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.
As Miranda mentioned earlier, we pretty much became BookExpo buddies at the huge event at Javits Center at the end of May. Besides our work together previously, our meetups for coffee and our phone conversations, Miranda and I spent hours and hours wandering around the BookExpo show floor trading ideas.
We didn’t have an agenda for our conversations, but we talked a lot about books, writing, the process of creation, publishing, and of course, her book Bittersweet. Here is Miranda and I at the Random House booth, as I tried to fill her mind with long lines of readers hoping to meet her there next year:
While I have a specific methodology I use when working with writers, it would be simplistic to think that every book launch or author platform can follow the exact same steps. Each book is different, each author is different, and how they choose (or choose not to) leverage the many tools and strategies at their disposal will be unique. In fact, most authors I meet are completely overwhelmed with all of the options, and all the articles out there saying “you HAVE to do such and such.”
So much of what Miranda and I chat about is not just “what can we do,” but rather “what SHOULD we do.” Inherent in this is the notion that for everything we choose to do, we are choosing not to do a dozen other things.
Focusing our attention, our resources, and ensuring that everything we do is perfectly catered to this book, this author, and her ideal readers.
Thanks.
-Dan