How To Plan an Amazing Children’s Book Launch Party
One of the best ways to promote and celebrate the release of your new children's book is by throwing a book launch party. Writing and publishing a book takes tons of hard work and having a book launch party is a fantastic way to celebrate the big achievement. Book launch parties can also help increase book sales, build up hype about your book, and help you build a new audience of readers. In this blog post, we will go over How To Plan an Amazing Children’s Book Launch Party.
1) Plan Your Children's Book Launch Event in Advance
The first step to throwing an amazing children's book launch party is to start the brainstorming process far in advance. You need time to think about how you want your book launch to go and set up all the launch details. It takes time to plan what fun things you would like to happen at your book launch party, think about if you want your event to be public or private, and list your overall expectations.
You want to make sure you give yourself plenty of time to plan and promote your book launch event. This is not something that you want to plan last minute. The more time you give yourself to prepare, the better your book launch party will be with less stress. You need to figure out where to hold your event and who to invite. You will also need to think of fun creative things to do and create promo to advertise to the public.
Some Things to Think About When Planning a Children's Book Launch Party:
- Will this event be a small and private invite-only event or open to the public?
- When would be the best day and time to have this book launch event?
- Are there any holidays that may interfere with attendance for this event?
- How many people am I realistically expecting for this event?
- How many people would I ideally like to attend this party?
- What sort of venue would be best for my children's book launch?
- What are the themes in my story that I can use for my party?
- What is my budget for this event?
- What is my overall goal for this event?
- Will there be food and drinks?
- What sort of decorations do I want for this party?
- What sort of entertainment will there be at this event?
- What fun things can I have at this event to keep children and adults entertained?
- What things can I do to make this more fun?
- Will I need volunteers to help with this?
- Who can take pictures and videos of this event?
- Who can help me run this event and be in charge of sales?
- What supplies will I need for this event?
- Do I have a way to accept credit cards?
- How will I promote and advertise this event?
2) Make Sure You Have Printed Copies of Your Children’s Book Ready to Sell on Hand
You need to make sure you have printed copies of your children's book on hand to sell and sign for your children's book launch event.
It would be awful if you plan a book launch party and find out at the last minute that due to a printing error or some unforeseen circumstance, you have no books for your event. You can avoid this by ensuring you get books printed ahead of time and then setting a date for your book launch. At your book launch party, you will want to read your children's book to the kids and be able to hold up the illustrations for everyone to see physically. At your book launch party, people will want you to sign your books and possibly write a little note to someone and you cannot do these things without physical copies of your book.
Your book launch event will be a whole lot more successful if you make sure that you have printed copies of your book before setting a date.
3) Pick a Date for your Children's Book Launch Event
Of course, a common choice for a book launch party is generally the same day as your book release and many people also choose the day before the book release to build hype up about the book. But when choosing a day to have your book launch party you will want to carefully consider what day works best for you the author and what you think would work best for the bulk of your target audience.
For example, your book publisher may choose to have your book come out midweek or you might decide on a midweek release date because algorithms for online sales might prefer releases during the week. That midweek date may not be ideal for a launch party. It may be better for you to host a book launch party for your children's book on the weekend when kids and parents are not at school or work.
We generally recommend weekends as the best choice when deciding on a date to host a book launch party. If hosting the book launch party midweek, try to aim for a time after school and work hours.
But you also have to factor in holidays and things that may lower attendance for your book launch party. Having a book release around Christmas is often not ideal, same goes for having a book launch on Labor Day Weekend, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Fourth of July when families are out barbequing, going out to see friends and family, and taking off on 3 or 4-day weekend road trips.
Make sure to do research on when would be the best date for your book release. Avoid holidays if you can.
4) Pick a Venue For Your Children's Book Launch Party
When choosing a venue, you will want to consider how many people you believe will come, what activities you wish to do, the ease of access to a location, the vibe of the place, and your budget.
You do not want to choose a venue that is too small for the large number of people that will come or choose a big expensive hall for a small handful of people. You need to set realistic goals and know that not everyone that you invite will show up but you also do not want to limit yourself by having too small of a space.
Ask yourself is there enough parking? Can people easily find this venue? If it is too much of a hassle, people outside of your immediate friends and family circle will not come. If your event is open to the public you need to make it as easy as possible for people to come to your event.
Libraries and bookstores are common locations for children's book launch parties but you can get creative and host a book launch event in many different unique locations.
