Ten Tips to Have a Successful Book Release Party on Facebook!

I recently had the opportunity to help run a Facebook Book Release Party for a FB friend. It was SO. MUCH. FUN!

In full disclosure, I kind of strong-armed my way into it, which is unusual for me because I'm generally not a pushy person. I just got so excited about her new book coming out!

Anyway, here's a little rundown on how to do it. It's VERY SIMPLE.

1. Create an event for the release party. It can coincide with the day you release your book, or it can be as much as a month into it. It doesn't make sense to do it much later than that. The first week is the best time.
2. Invite friends, acquaintances and strangers to your event!
3. Advertise your release party. If you don't want to be annoying, just mention that you are having one, and tell people to ask for invites.
4. Plan the time frame for your party. I've seen them last as short as two hours to as long as three days!
5. Prepare an itinerary for your party. Usually games/quests/challenges are the order of the day.
6. Write your script ahead of time to make it easier.
7. Block out the time you will be 'attending' your release party. My DH knew ahead of time that I would be unavailable to take care of kids etc. so that I could run the party.
8.  A little preplanning makes it a successful event. Have stock photos of party balloons or snack trays just for fun, plan how you will choose random winners for the games, and have an idea of what the prizes will be too. I used http://www.miniwebtool.com/random-name-picker/ for drawing the names; it was super easy.
9. Before your party, check the ranking of your book. It's so fun to compare numbers the next day.
10. Be upbeat, cheerful and gracious at your Release Party. You did all that hard work to write your book, enjoy this little perk!

The premise behind the Book Release Party is that you are taking advantage of free advertising and the kindness of friends and support of other authors to promote your book.

In the party I helped run, the book's ranking started out at 96,000. By the end of the FB release party, it was at 46,000. And the next morning the author's book had reached 21,000 in rank. What a huge accomplishment!

Have a lot of fun with it. I'll blog tomorrow about the best kinds of games to play and prizes to offer. If you are interested in having someone help you with a FB Release Party, find me on Facebook and send me a PM.