After looking at the date today, I realized my first novel, Shakespeare’s Lady, will be out in about three months (or four—depending on whether you count the current month or not).
As you can imagine, I am pretty excited and thrilled that it will be out in the
world. I wrote the book when I was seventeen and still a kid, and it’s been amazing watching the story grow through the editing process and through my own maturity. (At least, I would like to think I am more mature.)
And people who are out there (because I know you are), I would like to get your opinion on what I should do for promotional stuff. Should I have a few giveaways? A gift basket? A party?
What sounds like fun to you? And how would you like to celebrate it?
Please leave your comments! (And yes, I know the picture says “Happy Birthday,” but let’s assume it’s Shakespeare’s Lady’s birthday!)
♪ The Decemberists – Long Live the King – EP – Row Jimmy ♪
Alex Schnee 
Haha, congratulations! We are still about a year away from publication. I would say our novel is a toddler. It’s no longer a baby but still learning the basics of grammar. I have a new appreciation for editors after writing a book. Have you considered doing a blog tour for your launch? There’s a free one in February with Adopt an Indie and I’ve had good experiences as a Novel Publicity blog host, (in the interest of full disclosure, I now work for Novel Publicity).
-Eliabeth Hawthorne
Great suggestions! I will have to check that out. Thanks for taking the time to comment and providing such nice answer!
Your welcome! I’ve only been on the blogger side of both so far, but I know I’ll be planning a tour with Novel Publicity when we’re published. Even if I didn’t work for them, I liked them best as a blogger because it’s very well organized. Here are links:
http://adoptanindie.bookbagsandcatnaps.com/
http://www.novelpublicity.com/blog-tour/
You can see my blog posts for each on our blog. I did the one for Adopt an Indie Month today, http://wp.me/p1HrCI-jn and the review for Novel Publicity blog tour Farsighted posts Nov. 15th and the guest post excerpt that is referenced in the review posts Nov. 16th.
Reverse that. Guest post 15th review 16th.
I have no good marketing ideas, but I’m so excited for you! Can’t wait to read it!
That’s awesome! Congrats!
Ideas: Bookmarks, buttons/badges (get your friends to wear them, pin them on their bags, etc.), pens… They should all be pretty inexpensive to have printed.
Thanks for the suggestions! These are great.