This will be a four-part series on the background efforts behind the release of a book.

Part 1:  Building Steam

 Writing the novel isn’t enough.

 In these days of numerous demands on the audience’s time and interest, an author can’t just deliver the finished manuscript to a publisher and trust that everything else will happen automatically.  When the book itself is completed, a lot of the writer’s work is just beginning.

 Although I’m a prolific author, each new book release requires specific attention, a plan to ensure that the right audience knows about it, most particularly in certain cases where I, and the publisher, feel we really have something special.  And that’s definitely how we felt about THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, the first novel in my new fantasy trilogy “Terra Incognita.”  It’s an epic story about sailing ships, sea monsters, and the crusades, set in a time and place very much like our Europe during the Age of Discovery.  It has a sweeping story much like my “Saga of Seven Suns,” with a large cast of characters and a strong relevance to modern conflicts.  After I turned in the novel to my editor at Orbit Books, we were convinced that this was the sort of project that warrented going the extra mile, for all of us.

 The release date for THE EDGE OF THE WORLD is June 2, 2009, but we started building steam at least seven months ahead of time.  I did part of this work myself; Orbit took care of part of it from their end.  Together, we pulled off one of the most organized and widespread marketing pushes any of my solo novels has ever received.

 Even before the final manuscript was turned in, I sent the first 100 pages plus an introductory letter to the publisher’s entire sales staff, so they could get a handle on what “Terra Incognita” was all about.  I recorded a short video, also posted on YouTube, in which I described the genesis of the project and my fascination for old maps, voyages of discovery, and the old Prester John legend.  I began to post blogs about the novel, the research, and the writing process.  I uploaded the cover art as soon as it was available.

 The techno-wizards at Orbit developed a remarkable flashy widget that animated part of the cover art, contained a brief description of the book, the full cover text, the first three sample chapters in the novel, the author video described above, as well as two songs from the associated rock CD (more on that in Part 2).  In March, we debuted the widget on www.wordfire.com and asked fans to share it on their MySpace, FaceBook, or other websites.

 We designed and printed up 2500 full-color pads of sticky notes to promote THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, which were distributed at library conferences and science fiction conventions; we also used them as prizes to encourage fans to share the Terra Incognita widget.

 In March, I gave a speech and presentation at New York’s famed Explorer’s Club to a crowded room of world-renowned explorers, celebrities, and publishing bigwigs; every person in attendance received a special advance reading edition of the novel.  

 We were beginning to build up steam.  In the meantime, I was hard at work writing the manuscript for Book 2, THE MAP OF ALL THINGS, making sure the trilogy remained on schedule. 

 And all of this was still three months before the release of the book.  We were just getting started.

—Kevin J. Anderson