So I’ve been a full time author for less than a week and already I have a book ready to go! Quick work huh?

Actually, that’s not true. The second Lucinda Fox book has been written for a couple of months now and I’ve just been waiting to have the time to spend on promoting it. And now that time is here so I’ve been doing some research.

Have you ever tried putting ‘How to launch your novel?’ into google? I wouldn’t recommend it. You get 5,200,000 results in 0.51 seconds. It’s a little bit overwhelming to be perfectly frank. But fear not. It’s not all that complicated. A successful book launch boils down to a few simple principles.

1. Tell your target audience about your great new book.

2. Encourage them to buy it.

There! How hard can that be?

Well, if the sales figures for the first one are anything to go by then it is actually quite tricky. People seem to like the book – the reviews are great and almost all the feedback has been really positive. So it seems that if I can get girls between about 11 and 14 and their purse-wielding parents to find the book then I’m on to a winner.

So for book two, Reality Bites, I’m going to try a bit harder. I’ll not tell you all my ideas yet but there are lots of them. It’s all very exciting/scary depending on which way out I’m feeling.

I think what I really need to do is a soft launch so that I can get some reviews under my belt before I start pushing it properly. This should ensure that I get Amazon’s algorithms on my side -this is important I gather.

Here’s where it starts to get tricky. To achieve this, I’m going to need some volunteers from amongst my loyal supporters. (That’s you!)  Here’s what you’d need to do as part of Team Fox. (Insert cool fox logo as designed by Claire Pickles.)

1. On a prompt from me, download the kindle version of Reality Bites for 99p on the QT. You have to do this so Amazon knows you’re a real person and not me just pretending. ( I know that this means that you are basically paying to do me a favour but I’ll give it you £1 back when I see you so really you’ll be quids in!)

2. Read it – it’s less than 300 pages and it’s really not hard going at all. You could read it on your phone whilst you queue for your morning latte or on the train on the way to work.

3. Leave a review on Amazon – preferably a nice one but any reviews are better than none and honest criticism is the most valuable.

4. Get that lovely warm feeling that comes from helping someone out.
(Ok that last one is a bit much but you get the idea.)

I’m hoping to launch the book at the start of the summer holidays so I’m looking for reasonably speedy volunteer readers who might have the time at the beginning of July.

So if you think this sounds fun and you fancy helping out then either comment below or send a message on the Facebook page and I’ll add your name to my list.

I’m beginning to think that this book launch business might be quite good fun!

Imogen.