For our Book Launch Party for Riki and J.R.: The Big Bad Scary Mud Puddle we had our event at a large pizza place in town that had plenty of room. We talked to the owner ahead of time and reserved this whole upper patio section of the pizza parlor for our event. We had long tables for the kids to color on coloring sheets we had created, room to have a sales table filled with books and merch, room for Darlene and me to speak and read the books, and room for everyone to eat pizza. Normally this particular pizza parlor is slow during the week and they told us the best time would be on a Thursday night when they weren't busy so that is the day we had the event and we filled our whole section and the whole pizza place. The business owners were very happy to have lots of pizza sales during our event. In addition to the several pizzas that we purchased to give everyone a slice, many of the families ended up buying a pizza of their own to eat more. It was a fun casual event with many parents happily chatting while their kids colored horse coloring sheets. We had story time, and I made balloon animals for everyone, we all had pizza, played games, and answered questions about Riki and J.R. It was a fun event for all involved and the pizza place told us we were welcome back anytime.
5) Gather A Team to Help During The Event
Let's face it, parties can get chaotic and you as the author cannot be in two spots at once. Assembling a team to help run things during your children's book launch party is an absolute lifesaver.
There is no way Darlene and I could have done our children's book launch party without friends that we asked to come to help out with our event. While I was tying animal balloons and Darlene was talking to kids and parents, our friends were in the back corner manning the merch and book sales table. They ran the credit card app and sold our books, t-shirts, art prints, stickers, and buttons. Our event would not have been as much of a success without the help of these ladies. Without help, we would not have gotten nearly as many book sales. We were interacting and talking with everyone and making things as fun as possible and there is no way we could have been dealing with money and book sales at the same time. With the aid of these ladies, we also had someone to take pictures of us both up on stage and we would have just been so much more stressed.
By gathering together a team ahead of time you can confirm that they will be there, go over what tasks you would like help with, and show them how to operate the credit card Square Reader, Paypal swipe, or whatever payment device you will be using. Having people in your corner to support and help you makes things so much easier.
6) Plan Fun Activities For Your Children’s Book Launch Party
Think about how you can make your children's book launch party fun! What is the theme of your book? What is your children's book about? Ask yourself what sort of things can you do with that.
Our children's book is about horses so we obviously go with the whole horse, farm, and cowboy theme. I often wear cowboy boots, a big shiny belt, a leather jacket, and a cowboy hat to our children's book events. I made horse coloring sheet pages for the kids to color, and we had a pizza party and arcade games. We had different contests and raffles. I tied all sorts of animal balloons for the kids by their request, horses, dragons, alligators, mice, giraffes, dogs, reindeer, fish on fishing poles, flowers, and crazy hats for kids. (Definitely a major hit). We read our children's book out loud for everyone and talked about the two real horses that the story is based on. We have gift baskets with horse-themed items. We have given away plush horse stuffed animals and other horse toys. We talked and answered questions from kids and adults about our books.
Think about what games and activities can make your children's book launch party more fun.
Fun Activity Ideas
- Do trivia about the book, illustrator, or author
- Create coloring sheets based on your children's book
- Create a blank write your own story and create your own character sheets (encourage kids to make up stories)
- Do a scavenger hunt
- Create a custom word search for your book
- Maybe create custom bingo sheets with stuff related to your book
- Create your own games
- Makeup sing-alongs
- Have arts and crafts
- Have a costume contest or encourage people to dress up for your event
- Have contests
- Have giveaways
- Free swag
- Sell merch related to your books
7) Serve Food and Drinks, Cake or Cupcakes
This is a birthday party for your book and what birthday is complete without cake? Maybe get your children's book cover printed on a cake or you could even take toothpicks and attach a small photo of your book cover on individual cupcakes. Having food, drinks, and snacks for everyone if your venue allows definitely helps add to the fun of things and makes this book launch event a real party.
Many grocery stores and cake shops have the ability to screen-print photos onto cakes. So you can have your book cover printed onto the cake. This creates a fun showpiece for your book launch party with the added bonus of people getting to eat cake!
You can even order your own custom-printed edible cake toppers on Amazon to add to a cake yourself.
Shop Now: https://amzn.to/3CAoXey
8) Set up a Book Table and be Prepped for Sales
You want to make sure that you are fully prepared to handle sales. Having a way to accept people's debit and credit cards is crucial in this digital age where hardly anyone has cash on them. Research ahead of time and set up accounts with whichever service provider you decide to use to accept credit cards. We use the Square Reader for contactless and chip devices but have heard good things about Paypal's devices as well. In addition to being able to accept credit and debit, you should have change for cash. Can you break a $100 bill? Make sure you have lots of ones, fives, tens, and twenties and small changes on hand so you break down cash payments.
