Book Launch Coaching

The Launch Lab Consultation Package helps debut authors market their books and develop their careers in effective and authentic ways. With coaching from GrubStreet’s Launch Lab experts, break through the noise and confusion of social media and modern marketing techniques, and devise a personalized campaign to launch your book and develop your career. 

The Package includes an Overview Consultation service and a series of optional add-ons. See below for details on our Launch Lab experts and the services they offer. For more information or to arrange a consultation, email Lynne Griffin at [email protected] or Katrin Schumann at [email protected]. 

Meet the Launch Lab Experts

Media-savvy experts Lynne Griffin and Katrin Schumann designed and ran GrubStreet's Launch Lab. The first of its kind, the Launch Lab taught debut authors how to be effective marketers and advocates of their work. Called “relentlessly practical and totally motivating,” the Launch Lab attracted national attention, and guided the launch campaigns of Marjan Kamali's Together Tea, and Michael Blanding's The Map Thief, and more. 

Lynne Reeves Griffin is the author of the novels Girl Sent Away, Sea Escape, and Life Without Summer, and the nonfiction guides Let’s Talk About It: Adolescent Mental Health, and Negotiation Generation: Take Back Your Parental Authority Without Punishment. Lynne teaches family studies at Wheelock College in Boston and fiction writing at GrubStreet. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Scholastic’s Parent & Child, The Huffington Post, and The Boston Globe, among others. For more about Lynne's work, visit LynneGriffin.com.

Katrin Schumann is the co-author of The Secret Power of Middle Children and Mothers Need Time-Outs, Too. She has been featured on the Today show, Talk of the Nation and in The Times, as well as other national and international media outlets. Before going freelance, she worked at NPR, where she won the Kogan Media Award. For more info, check out her website katrinschumann.com, and her GrubStreet blog series, Behind the Launch Lab: Craft & Commerce.

The Overview Consultation

The Overview Launch Lab Consultation is designed to help writers who are publishing a book, whether fiction or nonfiction. This consultation is taught over the course of two weeks, and combines two one-on-one phone consults, with homework, and a follow up critique session. Fee: $500.00

One of our Launch Lab experts will guide you to:

• Develop a strategic framework for launching your book.
• Create an individualized marketing plan, using the Launch Lab Logic Model.
• Define your Mission & Intent (Why do I write?), your Definition of Success (What outcomes do I seek?) and your Campaign (What will I invest and do?).

 At the end of the overview consult, you'll be well on your way to crafting:

• A career mission statement.
• Specific goals for launching your book.
• A strategic campaign for marketing and promotion.

Optional Add-Ons

Ongoing Coaching

Stay on track and fine-tune your custom book launch marketing plan with additional coaching. Already familiar with your work, our Launch Lab experts are uniquely suited to guiding you to achieve your specific goals by offering feedback on what’s working with your plan, and what might be finessed. Fee: $100.00 per hour.

 

Making Social Media Work for You

Create a social media platform that’s right for you, your book, and your career goals. Learn how your personal and professional strengths play into designing a social media strategy that is sustainable and enjoyable, while connecting readers to your book. Our Launch Lab experts will demonstrate the book promotion opportunities offered by Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook, blogs, and other websites, and help you define your specific goals, message, and added value. Fee: $300.00.

This consultation is taught over the course of two weeks, and combines a phone consult with assignments and a follow-up critique session.

By the end of this consult, you will:

• Know how to make social media work for you.
• Understand different ways to connect your book with your audience.
• Create an individualized social media strategy using specific platforms aligned with your goals.

 

Breaking into Traditional Media

Do you know how to get your book placed in a magazine? Can you tap into the news cycle to become an expert on TV—thereby also promoting your work to millions of viewers? Learn the most effective ways to use traditional media to get exposure for your book. Experts will help you hone your pitch for placing essays or booking television and/or radio appearances. Develop effective one-liners and bios to use both for pitching a variety of media and as the basis of your public discussions. Brainstorm ideas built around the core themes of your work and develop a list of target outlets, establishing reasonable expectations while also thinking big. 

This consultation is taught over the course of two weeks, and combines one phone consult with assignments and a follow-up critique session. Fee: $300.00.

By the end of this consult, you will:

• Understand how to find the best angles in your book for pitching traditional media stories and interviews.
• Create an individualized strategy for pitching essays, op-eds, radio and television media.

 

Media Training

Learn how to best present yourself publicly in service of your book and your career. Your Launch Lab expert will devise a series of interview questions based on your work, and you will record and share a practice video interview. The expert will evaluate your performance with a constructive critique and practical guidelines to prepare you for the real thing. You'll learn how to be concise and interesting on radio interviews, how to be most effective in a 3-minute live or taped television interview, and how to give the reading of a lifetime. 

This consultation is taught over the course of two weeks, and combines one phone consult with assignments and a follow up critique session. Fee: $300.00.

 By the end of this consult, you will:

• Understand what makes a good interview, reading, or guest appearance on radio and television.
• Strengthen respond to media, using the feedback provided by your Launch Lab coach. 

 

Lessons Learned from Publishing

Your Launch Lab coach will connect you with a former Launch Lab participant and published author to discuss lessons learned from having gone through the experience of launching a book. This consult is a one-hour phone call with a participating author. Fee: $100.00.