Book Launch Open House- 21 Day Plan

A Book Launch Open House in Just 21 Days

A well-planned book event can accelerate your book-marketing efforts by attracting new readers.
Book events can be held in a variety of locations including bookstores, libraries, coffee houses, genre-
specific venues, or even your own home. We recommend setting up events in multiple venues. In this
tip sheet, we will talk about how to engage your neighbors, family, and friends to get the ball rolling in
the most comfortable environment for you—your own home! Below is your 21-day checklist for the
perfect Book Launch Open House.

Day 30

Okay, I know this is a 21-day checklist, but you really should
make sure you have supplies on hand well before you start.
So, order books if you don’t already have sufficient quantities
on hand! If you’ve published with Outskirts Press, you will get
an additional discount if you order in bulk.

Order custom bookmarks with your book and ordering information on
them to give out to attendees—they can even take extra if they want to
share the book with someone they know (or their book club). Bookmarks
are best, since people tend to keep them around and actually use them, but
if you would rather provide custom business cards, that works too.

If you want to really showcase your book, order a custom t-shirt that features
your cover so you can wear it at the event.

Small posters are great for hanging in store windows, by central mailboxes, and in
community buildings. Large posters are great for displaying at the actual event
(and framing for your office).

Day 21

Choose the date and time for the event. Then determine your theme. Your event must appeal to
your target readers, to increase the chances their attending giving positive word-of-mouth
afterward. If you have a non-fiction book, the event may focus on a single topic from your book. If
you have a fiction book, the theme could represent the location of the story or an element of the
book. For instance, if you've written a mystery, host a "murder mystery party." By picking a theme
that relates to your book, and making that theme a clear component of the invitation, you ensure
that everyone who attends is a prime candidate to buy your book at the end of the evening when you
pull out your signing pen.

Pinterest is a great place to gather inspiration for decorations and activities, etc. Be creative in
searching for themes, and draw adult inspiration from kids’ party ideas. Have your murder mystery
guests don costumes by adding a costume contest to the proceedings. If you’re a romance writer,
have a life-sized cardboard cutout of a male hunk for guests to pose with in pictures. The
possibilities are endless!

Day 20

Set up an event in your community Facebook group. Invite everyone in the community. Facebook
neighborhood groups are limited to those people who live in a given area, so while you might not
know everyone, these will all be your neighbors.

Set up the same event in your nextdoor.com community. Again, your nextdoor.com community will
be only your neighbors. There may be overlap in the two groups, but it’s always good to broadcast
the message in as many ways as possible to give your event the best chance of being seen.

Send out an Evite to all of your family, friends, book club members, and coworkers (who don’t live in
your community). If you want more exposure, you can post the event in local businesses, the library,
your church, the chamber of commerce, etc.

Make sure the invitation makes it clear that you encourage everyone to bring friends and share the
invitation with anyone they feel might be interested. If your guests start to use their social media
reach to promote your event, your guest list can quickly climb, which means more book sales and
more book reviews for you. If your book is a children’s book, you’ll want to be sure to let people
know they can, and should, bring their kids.

Don’t forget to include information about what you’ll be offering at the event (food, door prizes,
raffle giveaways, signed copies, readings, bookmarks, etc.), If you are a children’s author, and you
have had a keepsake toy made of your book character, you can offer those for sale, too. If you’re a
cookbook author, you might consider inviting a Pampered Chef rep to join the open house who can
demonstrate one of your recipes while you create gift baskets that can be sold with Pampered Chef
items and your book, all conveniently packaged and ready for sale. The gift basket idea works for all
kinds of books (children’s, health, fiction—think bubble-bath reading, for instance). Be creative!

Here are some ideas for invitation wording to get you started:

<Author> invites you to join in supporting the literary work of local writers. This is a great opportunity
to get a signed copy of <Book Title> and hear from a local author in person about the book, becoming a
published author, and what inspired the work. Experience complimentary refreshments, mingling, and
readings. Don’t miss this opportunity to join us on <date> at <time>.

<Author> invites you to an enchanted book event. Celebrate the release of <Author Name>’s most
recent publication. Complimentary refreshments will be served. <Author Name> will answer questions,
read some favorite passages, and sign books that are available for sale. Please join in the fun as we
launch the latest local literary work on <date> at <location> at <time>.

Please join our Open House Book Launch Party at <location> on <date> at <time> to learn, laugh, and
visit with neighbors, friends, and the author. Free cocktails and snacks will be served. All funds raised
from book sales during the open house will go to <charity>.