Shop on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3CoGSoh
9) Create and Sell Merch
At your book launch event, you can have merch for sale. Make sure you have permission from the artist who created the illustrations for your children's book first. But If you have permission, you can make fun merchandise to sell alongside your book at book-signing events and your children's book launch party. In addition to making another sale, people wearing or using your merchandise gives your children's book free promotion.
Merch Ideas:
- Tote Bags
- Keychains
- T-Shirts
- Buttons
- Stickers
- Journals
- Posters
At the book launch party for our first children's book, Riki and J.R. The Big Bad Scary Mud Puddle, we sold T-shirts, buttons, stickers, tote bags, and art prints. Over the years we expanded our merchandise selection but just having one or two additional items can bring in more money, helps with branding, and adds to the fun of the event. The tote bags were a hit because the people could use them to carry their books home. T-shirts with images of the horses on them were also highly popular.
A great website to help you get started making merchandise is Zazzle.com.
10) Invite Your Guests
After you have a date, time, and venue all nailed down you are all set to start telling all your friends and family about your event. The more people you tell the better! Don't be shy and ask your friends to get involved. Do your friends and family know people with kids that might want to come? Are there any local groups or libraries that do regular children's book readings that you can contact? Maybe create old-school physical invites to mail to everyone inviting them to come to your children's book launch party. Getting a physical party invite definitely helps people remember that you are having an event. Create flyers and hand them out and post them everywhere you can think of where children and parents might see them.
11) Tell Your Email Newsletter List Subscribers and Announce Your Book Launch Party on Social Media
Create a Facebook event. Upload creative graphics promoting your event and ask friends and family to share. You should send an email blast out to your email newsletter list subscribers and invite them to come to the event. If you do not yet have an email newsletter list, your book launch party can be a great time to get email signatures to sign up for one. If you would like to know why as an author you should have an email newsletter check out our blog post: Why Authors Need an Email Newsletter
12) Make a Press Release and Contact the Local Paper and News Outlets
Local newspapers and news outlets are often looking for fun topics to cover. It doesn't hurt to invite the press to your event or to at least send out a Press Release to local media channels. If you get the newspaper, blog, radio, or TV coverage, this all can help give you and your books more exposure. The more eyes on your event, the more people could potentially purchase your books.
13) Run Paid Ads and Other Promotion
If you decided you want your children's book launch party open to the public, you ideally want to get as many people to your event as you can. Running paid ads online can help let people outside of your current audience and social circle know about your event. By running ads you can reach far more people.
14) Plan Out Decorations For Your Book Launch Party
This is your book's birthday party and what party is complete without decorations? You want your book launch party to be fun! If your venue allows you to decorate, you should decorate it up! You can pre-make large posters, and art prints with some of the illustrations in your children's book, string up balloons, and streamers. Think creatively about how can you decorate your party.
Decoration examples below:
15) Give Out Bookmarks, Postcards and Other Fun Handouts with your Website and Book Information
People that attend your children’s book launch event may have friends and family that would also like your book. Give them bookmarks and postcards that they can take home and hand out to others.
16) Have A Way to Collect Contact Information For Your Email Newsletter
If your children's book launch event is open to the public you could very well be meeting people for the first time. Having a way to collect on-the-spot email addresses of parents that may be interested in hearing about future books is highly beneficial to authors. This gives you a way to contact them again in the future and let them know about book deals, new books, and other book events that you host. Even something such as just having a pre-printed email signup sheet on your book table can help. But you can also have prizes, contests, and other incentives to encourage people to sign up for your email newsletter list.
17) Have a Story Time Where You Read Your Children's Book Out Loud to Everyone
Reading out loud to the kids and parents that show up to your book launch party is a huge part of your event. If you have more than one book in the series, you can go ahead and read two or three stories out loud. Reading your children's book adds to the fun of the event and if people enjoy your story, most likely they will want to buy it to read over and over again.
18) Have a Mini Speech and Maybe Some Starter Conversation Topics About Your Book Planned Out
The last thing that you want is to be handed the microphone and to absolutely freeze like a deer in the headlights on stage. Plan out why you wrote your book, some fun facts and trivia about your book, and fun information you would like to share. Prepare some questions that you can answer to help keep you from drawing a complete blank.
