Advice from Industry Experts on Street Teams

by Kristen Hogrefe Parnell @KHogrefeParnell

Authors depend on street teams or launch teams to help spread the word about their books, but if you’ve been on some of these teams before, you already know how different they can be in structure and expectations. 

As I’ve discovered, there is no one right or wrong way to run a street team. However, at this year’s Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer’s Conference, I asked several best-selling authors if they would share their advice on street teams, and I’ve compiled some of their tips here today.

Advice from industry experts

1. How do you recruit, and what is your target size?

• Create a Google form and share it with your newsletter subscribers.
• Size recommendations ranged from 30 people to “the more, the merrier.”

2. How do you reward your team?

• Create an “I’m on the team” meme for them to post on social media.
• Send book swag to everyone on the team for appreciation. Pro tip: Choose swag that fits in an envelope you can mail from home using a regular stamp. Examples include bookmarks, stickers, and signed name plates, personalized to each team member and signed with your name. 
• Pray for your team.
• Do drawings or giveaways just for your team.
• Gift them with an e-copy or paperback copy of your book.

3. How do you organize your tasks?

• Send out a list of suggested activities once a week and provide the team with everything they need, such as meme quotes from the book and hashtags.
• Set up a Rafflecopter for the team to “mark off” their completed tasks (using the honor system) and offer a $10 Amazon gift card incentive.

4. What tasks do you prioritize for the team?

• Mark your book as “to read” and review on Goodreads early.
• Review on BookBub early.
• Ask their library to pre-order the book.
• Post Amazon reviews on release day.
• Ask the team to buy the Kindle ebook or paperback on release day (for themselves or a friend).

5. How long is your launch team active for a new release?

• One suggestion was four weeks; others run longer.
• Set a specific start and end date.

Make it manageable

The bottom line, as I see it, is to create a plan that’s manageable for you. This season of life is a busy one for me, because my husband and I welcomed our baby boy in July. He’s a high-energy little fellow who likes to skip naps! I know going into this release that I can’t do it all, so my goal is to do what I can well.

For my December romantic suspense release, I created a simple Google form application for my street team. You’re welcome to use it as an example of a basic application or even apply to join the team if you’re interested. 

Have you organized a street team before or participated in one? What advice would you share for these teams? Please leave a comment so we can learn from each other.

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Advice From Industry Experts on Street Teams from author @KHogrefeParnell on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Kristen Hogrefe Parnell writes suspenseful fiction from a faith perspective for women and young adults. Her own suspense story involved waiting on God into her thirties to meet her husband, and she desires to keep embracing God’s plan for her life when it’s not what she expects. She also teaches English online and is an inspirational speaker for schools, churches, and podcasts. Her young adult dystopian novels, The Revisionary and The Reactionary, both won the Selah for speculative fiction, and her first romantic suspense novel with Mountain Brook Ink releases this December. Kristen and her husband live in Florida and welcomed their baby boy in July. Connect with her at KristenHogrefeParnell.com