Creating a Mystery Book Launch

Here's how an author plans a book launch from start to finish . . .

First find an appropriate venue. My latest release I co-authored is Out of the Frying Pan, which is a snarky mystery with a dose of romance tossed in. Because the story is filled with quirky characters, I searched for a quirky place to hold the event. Once Upon a Crime is a small, local shop that only sells mysteries. Score!

Kelly Klepfer and Moi

After arranging a time and date, I started planning what we'd do besides simply signing a book. We also wanted to do something a little more original other than flip open our book and start reading. So, we wrote a newsletter as if it came from the community that's the setting for the story. We embedded an easy to solve mystery in the articles, then we read the articles aloud. Afterwards, guests got to guess who did it and enter a drawing for one of three gifts.

Of course you can't have a party without food. We created appetizers and drinks that tied in with one of the main characters.

Here's how the schedule went:

6:30-7:00  Arrival and milling about, partaking of the snackies and drinks. Also you could get your book signed during this time.

7:00-7:30  Authors read and prize giveaway.

7:30-8:30  Loads of visiting and more book signing.

It was a super fun launch. This could be tweaked to work for any genre of book release. The point is to make it fun for the readers and to give them a little something extra for their effort at coming.