During our book launch party, we talked a lot about the real-life horses, Riki and J.R., that inspired the book. We shared fun tidbits of information about the horses, their likes and dislikes, fun stories, and the process of creating the books.
19) Have a Book Signing
Sitting down and signing books that people purchase gives you a good chance to interact and talk one on one with parents that came to your book launch event. Book signings give your audience a chance to talk to the author in person and makes their book copy special because it is personalized and signed by the author.
20) Take Lots of Photos and Videos (Get Someone to Help)
Have someone take lots of pictures and videos throughout your event. Marketing is huge for authors and having photos of you signing books and speaking onstage can be highly useful for your author platform. Getting someone to take pictures during your book launch party will give you photos and videos to share on social media, blogs, your website, and your email newsletter. You can even have someone capture and live stream your event live onto social media for all the people who couldn't attend the event in person. Or you could share some quick Instagram stories live during the event. It's fun to take photos with friends and family who showed up to support your new book release. You can never get enough pictures and having someone there taking photos can be a major help. Book launch parties are a goldmine for gathering useful book marketing content. Do not post the faces of children at your event without their parents permission. You can photoshop blur out faces if you need to.
You may want to check out our blog post: What is an Author Platform and Why Do Writers Need One?
21) Thank Everyone for Attending
Be sure to take some time during the event to thank everyone for coming out and supporting you. People are busy and it is a nice gesture to thank your guests. Also be sure to thank everyone who helped with running, setting up, and helping you with your book launch party.
Have Fun and Enjoy Your Book Launch Party
Remember, at the end of the day that your children's book launch party is supposed to be fun. This is a chance to celebrate your accomplishment of publishing a book with your friends and family. Try not to stress over everything and enjoy the moment. This is a fun way to promote your new book, create lots of social media content and build up awareness about your book.
We hope that our blog post How To Plan an Amazing Children’s Book Launch Party helps give you ideas to plan your own successful book launch event.
If you have any questions or would like to leave a comment below, we would love to hear from you!
Other Blog Post's You May Be Interested in:
Do you find it difficult to create compelling antagonists and villains for your stories? Do your villains feel cartoonish and unbelievable? Do they lack motivation or a specific game plan? Discover the secrets to crafting villains that will stick with your readers long after they finish your story, with our How to Create Antagonists & Villains Workbook.
This 32-page instructional workbook is packed with valuable fill-in-the-blank templates and practical advice to help you create memorable and effective antagonists and villains. Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting out, this workbook will take your writing to the next level.
Our Goal for Aspiring Writer Academy is to help people learn how to write quality fiction, teach them to publish and promote their work, and to give them the necessary tools to pursue a writing career.
ENTER YOUR EMAIL
TO GET YOUR FREE
"First Steps Guide for Aspiring Writers" a 30-page comprehensive resource to get you started on your writing journey.
Thanks for subscribing! Please check your email for further instructions.
Other Blog Posts You May Like
How to Write Query Letters (for Fiction)
Slingshot Week: How to Set New Goals for Writing in 2023
The Pros and Cons of Writing Holiday Fiction (Collections & Anthologies)
Biggest Self-Publishing Mistakes New Authors Make
Novel Writing Tips: Don’t Bury the Dialogue!
What to Include in Your Author Newsletter
How to Choose Characters to Populate Your Fictional Story
Why Authors Need an Email Newsletter
Fiction Writing: Critique Group Etiquette & Warning Signs of a Good Group Gone Bad
How to Prep for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)
Fiction Writing: How to Plot a Story where the Antagonist is an ‘Invisible Foe’
What Authors Need to Know About ISBN Numbers Before Self-Publishing
Fiction Writing: How to Find a Critique Partner/Group
How to Research Information for a Historical Novel
7 Steps to Begin Writing a New Fictional Story
Learn to Plot Fiction Writing Series: Story Analysis of the movie “Signs”
Fiction Writing: How to Get a Literary Agent
How Writing Prompts Can Improve Your Fictional Story
Creative Writing: 5 Ways to Strengthen a Weak Fictional Character
Fiction Writing: Create a Storyboard to Map Out Your Scenes
Fiction Writing: How Specific Details Can Bring Your Setting to Life
Samantha Panzera is an adventurous travel blogger, graphic designer, and multi-media business entrepreneur who uses the experience she’s gained over the years to teach aspiring writers the skills they need to build an author platform and take their careers to the next level.
