Creating A Successful Book Prelaunch
Writing a book and then launching a book is a big deal, right, my self-publishing indie authors? A successful launch will help us sell a lot of books so we can gain some ground in our authorpreneur world and really make a difference out there with our books and services.
However, book launches just don’t fall into place. It’s not something we can do on auto-drive. A lot of work goes into having a successful launch; that work is called a prelaunch.
Listen, too many of us self-published authors publish a book and just hope for the best. But my authorpreneurs out there know one cannot only hope for the best. One has to create the best and their own luck through their personal preparation or hard work meeting opportunity. In this case, we’ll call that hard work a prelaunch.
Okay, so here we go. The great authorpreneurs know that a great book cover is what sells books. So, during the prelaunch, we have to spend a lot of time on our book cover. We can’t wait until the last minute and just throw something together. Now, I know this is easier said than done, but during this prelaunch phase, spend some serious time coming up with and designing your book cover.
Begin with the eBook kindle book cover first. Covers in themselves are pretty complicated and have a lot of steps, especially if it’s a paperback book cover. However, the front cover could be step one in this process. Take care of that first for your eBook, and then you’re already part of the way there for the paperback cover.
Later, when you’re more certain of how you want to handle the cover, and you know more of the specs of your book, such as how many pages, and the size of your book, you can finish up the back cover. That’s when you’ll work on the spine, the back cover, and the sales copy to go with it.
And since you’ll already have the eBook cover done, use that for the front cover of your paperback cover. This little step of preparation in having your eBook cover done early saves us some time and stress when we get further down the road.
In the prelaunch phase, be sure to get your book formatted early. You don’t have to pay a lot of money anymore to get books formatted. There are some excellent book formatters on FIVERR who will do all the work for you, and do it cheaply, too.
Also, get your ISBN number for your paperback early as well. You can buy ISBN numbers in packages of 10 that will save you some money at Bowker. In addition, begin the process way ahead of time to get your Library of Congress (LOC) number too. Some authors don’t bother to get their LOC number, but for those that do, it adds a little more value and credibility to your book. But start early because it’s a lengthy process.
You won’t need to get an ISBN number of a Library of Congress number for your eBook. This will save you some time and money. Amazon will assign your kindle book an ASIN number to keep track of your book. And the cool thing is that it won’t cost you anything.
You also won’t need an ISBN number or a Library of Congress number for your audiobook version.
Amazon reviews are essential. We want at least ten of them as soon as possible. But, for most of us, if we just leave this to chance, it could take a year or longer sometimes to get ten book reviews. We can’t wait that long. Ideally, we want those ten Amazon book reviews within the first week. And it would be even better if they were there by the end of the first day.
Lining up Amazon book reviews is something we need to be working on during our prelaunch stage. As soon as our book goes LIVE, we need reviews coming in. This doesn’t happen all by itself. It takes a lot of work. And if we wait for the actual book launch to do this, it may be too little too late if you know what I mean… We want to build momentum right away, my authorpreneurs.
Also, make sure your writing is incredible. Use the prelaunch time to hire that editor to help you touch up your content. Included in this great writing is also our copywriting. Spend time in the prelaunch phase to get the best book sales description as possible. Also, plan out your marketing campaign for when the book does launch. And be sure you have the best sales copy possible already written for that as well.
There are many other details to also contend with in the book prelaunch phase, which I will be happy to share with you if you reach out to me. But, getting these few steps above right, will make for a much smoother, productive, and lucrative book launch.
Watch the free video lesson on this chapter!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8zw1zImL9Q&list=PL_-39bUXJitwL8cHUpiZ5mO0-JJuaPOVl&index=88