How Do You Prepare for a Successful “Grit Lit Book Launch”?

Hartley Stevens, author of the Tales of the Cable Counties Thriller series, presented the nuts and bolts of launching his first two books, Buck Wild and Absolute Bull. His April 2016 launch party, attended by more than 300 people, resulted in the sale of over 200 books.

His book-launch event was designed to introduce attendees to his Cable series and to engage them with the series’ themes—a fictional cohort of thirteen actual north central Florida counties where down-home residents “pool their resources to protect themselves from Florida’s panhandle Yankee tourists and the liberal sinners to the south.”

Stevens’ launch party goal was to help build his author platform and generate media interest beyond the event itself. After selecting a local brewery for the location, he solicited local and regional businesses and groups to participate, such as restaurants and musicians, in exchange for offering exposure to their products and services.

Stevens discussed the ingredients for his large-scale launch—including advance publicity and invitations as well as the value of book cover visuals, original music and games, and book-related food and drink. He also offered concrete ideas for small-scale, inexpensive book launch parties with suggestions such as book-related free or low cost locations—parks, churches, libraries, and retail sites.

He uses and highly recommends the website www.fiverr.com  for a myriad of low-cost, customized promotional materials. He also suggested three books—Story Grid by Shawn Coyne, You Are A Writer by Jeff Goins, and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield—as motivating resources for writers to approach their craft as they would any other job: show up, work hard, don’t give up. And prepare to launch!

Stevens’  talk was summarized by Jani N. Sherrard.