Book Launching
When we self-publishing indie authors are launching a new book, we want to start way in advance. This will give us time to do some pretty cool things to help us sell more books and build our authorpreneurship business. One of those pretty cool things we could do is to create a book launch team to help us. Remember, no one is self-made, regardless of what they may try to tell us.
So, how do we find these people to be on our book launch team? Well, we go back to the well, of course. We can go back and contact people that have been on our book launch teams before. These are our super fans who love most of what we do and just want to be a part of what we do. Most of these people would be happy to be on our book launch team again. Remember, people who have given before are likely to give again; just ask any organization that focuses on fundraising.
In this same vein, let’s look for people who like, comment, or share our media posts. These people are also fans of ours and believe in what we’re doing. Most likely, a lot of them have read some of our other books and would like the idea of being our teammate on our next project.
Another way to find people is to put it out on social media and blast it through our email list that we’re looking for people to be on our book launch team. People who have just discovered us, or those who have been slowly warming up to us might jump at this opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves, especially if we word the request right.
Only our imagination holds us back from finding more people to be part of our book launch team. And the more teammates we get, the more successful our book launch will be. So, get as many as you have time to manage. Also, when you do have them, continuously thank them and let them know you value them.
And if you can, do an in-person event with them, even if it’s just a cup of coffee. This will help them connect with you and feel special. With some thought, we can make our book launch team feel like they are part of a pretty cool group. And that team is going to be very helpful to us.
During this pre-launch time, we have built a solid relationship with our book launch team members. They have our manuscript. Hopefully, they read it. And they know we’re going to ask them for an Amazon book review. This is all part of the pre-launch of our upcoming book.
Now, after our pre-launch, we’re going to go into a soft book launch phase.
Here, we are going to post our book to Amazon in this soft book launch phase. But we’re not going to tell the world about it yet. Instead, we’re only going to tell our book launch team that we have put our book up on Amazon.
At this point, we will remind them that they are supposed to now go on Amazon and leave a book review for us as a member of our book launch team. Amazon loves these immediate book reviews coming in the first week our book goes LIVE.
Beware, though, many of our book launch team members won’t actually take the time and make an effort to leave us book reviews, even though we’ve made it very clear all along that that is what we wanted them to do. This is why we have to have a pretty good number of book launch team members. Shoot for at least 25 book launch team members.
Out of the 25 book launch team members, we should be able to get at least ten Amazon book reviews. That’s the sweet spot. We want at least ten. If the ten reviews don’t come to fruition by the end of the first week, we’re going to have to invest some time and go back to our book launch team. We need to ask them again and again for those reviews until we have at least ten.
Also, be sure to thank your book launch team for these reviews. We can also gift them ebook versions of our book that we have available the first week for only $0.99. And then later get them the code for a free audiobook version.
This soft-launch phase is important for when we head into our hard-launch phase. The hard-launch phase is when we blast emails and social media posts to the larger world to get them to our Amazon page.
When they land on our Amazon page, we want them to see the 10+ book reviews we established during our soft-launch phase. If they only see one book review from someone who has the same last name as us, they’ll probably click off of our Amazon page. We don’t want that to happen. We want them to take us seriously in the hard-launch phase. And that’s why the pre-launch and soft-launch phases of our book launch are so important.
Once Amazon sees that we have some traffic to our book and are getting some sales and reviews, Amazon will lend a helping hand by pushing our book forward to their customers. When this happens, we’re in a great spot. Amazon is the biggest and most successful seller of books in the world. When they jump onto our book launch team because we ran a great pre-launch, soft-launch, and hard-launch campaign that is creating traffic and selling books, then the sky is the limit with Amazon’s help.
Good luck, everyone, with your next book launch!
*Check out the free video lesson on this chapter!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz9dqvq-Jqk&list=PL_-39bUXJitwL8cHUpiZ5mO0-JJuaPOVl&index=66