This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.
There has been SO MUCH for Miranda to celebrate recently… just little moments of appreciation that many writers know are rare moments to really cherish.
Miranda and I met again this week via Skype to take stock of everything, and get a clear gameplan for the next couple weeks. At this stage, we are balancing a lot: long term (6 months out) and short term (3 weeks out) and trying to ensure that we focus on key tasks while not being overwhelmed with the laundry list of items that we are ignoring.
Here is us chatting via Skype:
Two things we are finalizing now are:
- Email list
- FriendStories launch
Miranda’s previous email list has pretty much languished – I don’t think it has been updated or mailed to in years. This is actually something we should have firmly setup 6 months ago, so I actually feel way behind on this.
For FriendStories, Miranda has doing months worth of work on it, including putting up a site, but without an official launch. That comes in January, and she is very busy collecting stories for it. It’s kind of nice to have another sort of launch ahead of the book launch.
All of these things condition us to expect to connect with readers; to constantly consider how we can reach out; and what it means to forge MEANINGFUL connections, and not just relying on promotion.
One other idea I pitched to Miranda, but sadly we will not have time for, is the Bittersweet board game. Oh well…
🙂
-Dan