I recently had a very successful (for me!) book launch for my latest novel, selling 5,838 units on Amazon in pre-orders and in the first week of launch. Book Brush images were an integral part of the campaign behind that success.
How do I use Book Brush to support a launch?
Preparation
I use a freelance cover artist to do my covers, and I ask her to also prepare images (without text), based on the cover design, which I can use for Facebook and BookBub ads. She prepares the images in Facebook horizontal and square formats, and in BookBub’s rather claustrophobic 300×250 pixel format. I use these to create finished images in Book Brush.
Before the campaign begins, I have been building expectation on social media and use the Custom Creator ‘cover reveal’ templates with my pre-made background to build a little interest.
Created With Book Brush
Preorder phase
I list the book for preorders a month before launch. In support of this I run Facebook and BookBub ads targeting audiences who read authors like me.
For this, I go to ‘Custom Creator’ in Book Brush, and choose a Book Brush Facebook ads template; either ‘standard’, ‘square’ or ‘cover photo’. I already have my cover art image as a background, so I just need to insert text.
Created With Book Brush
For variation, I can insert a 3D book cover, and then use the ‘background blur’ feature to make the cover pop a little better. The reason I do this, rather than just use a neutral background, is to reinforce a kind of ‘brand awareness’ so that if a reader clicks on the image and goes to the book page on Amazon, the colors help guide the eye to the right book.
Created With Book Brush
Launch day
As launch day approaches, I prepare an ad ‘blitz’ for social media and BookBub and test a couple of different ad types on the first day to see which one gets bites. These examples are for a BookBub series offering a 2 for 1 deal (BookBub subscribers in my experience respond best to ‘deals’).
Created With Book Brush
Created With Book Brush
Lifecycle
As we move into the post launch phase, a week or more after the launch, I concentrate on social media posts highlighting reviews of the novel and support these with images like those above, but also with season specific ‘mockups’ from the Book Brush Instant Mockup tool. For example, this from a post targeting readers going on summer vacations…
Created With Book Brush
In fall or winter I would use season specific images from the template selection.
That’s how I do it, and I love reading on the Book Brush blog how others do it too! Check out this article on the Book Brush Blog on 11 Book Promo ideas worth exploring for example.
Article by FX Holden
FX Holden is a pen name of award winning author, Tim Slee.
Tim Slee’s first success was as winner of the Allen & Unwin INK short fiction prize. In 2016 he started independently publishing long fiction, and was the winner in Feb 2017 of the Grand Prize in the US Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize in Fiction. In 2018 he received the Banjo Prize for unpublished Australian fiction, and his manuscript TAKING TOM MURRAY HOME was published in August 2019 by HarperCollins Australia. He has been awarded two US Publishers’ Weekly Stars (the Michelin Star of publishing) and the 2020 US Readers’ Favorite award for Best Political Thriller. Find him on Amazon.
