It’s Book Launch Week! Here’s what I am doing for my latest book.
Book launch goals, tactics, and lessons learned so far
I’m launching my fifth published book this week, and I am happy to announce that I hit #1 New Release and #1 Bestseller in multiple categories.
Before diving into the details of my launch, I wanted to share the book with you. If you are interested in a book like this, feel free to pick it up!
My latest book:
The Gospel of Matthew: A Bible Study Devotional on the Kingdom of God
That will be the only push on the book for this post, but I wanted to share it with you so you can at least look at the book page and description for examples regarding your future books.
Now, let’s dive into some book launch details!
Book Launch Goals
I set a few goals for every book launch to help me focus my launch strategy. These goals help me decide how I will promote my book. Here are my goals:
1,000 orders of the book.
100 email subscribers from the book.
Hit a #1 Bestseller list.
So far, I have hit the bestseller goal, but I have some work on the other two goals. They are a little more complicated, but I have reached both goals in the past with other books.
Why set these goals?
Hitting a thousand downloads is enormous for me. The average self-published book does about 250 orders in its entire lifespan. So, it is vital to me to far surpass that number.
I am constantly trying to grow my email list. One of the best ways to do this is to have a freebie as a gift in your book to collect emails. These folks who bought one of my books will likely buy more.
Lastly, I love hitting a #1 bestseller spot. It’s also super fun to share that with friends. Most of all, that spot helps you sell more books over time. So, it’s my push goal. If I can accomplish this, I know it will help others.
Book Launch Tactics
My book launches have a four-week launch strategy. I will outline the basics here, but you can read more about what I am doing precisely by signing up for a paid subscription, where I pull back the curtain on all of my self-publishing efforts.
My four-week plan starts a week before my book launch and lasts three weeks after my book launch. Here are the basics:
Book Launch -1 Week: Publish a book, run a free promotion to allow the launch team to download it for free, and leave reviews. Share with the exclusive following.
Launch Week: Share, share, share! Share on all writing platforms, social media outlets, and email lists, and have your launch team do the same. Run one paid promotion for your book.
Book Launch +1 Week: Write one article pointing to the book, run one paid promotion, and share daily on socials.
Book Launch +2 and +3 Weeks: Write one article pointing to the book, run one paid promotion, and share daily on socials.
Book Launch +4 Weeks: Review how the book sold, thank you launch team, and share on socials to make sure people leave reviews
The first 30 days are essential on Amazon, so the goal is to create a lot of sales and get reviews during this time.
Lessons Learned Up to Launch Week
I’m not sure there is a perfect system for launching books. There are many great ones out there, but with the way things change, it is vital to keep track of your lessons along the way. Here are three of mine:
Start growing the launch team earlier. This time around, my launch team was pretty small. They are a committed group, but I would have liked to double or triple its size.
Create my promo items early or hire them out. It takes a lot to make graphics to share on social. I’m always making them last minute. I might hire this out to my cover designer too.
Learn Amazon ads and implement them during the launch. One thing I have not done well in the past or for this launch is Amazon ads. I want to learn more about this and implement them before my next book.
If I can figure these things out for my next book, I think I will be able to cover my goals more quickly next time.
Final Thoughts on Book Launch Strategies
Launching my book continues to be a place of immense learning for me. However, I think there are a lot of great resources out there. If you know of any, feel free to share them in the comments below!
J.R. Heimbigner is a #1 Bestselling Author on Amazon who loves helping people grow in their faith and help writers become authors. You can connect with him on Medium, his website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Substack!
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