Book Marketing Checklist: Before, During, and After Launch
A book marketing checklist isn't a list of everything you could possibly do. It's the right tasks, in the right order, for your book, your readers, your publishing path, and your budget. Run every tactic on the internet and you'll burn a launch calendar on things that don't move the needle. Run the right dozen at the right time and a modest campaign will outperform a scattered big one.
This checklist walks through three phases: what to handle before your book launches, what to handle during launch week, and what to keep doing after. It works for traditionally published, hybrid, and self-published authors, though who owns each task will differ. If you want to turn a list like this into a prioritized plan, we've also written about how to promote your book.
How to use this checklist
Work through the phases in order and set real deadlines against your publication date, not "someday." Every task needs one owner, even if that owner is you. And not everything here applies to every book: we've flagged the essentials, the tasks worth doing when they fit your audience, and the ones that depend on genre, budget, or your own strengths.
Essential: most campaigns need this, regardless of genre or path.
Recommended: valuable when it fits your audience and goals.
Optional: depends on budget, genre, or where your strengths are.
Your publishing path changes who's responsible for what. If you're traditionally published, find out early what your publisher will handle, which assets they'll provide, and how long their own promotional push runs, usually a matter of weeks around pub date. If you're hybrid published, get a straight answer on which marketing, distribution, and publicity services are actually included versus billed separately. If you're self-published, assume everything on this list is yours to manage or delegate, including metadata, retailer pages, ARCs, and advertising. For more on that path specifically, see our guide to marketing a self-published book.
Before your book launches
Foundations: goals, positioning, and platform (essential)
Start with clarity, not tactics. Define what success actually looks like for this book: a sales number, a reader base, a set of media placements, a stronger platform for the next book. Identify who you're writing for and where those readers actually spend their time, then look at comparable titles to see how they're positioned, priced, and reviewed.
Your platform needs to exist, including:
Author website with a dedicated page for the book
Email signup and a welcome sequence, not just a form that goes nowhere
Social profiles on platforms that you actually use (not every platform that exists)
Consistent author bio, photo, and branding across all channels
A professional author website and a clear platform strategy do more for a launch than most authors expect, mainly because everything else on this list, interviews, reviews, ads, sends traffic somewhere.
Press kit, ARCs, and early outreach (essential for media and reviews)
This is where campaigns are won or lost on timing alone. Publishers Weekly's own submission guidelines require review copies three months before publication, four months preferred, and Kirkus, Library Journal, and Booklist run on similarly tight windows. Miss that window and the biggest trade reviews simply aren't available to you, no matter how good the book is.
Press kit: bio, photos, book summary, Q&A, blurbs, one-sheet
Print and digital ARCs, formatted correctly, not a rough PDF
Reviewer and media list, built specifically for this book's genre and angle
ARCs sent according to each outlet's lead time, tracked with follow-up dates
First round of pitches to long-lead publications and podcasts
This is also the point where a lot of authors discover the gap between sending a pitch and getting a response. A generic email to a general inbox gets ignored at a rate that would surprise most first-time authors. A press campaign built on real relationships with reviewers and producers gets read, because it isn't the fiftieth cold pitch that outlet saw that week. That difference is most of what a publicist is actually being paid for.
Launch week
By your pub week, a book launch checklist is really a coordination checklist. Everything you built in the months before either fires on schedule or it doesn't.
Every retailer link and page tested, live, and accurate
Launch email sent to your list
Launch team activated with approved graphics, captions, and links
Confirmed media appearances and any launch events running on schedule
Reviews and early coverage shared across your own channels
Sales, traffic, and reviews monitored daily so problems get caught fast
A launch event, in person or virtual, does something a social post can't: it gives readers, media, and your own network a single date to show up for. Wildbound builds author events as part of a coordinated push rather than a standalone party, timed to land inside the same week as your media coverage and ad spend, so the whole campaign peaks together instead of trickling out over a month.
After your book launches
Most of the missed opportunity in book marketing happens here, not before launch. Publicity, promotion, and advertising all keep working long after pub week if someone keeps pushing them.
In the first few months (recommended):
Continue pitching media with fresh angles tied to current events or the season
Pursue podcasts, local press, and guest articles you didn't have time for pre-launch
Turn interviews and reviews into social content, newsletter material, and updated book-page copy
Pitch speaking engagements, book clubs, libraries, and bookstores directly
Ongoing, monthly or quarterly (recommended to optional depending on capacity):
Send a regular newsletter and keep publishing useful content
Review advertising performance and cut what isn't converting
Revisit retailer keywords, categories, and your book description periodically
Test small, targeted promotions rather than one large ongoing spend
If advertising is part of your plan, treat it as a book promotion checklist of its own: define the objective, set a small test budget, run a few ad variations, and only scale what's actually converting. Our book marketing services page covers how we structure paid promotion, including where Amazon ads and email marketing fit against organic reach, and our guide to how to market your book explains why owned, earned, and paid channels work best in that order. And no ad budget fixes a weak cover, a vague description, or a launch that stalled out after week one. It amplifies what's already working.
When to bring in a publicist
Every task on this checklist can technically be done solo. Not every author has the time, contacts, or bandwidth to do all of it well, especially the outreach that depends on existing relationships with reviewers, producers, and journalists. The honest answer to "do I need a publicist" usually comes down to two questions: how much of this can you realistically execute in the months before launch, and how much of it depends on doors that are easier to open when someone's already inside the building. If you want the fuller picture of what book PR actually involves and costs, we cover that directly in PR for books.
Frequently asked questions
What should be included in a book marketing checklist?
At minimum: your goals and audience, platform basics like a website and email list, a press kit and ARC plan, a launch-week coordination list, and a post-launch plan for ongoing promotion. What gets added beyond that depends on your genre, budget, and publishing path.
When should I start marketing my book?
Six to twelve months before publication for platform-building and campaign planning, with press kits and ARC outreach in motion by three to four months out to meet trade review deadlines. Starting a few weeks before launch is the single most common mistake we see.
Do self-published authors need a different checklist?
The phases are the same, but a self-published author owns every task, including ones a traditional publisher would normally handle: metadata, ARC production, and distribution.
Do I need to complete every task on this checklist?
No. Cut anything that doesn't fit your audience or goals. A poetry collection and a business book need almost entirely different promotional tactics, even though both are "books."
We'd love to learn more about your book and where you are in the process. Talk to our team.
