Book Launch Teams –10 Activities to Keep Your Team Engaged

by Cynthia Owens @EfficiencyADict

All summer we’ve been talking about book launch teams—how to choose members, design your team, and stay sane in the process. With pumpkin spice lattes just a few weeks away, it’s time to wrap up. But now that you have this fabulous book launch team, what do you do with it? How do you motivate your team members, sell your books, and create raving fans in the process?

10 Activities to Do with Your Book Launch Team

1. Do a Facebook Live launch party. This is a way for team members and other readers to get to know you. They can ask questions, see you as a real person, and get a glimpse of what it’s like to be an author. As discussed in an earlierarticle, you don’t want to fill your launch team with your best friends, so a live launch party can help you connect with team members and general readers.

2. Encourage meme creation. Create blank quote pictures that include your website and book name. (See the ones Mesu Andrews did for her latest book launch.) Let your launch team add their favorite quotes from the book and share them on social media. This cuts down on the amount of work you have to do while keeping your branding consistent. It also lets your team members shine. **

3. Create a secret Pinterest Board just for your team. Let them post their finished quote memes here or add links to articles they’ve written about your or your work. This is a great place to keep items that team members can share about you with their social media followers. 

4. Give team members inside picks. Choose several names for a character or fictional setting you’re creating. Let the team vote on the name they want to see. Think of the team’s excitement when they read the name they chose in a published book.

5. Reveal items to team members first. Authors love to share cover reveals, new book deals, and upcoming titles with their readers. Simply share these items with your team members first. Then, they can help spread the word when you reveal this information to the public.

6. Hold contests. Several authors have said that when they need to get their teams engaged or re-invigorated, contests are the way to go. A couple of the items on this activities list can easily be turned into contests. See the ones marked with stars ** at the end. Contest winners could be drawn at random or voted on by the team. 

7. Blog hop on your team members’ websites. If your team includes a number of bloggers, create a blog tour for their sites or give them high priority in a wider tour you create.

8. Get pictures of your book in the wild. Have members post pictures on social media showing where they’ve found your book (store, town, country, etc.) or where they’re reading your book. **

9. Share author insights. Many people will never write a book, but they love to hear how authors do it. Share snippets of what your writing life is like with your team. Give them access to deleted scenes. Show pictures of what your desk or whiteboard looks like when you’re researching. Let them submit “ask the author questions” and answer one a week.

10 Pray for each other. As discussed in earlier articles, teams are communities. A simple way to connect with your team members and support them is to ask about their lives. Encourage them to share prayer requests and updates. 

One Final Note

Building and overseeing a book launch team can be daunting, especially if it’s your first time. In talking with authors who count launch teams as a key factor in the growth of their book sales, their advice about working with teams can be distilled to three things:

• Make it fun.
• Make it exclusive.
• Make it a true team effort.

What activities have you done with your book launch team? Please share your top tips in the Comments section.

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Cynthia Owens is The Efficiency Addict, a technical trainer helping writers, speakers and small business owners work more effectively. 

For more writing and small business tips, connect with Cynthia on Twitter and Pinterest.