Strategy for the Launch

During the last couple of years, I've read countless articles that define strategies for writers trying to market their books. Build your platform. Maintain a website. Connect to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Join writers' groups and online writers' communities. Start a blog. Allow readers a personal glimpse of you, the author. Develop the presence before your book is published. Find ways to get speaking engagements and book signings. But in the meantime, keep writing…start your next book. AAARGH!

I filtered the gobs of advice and developed what I could, as time allowed. Heaven's Wait now had an almost-ready website. It also had its own Twitter account and Facebook and LinkedIn pages. The framework was set up for my blog, The Unexpected Journey of a Persistent Creataholic, where articles such as this one could be posted.  My personal website, which had basically been unknown to the outside world, was now updated. I had lists of writers' groups with which to connect. I had to be careful, because each marketing avenue I traveled would hack away at my time, which was already in short supply. But I continued to read articles about writing and publishing from agents, artists, established writers and more.

Of course, R.J.'s Story had to be ready before any of these avenues could be used. But, how would I launch everything once the book was ready? I charted out initial launch options that seemed manageable; the rest would have to wait. Then I played with the order in which they should be addressed. At first, I thought it might be good to start with a couple of blog posts, and send a letter to my immediate circle of family and friends inviting them to my blog. But why not notify my connections on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn at the same time? And why not make everyone aware of HW's website then, since all the marketing elements were linked to each other?

Networking Elements	HW Website	Blog	Facebook	Twitter	Linked In	Letter to Family/Friends
Initial Shuffle	6	1	4	3	5	2
Final Shuffle	1-B	1-A	2-C	2-B	2-D	2-A

So I prepped my website and blog to go live. In the meantime, I composed an introductory letter to my potential audiences that included links leading to my other Heaven's Wait tentacles. The letter would go out to all of the audiences at the same time. That day was bound to be very busy, so I made sure all of my elements were coordinated. It was also going to be a little scary, since this would be the first time the materials that I had so carefully developed and guarded would be exposed to the world. The time for the launch was almost at hand!