Many of you will be familiar with ‘fake it till you make it’ mantra (although I feel that is at that stage of being overused). Regardless, it does resonate well with getting in and getting things done, regardless of your mindset.

Based on the theme of ‘faking it’, let us assume that you have written your book and you have it in front of you. With the holiday season around the corner you are ready to post out your book as a gift to customers and prospects.

Now because this is a hypothetical, one of the great benefits is that you can make a note of all your ideas and then adjust your hypothetical to take these variations into account. Keeping all these scenarios in your head can be overwhelming, so a notebook would be a good idea to assist with your planning.

Some of the practical things that you will need to think about when wrapping up your book are:

1. PREPAID ENVELOPES

Having prepaid envelopes based on the weight of your book – in Australia, it can be more costly if your book weighs over 500gms. It is usually better if your book weighs under this (you can check out the Australia Post costs on their site).

Once you go over 500gms, postage becomes more complex as weight and destination determine the cost, and this will usually mean that you are more likely to have to go to the post office. Standing in a queue in the holidays doe not sound like a fun idea.

You can reduce your stress by keeping the book weight under 500 gms.

2. CO-ORDINATING WRAPPING PAPER

You spent a lot of time and energy on your brand colours and the look of your book. Don’t diminish those now when you wrap up your book – ensure that your wrapping coordinates to your book and your brand colours.

This can be as simple as the envelope being the colour of one of your brand colours, or it could be more complex with branded wrapping paper and other add-ins like bookmarks or flyers.

Be mindful, not everyone wants wrapping, nor personalising, of a book (the book may be for someone else and there is nothing more embarrassing than having a book personalised when the book was intended for someone else). A workaround for those authors who love to personalise a book, could be a branded piece of notepaper with a personalised message. That way, the recipient can decide if they want to keep the note in the book or take it out. Let the recipient decide if they want to keep the book or re-gift it.

So, keep your personalised messages out of the book, unless you have been specifically asked to sign it.

3. PREMADE STICKERS

To speed up your process, premade stickers for addressees and your return address is a great time saver. Again, keep this in line with your branding colours and theme. Your message needs to be consistent.

Do you have a favourite way to wrap gifts?

Have you received a gift recently and you loved how it was wrapped up?

Perhaps you could replicate what you have seen done well.

How will you wrap your book for these holidays?

And, if you have not written your book – buy someone else’s book and practice the above steps to get ready for when you have your book!

If you would like to contact me, you can do so by sending me an email dyan@dyanburgess.com

In the interim, if you are interested in watching a 25 minute video about Creating a Book in Less than 60 Minutes, find out more details here.