Review—The Book Launch Planner

When I published The Hole in the World I knew that a good part of the process was going to be learning on the fly. I was not wrong. I made the best choices I could based on the information I had available and what was right or feasible. I made plenty of mistakes, learned a lot very fast, and have a few regrets.

One of those regrets is how unprepared I was for the part of publishing after the book goes to print. As an indie author we become small businesses by necessity, and it’s a lot to manage. I didn’t know about things like cover reveals, street teams, or even how to go about selecting ARC readers. I was still a n00b on Instagram, trying to translate being a writer to a photo-based platform.

Lucky for me I made a network of fellow indie authors, and through them I was directed to Mandi Lynn’s The Book Launch Planner. Y’all. This thing saved my life during the launch process for Blood of the True Believer. With so much going on in my home life, I felt lost and like I was always forgetting things. I didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of my first book, as I had plenty of those specific to this book.

This planner is designed to walk you step-by-step through many of the common tasks related to self publishing, from budgeting your cover design to templates for signing up ARC readers.

And stickers! I am an easy sell for stickers, fam. The blank planner comes with stickers to help you customize your launch timeline, track and plan social media posts, and keep lists of people and things to remember along the way. Mandi Lynn has stickers which are designed to be used in the planner if you’re continuing to use it while writing, but honestly I found them cute and helpful for my regular bullet journal.

The tl;dr here is that I love it. If you are an indie author who might enjoy supporting a fellow author and small business owner, check out this handy dandy little planner, or even just go grab a few of the colorful stickers to make your regular journal a little more fun.