Please join me, <Author Name>, for a celebration in recognition of the launch of my latest book, titled
<Book Title>. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served at my home, located at <location> on <date>
at <time>.

Days 19-15

Plan activities and décor to match the theme of your event from the inspiration you found on
Pinterest. Determine what food/beverages you will be serving and create your shopping list.

Any good party has goodie bags, right? But rather than giving away copies of your book (you're
trying to sell copies, after all), partner with local businesses/entrepreneurs who are seeking
marketing opportunities of their own. Would romance lovers enjoy cookies from a local bakery
(along with a coupon) inside their goodie bag? Of course! Would your action aficionados like a
coupon for a free tub of popcorn with the purchase of a movie ticket for the latest James Bond
movie? Absolutely!

Days 19-1

Follow-up on every RSVP with a personal "thank you" that promises them a good time, a goodie bag,
and a great discount on a signed copy of your book. Also remind them to invite anyone else they

know who might be interested in attending the book launch event of the season (hyperbole is okay
when it's tongue-in-cheek).

Before (and after) your open house, be sure to use the power of social media to spread the word.
Prior to the open house, use your social media platform to drive awareness, answer questions,
promote the open house, and solicit attendees. Afterward, share lots of pictures of the fun time had
by all (along with a link to your book, of course). Even if people aren't able to attend in person, they'll
love to see the pictures, and they still may buy the book (which is, after all, the whole point!).

Day 10

When you're in the middle of a fun party, the last thing you'll want to be burdened with is handling
book orders. But of course, taking book orders is the whole point of throwing a book-signing open
house. What a dilemma! Fortunately, with advance planning, you can make sure this important step
goes just as flawlessly as the party itself. Consider the logistics in advance in terms of cash, check, or
charge. If you plan on charging sales tax, determine a discount to offer on your book that rounds the
final cost to an even number (preferably in a cash-friendly denomination like $10, $15, or $20). You
can promote the discount, and you don't have to worry about counting pennies for change. If you
plan on taking credit cards at the event, is your smart phone hooked up with a way to do that, either
with Square, Venmo, or PayPal, for example? It's easy to hand-out business cards with your
Amazon-link printed on it, but the reality is that people attending a book signing open house will
expect to be able to buy a signed copy of the book that night, and you want them to! (Who knows
whether they'll buy it the next day?) So be sure to have lots of copies on hand.

Day 9

If your attendees are old friends (or new friends who have RSVP’d), they'll be happy to help you
spread the word about your book—but they might not know how. So tell them. Be sure you place a
number of placards or signs around your house with instructions for posting reviews on Amazon,
sharing pictures on Instagram, or commenting on the event on Facebook.

Day 5

As you get closer to the event, you can better estimate how many people will be attending and start
applying quantities to your shopping list.

Mentally walk through the event: how things will be set up, where different items will go, who will be
there to help you “host” while you’re in the “spotlight.”

Day 4

Create a playlist that works for your theme. If these songs were inspirational while you were writing
the book, you might want to print them out on postcards (with your book printed on the other side)
so guests can enjoy the playlist while reading the book.

Day 2

Complete the final supply purchases and prepare anything that can be made ahead of time.

Start decorating and preparing your space for the event so you have time to make last-minute
adjustments/additions if you think of something you may have forgotten, or in case some great new
idea presents itself.

Party Day

Prepare last-minute food and drinks. Set everything out ahead of time.

Even though many writers are introverts by nature, your book launch party is not the time to be shy.
Step out of your comfort zone and embrace the gregarious published author inside you. Strike up
conversations with everyone in attendance. Be generous with your time and your smile. Rather
than going for the "hard sell,” take lots of pictures with everyone instead. Use THEIR phones as well
as yours. After all, if they have pictures on their phones, they are more likely to post those pictures
on their social media platforms after the event, along with links to you and/or your book. Here’s the
best news: those online postings/pictures/links will last a lot longer than your event.

The more fun your guests have, the better your sales will be, and the better your word-of-mouth will
be after the event. So get ready to live it up at your party! Create lots of photo opportunities and
encourage all your guests to take as many pictures as they can, not just of you or your book, but of
decorations and other partygoers. By connecting with your readers, creating a theme, and having
fun, you'll create an atmosphere that encourages reader engagement, and that will translate to more
book sales—in other words, a perfect book party!

The Day After

Be sure to follow up personally with every attendee via email after the event, with links to write a
review, post a picture, or share a selfie.

Throwing your first book launch open house is always daunting. But perhaps this checklist will make it
easier (and more successful).

Here's to your great success!