Celebrating Your Book
How do we celebrate our new books?
A new book release is a great excuse for a party! Read on to find out how Vicky and Christine celebrate their books’ birthdays.
Our First Book Launches
Christine: My first book was Evelyn the Adventurous Entomologist and I went all out. I decorated cupcakes, had cookies and bookmarks made, organized a craft, and I invited everyone I knew to celebrate. And it was so much fun!
I was definitely nervous—I had never been a confident public speaker and had certainly never spoken in front of that many people before. But adrenaline, and my friends and family, carried me through. Plus the venue, Linden Tree Books, put on a wonderful event and I’ve loved launching each of my books with them ever since.
Since then I’ve had several wonderful launch events and I’m always so thankful for everyone who comes out to support me and my books.
Vicky, I know your first books launched during the pandemic so you had a very different experience. What did you do to celebrate your first book? And tell us about your first in-person launch party.
Vicky: I honestly don’t remember how I celebrated my first books… I think because it was the pandemic, I just did a lot of virtual events. I think it wasn’t until my fourth Layla and the Bots book that I got to do a real in-person event (at Linden Tree Books, of course)! Nowadays, I do what I feel like for each book. For a new series, I’ll usually throw a launch party, but I’m less likely to do so for subsequent books. In fact, I’m launching a book on Tuesday this week (hooray for Friendbots #3: Blink and Block Build a Fort!), and I’m not doing a launch event because it’s the third book in a series and I’ve launched four other books (yay!) since August and I’m tapped out. Honestly, it’s also hard for me to pull people out to so many events, unless my publisher or the bookstore or a festival is pushing something. But when I’m launching something new, I definitely want to celebrate and bring all my friends out with a party! (AHEM, I will be doing something big to launch my next series, Ava Lin, so I hope people show up in June for that one!!)
Tips for Launch Events
Christine: As is the way with any book marketing (more on that in a future paid post), I recommend doing what feels meaningful and right for you. If you love crafts, go for it. But make sure it’s easy enough for kids to do with minimal supervision from you otherwise things will get hectic!
If food is your thing, sweet treats always go down well. I would recommend having pre-packaged treats ideally and be mindful of allergies.
Be sure to have a pen ready to sign books (and practice your signature first!)
Vicky: I usually plan for up to 25 kids on a normal event (so estimating any stickers, goodies, etc.) but maybe plan more if it’s your debut or you’re doing something big. Or if you’re giving away treats that the grown-ups will want too! (And try not to be sad if nobody shows up to an event, it happens! Maybe fodder for a future post.)
Depending on the venue, I find that sometimes it takes a little while for kids to gather, so I like to have some things to chat about while I wait. Sometimes I’ll even read another book of mine if things are lagging.
If you’re planning a craft, make it something you can do with them as part of the story time, or have a helper to run the craft while you’re signing books!
Other Ways to Celebrate Your Book
Christine: I pretty much always arrange to see Vicky on book launch day and we have a cake to celebrate! We also like to stop by a local independent bookstore and sign books if they have them.
I always post to the various social media sites too to celebrate and thank everyone involved in making the book.
Vicky: Well, I do the same because we celebrate our launch days together! Sometimes I’ll also do something with my kids, but honestly, they’re usually over it (we’ve probably had the book in our house for a while and they don’t really want to celebrate pub day AND the launch event for all my books, etc etc.)
Oh, also, I love making swag! I almost always make stickers or bookmarks for my books. I use Stickermule for stickers (EDIT: we’re updating our sticker recommendation to Stickerapp) and Vistaprint for bookmarks. I maybe make 50-200 stickers, depending if it’s specific to one book or to a series and how many events I’m planning to do. I used to worry about the cost per item, but now I don’t worry about it. It’s nice to spend a little bit to have a little item to celebrate the book and then I can use them to give away at events or with book giveaways.
Once upon a time, I used to also have a charm bracelet that I would add a charm to for each book. This was a sweet but expensive idea, and now I have so many books that I gave up. (Good problem to have!) Maybe I’ll revisit it some day. At the end of the day, I think your book launch is a milestone to celebrate, but it probably means more to you than to anyone else! So if there’s something that will help you celebrate that moment for yourself, I say go for it.
Over to you, readers: how do you celebrate your books? Let us know in the comments.
P.S. Our next paid post is coming next week and we’re covering submission strategy with Vicky and her agent, Elizabeth Bennett.
My debut came out during the pandemic so the event wasn’t huge (7-8 kids, my Mom, my sister, wife and my kids). I was so thankful the small bookstore near me even allowed it, I got them a print from the book as a gift.
I make swag (bookmarks). I love doing some drawing with the kids and talking about ideas for books. I think it’s best to have low expectations about attendance but to make it really fun for those that come.
Great tips! I'll be having to figure out all these things soon, so will definitely come back to this post.