Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop!

Today’s topic is: Does anyone do cover reveals as part of your publicity for a new book? Do they work anymore?

And remember to visit my fellow writers to see what they have come up with. You can find their works here!

First up – Happy New Year! I hope you have all had a wonderful New Year’s Day. Yesterday was my birthday and my wonderful wife treated me to a fantastic meal. A new year brings new opportunities, and I have some pretty big plans for my writing in 2023. I hope to keep myself honest and accountable to those with more regular updates on the blog, which you can read more about in my recent post.

But onwards to the first Open Book Blog Hop of 2023. First up, what exactly is a cover reveal? It’s a form of promotion for a new book. The cover is something that lures the reader before they know anything at all about the book. A cover reveal is a way to amp up the noise around a new release, slowly teasing a bit of the cover, more being shown over time leading to a full cover reveal.

I only have one book to my name so far, but I did do a very basic cover reveal for Chasing Shadows. As an amateur with no idea what I was doing, I kept it simple. I took close-up crops of different sections of the cover and released them on my social media platforms, finishing up with a full cover reveal. It certainly seemed to get some interest on social media, but I didn’t really have a release plan which was something of an error on my part.

I think I’ll still use a cover reveal for book two, but I need to sit down and formulate a more coordinated plan for the launch. I mean a full-on calendar planning out a series of activities over a period of time to build and maintain interest in the book leading to the launch. I think I was hampered a bit by COVID lockdowns as well, limiting what I could do. Hopefully, for the next book, I will be in a better place to really go for it as the launch approaches. Watch this space!