An illustration of a kitten sitting on a pile of books with a storyboarding notebook open in front of it.
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Training #646 – A Picture Book Launch Plan

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A member came to us with a picture book most of the way finished (eight illustrations done, a November launch in mind) and one question: what actually needs to happen between now and then, and how much lead time does it take?

We expected to spend fifteen minutes on it. Instead, Erin built him a complete launch plan on the spot, and it took the whole session. It was useful enough that we've released it as its own training rather than leaving it buried in a hot-seat replay.

Erin walks through twenty steps in the order you'd actually do them, not in order of importance. The first stretch is about building an audience while the book is still coming together. The middle covers preparing the book itself. The last stretch is the launch.

The book at the centre of it is a children's picture book about a cat, so you'll hear a lot about cats. Don't let that put you off if you write something else. The sequence underneath is the same for any book, and we point out along the way which pieces of advice are genuinely picture-book specific (where to prioritise print over ebook, for instance) and which apply whatever you're publishing. Substitute your own subject as you go.

The second half is questions from the room: how much lead time you really need, whether all of this is worth doing for a first book or whether you should hold it back until a second is ready, and what to do if you want illustrations but aren't an artist.

A downloadable checklist of all twenty steps, with space to set your own target dates, is linked below alongside the resources mentioned during the session.

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