can be submitted to places like Publishers Weekly and Shelf Awareness for photo-of-the-day features. Note: I’ve just posted a new resource for paid subscribers showcasing a collection of recent photos from book launch events that I’ve helped clients organize and promote.
— The one thing I always remind authors is, yes, this is an event for you and your book, but a big part of the focus has to be making the event successful for the bookstore. Meaning, you’ve got to fill the room and sell lots of books. Often that comes down to an author’s network, platform, and promotional acumen. Of course the bookstore and the publisher will support the event, but that is often negligible. It’s the author that will drive interest and ultimately, the outcome. The author should plan to overdo it on the promo and outreach — social media posts, newsletter sends, emails, and reminders.
The earlier you get started with the planning (with calm planning mind!), the more successful your event will be, and the more fun you will have celebrating the launch of your book.
A GORGEOUS EXCITEMENT BOOK LAUNCH EVENT
Speaking of launch events, my client Cynthia Weiner will be celebrating the publication of her highly anticipated debut novel, A Gorgeous Excitement, this Tuesday (1/21/25) at powerHouse Arena in Dumbo. She will be in conversation with Daisy Alpert Florin. If you’re in NYC, make sure to come out for this one (I’ll be there — say hello!). Full details here. Note, this is is a ticketed event.
See Cynthia’s full tour here. You can also listen to this interview with her on Kirkus Reviews’ Fully Booked podcast, as well as read the interview she did with
.UNDER THE RADAR BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Looking for your next read? Of course you are. Here are two great sources that showcase titles from smaller, independent presses:
— Wendy J. Fox’s seasonal feature at Electric Literature highlighting indie and small press books. Read the recent article “15 Small Press Books You Should Be Reading This Winter.”
— CLMP’s (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses) monthly feature spotlighting books published by its members, which are made up of small and independent publishers. Read the January 2025 round-up.
Know of other similar types of sources for under the radar books? Drop me a note or leave a comment.
Thank you for reading, sharing, and commenting. So much going on already in 2025, and all signs point to the clamor going up and up and up. Will be doing my best to stick to my calm planning-themed goal for this brand new year.
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jeffreyyamaguchi.com
ABOUT THE WRITER OF THIS NEWSLETTER
is looking forward to more successful book launch events in 2025, which will always be a bright spot no matter what is happening in the world (which is, like, too much and seemingly going to be relentless as a matter of course).My full bio is here.
Learn about the book marketing and publicity services I provide, and how we can work together.
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Paid subscribers have access to the full archives, as well as this growing list of resources, like this model author questionnaire, an author exercise, this list of BIPOC / diversity-focused book publishing links, and the just-added collection of recent book launch event photos.
Thanks, Jeff!