The Launch Lab
Introducing Your Book | Directing Your Career
These days, authors-- no matter how they are published-- are frequently on their own when it comes to marketing and promoting their books. Publishers now expect their authors to be active partners in the marketing process, cultivating their audience with all the new tools available to them via social media and innovative marketing. In the midst of all these changes and this unavoidable reality, Grub Street seeks to build community and share expertise around these crucial new responsibilities.
Currently, authors with deep pockets can hire consultants and public relations experts to support them, but the results are mixed at best. Do-It-Yourself sites and webinars also exist, but the content tends to be paint-by-number and too general to make much of an impact. Moreover, most authors find this work daunting, joyless, and uncreative.
The Launch Lab is a pioneering program that will equip writers with the knowledge and tools they need to be effective in their efforts while also facilitating friendships and community so that they remain inspired, connected, and engaged in the process.
Grub Street will bring together 16 serious writers of fiction and nonfiction to participate in the Fall 2013 offering. The application deadline is
September 6, 2013.
When you participate in The Launch Lab, you will:
- Uncover your motivation and articulate your mission
- Determine the right campaign for you and your book
- Define what success means to you
- Dissect your book and find the best pitches and angles
- Decide how you’ll connect with appropriate reading communities
- Learn best practices for using social media
- Create an individualized marketing plan
- Receive personalized coaching to achieve campaign goals
- Discover how to leverage Amazon and utilize industry analytics
- Participate in the beta-testing of new writer analytic software, aimed at tracking your efforts and results
- Understand how to evaluate “paid-for” services
- Get feedback on your presentation skills in preparation for television appearances, readings and/or live radio interviews
- Have the opportunity to do a reading at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, MA
- Hear from published authors who have learned key lessons from their own launch experiences
See more information about our
program details,
submission guidelines,
instuctors, and
who should apply. Also, be sure to check out the monthly blog posts by one of the project leads, Katrin Schumann, on the
Grub Daily.
Dates of Course: October 4th-5th, November 1st-2nd, and December 7th.
Questions?
If you have specific questions about the Launch Lab program, email Eve Bridburg at
eve@grubstreet.org or call the office at 617.695.0075.