The first thing to understand about book launches is that, even if you’re an author under contract with a Big Five publisher (i.e., Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette), your publication date or “Pub Day” is just a blip in the long lifespan of your book. There are bitter jokes about books being unceremoniously dumped into the Barnes & Noble remainder bin after only a few weeks of disappointing sales, but even Big Five books that don’t perform well at their start are part of the publisher’s backlist forever and will always be available for order or download.

Books have a seemingly eternal lifespan, and many have a slow ramp-up of building sales over numerous years or even decades, as more readers discover those titles and recommend them to each other. Hardscrabble Road had very modest sales during its first few years, but it has built up some impetus over the last decade and now outsells all my other books combined. I am sure it will always outperform Return to Hardscrabble Road—the first book in a series always does—but hopefully the sequel will benefit from riding the first book’s metaphorical coattails.

The point of all this is not to be so focused on your book launch that you think the book’s best day for sales will be on your Pub Day and the months and years that follow will be a steep decline until it never sells another copy. If you keep doing signings, soliciting book clubs and podcasts to request consideration, getting reviews, entering it in contests, and making yourself known to book festival organizers, then word-of-mouth advertising will continue to raise the awareness of your book among readers. At book signings, buyers regularly tell me they’ve heard of one book or another of mine even though I’ve done no print or online advertising—someone recommended it to them at some point.

Still, you deserve to have a Pub Day book launch event with lots of friends and family buying your book. Hopefully, they’ll start the word-of-mouth that will create momentum for your future book sales.

Start this process by creating a budget. It’s easy to become wildly ambitious with your plans and end up renting a venue and locking in catering that ensures your launch party will lose money. Instead, begin by realistically estimating how many books you hope to sell and at what price. That revenue estimate becomes your not-to-exceed price for your total book launch expenditures. Of course, you want to come in below that mark—it would be nice to make a little money from your efforts!

When do you hold your event? Weekends and evenings are the obvious choices, but don’t get too hung up on finding the perfect date and time. Inevitably, individuals’ travel plans, kids’/grandkids’ events, illness/injury, and other things beyond your control will prevent some people from attending who you thought would be there for sure to support you. Instead, pick a day and time that work for you—it’s your party. If some people can’t make it, inform them about the next book signing event you’ve scheduled or how they can purchase the book online.

Once you have the date, time, and venue determined, use your mailing list to create an invitation on Evite or another online service so people have an easy way to RSVP and you won’t have to keep track of their responses manually. Ditto with your social media channels—Facebook makes creating an event and sending and tracking invitations easy as well. You no doubt have friends made through social media who will not appear on your mailing list, so be sure not to neglect them.

You’ll want to focus on expressing your thanks to friends and family on your Pub Day, not on the technicalities of processing credit card payments, etc. Therefore, enlist help among trusted friends to assist you with book sales, launch party set up, and collecting attendee names and emails so you can send a message of gratitude after your launch party.

You’ll want to plan a speech about your writing journey and the book you’re launching. Be sure to publicly thank those who helped you along the way and everyone for their attendance and support. I prefer to talk about the story-behind-the-story because, as Simon Sinek reminds us, people don’t buy what you do—they buy why you do it. However, if you must do a reading, then keep it brief (5-10 minutes, tops) to give your audience a flavor of your writing and what kind of story experience they’re in for.

After your big day, remember to thank the attendees by email. For those who indicated they would attend but couldn’t, let them know when your next event will be or at least where they can purchase your book.

And take a moment to celebrate your achievement. Writing a book is hard enough—launching it and spending the subsequent weeks/years promoting it while writing more books is where the real work comes in. Hang in there and keep moving forward!