My Top 10 Book Publishing & LaunchTips
From Beginner to Full-Time Author in 11 Months
In September 2016 I decided to go indie after being told “medieval [romance] hasn’t been popular in 20 years.” In July 2017, I handed in my resignation letter effectively ending a 19 year education career. With so many variables to publishing and marketing a book, success is not guaranteed, but authors can certainly put themselves in better positions with proper planning. There are no affiliate links in this post, just resources I’ve used and loved.
- Save yourself weeks, or months, of research. If you’re new to indie publishing or have put out a few books and aren’t happy with your sales, buy Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing 101 course when it opens. It is worth every single penny.
2. Write to market. I was fortunate enough to have a passion for all things romance and medieval England and Scotland. Combining the two has been my dream for years, but not everyone is lucky enough to step into a genre or sub-genre that sells. Read Chris Fox’s Write to Market: Deliver a Book That Sells to put yourself on the right path.
3. Research your cover designer and editor as if your life depends on it. Professional cover design and editing will put your book on par with others selling in your genre. I hired an editor, spent $400 and never felt great about it. Following my gut, I sucked up the loss and continued looking, eventually finding a developmental/copy editor with a strong track record on a recommendation from an author in my genre. Get recommendations, explore their portfolios…are the authors using them successful? Are their books selling? Ask around in author Facebook groups, request a sample edit, talk to other authors and choose wisely. These two people are as important as anyone in your life as an author. I also have a separate proofreader as well.
To avoid my mistake, research both important members of your team as extensively as an FBI agent investigating his daughter’s new boyfriend.
4. Start building your platform yesterday. You don’t have a book to sell? Don’t let that stop you. Use Canva and create a PDF related to your books to use as a lead magnet. Mine was called “Historical Times” and included an author interview, a section with “top historical romance authors #1 favorite book” which I solicited on Twitter, and other such items. I also created a quiz, and while the link is defunct, you can see my promo of both here. Set up your website and social media accounts, imagine what the audience of your books would like to hear about — for me it was all things medieval — and create a regular postung schedule. Remember to share 80% quality content and only 20% promotional material. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, but don’t feel like you need to do it all. Start with a website and Facebook page.
5. Build a newsletter list. Your email newsletter list will eventually be one of your most important assets as an author. Again…no book? No problem. See my tip in #4. Run giveaways laser targeted to readers in your genre. I gave away only historical romance books ensuring those subscribers would be interested in that genre. Give paperbacks you grab on sale. Gift ebooks.
Tag the authors whose books you’re giving on Twitter. They will sometimes support with a RT to their own audiences.
I started with free service called Rafflecopter for giveaways and eventually moved to KingSumo after picking it up on a Black Friday sale. I did this the minute I decided to publish, without a finished manuscript, and a full six months before my first book launch. I was actually ready to launch when I learned of this strategy from Mark and Nick Stephenson, so I paused to write a prequel novella to give away on instaFreebie. And I am not a patience person, so this was extremely difficult. In addition, joining group giveaways helped build my list, but eventually I replaced the novella with a book preview and now sell that prequel on Amazon.
6. Read, research and read some more. As a former English teacher with a PhD in literacy, I thought my first novel was awesome. It wasn’t. After two conferences and a writing craft book or two, I began to realize I had a lot to learn. (And more than 10+ revisions on what would become book 1 in the series to complete.) I listened to writing, publishing and marketing podcasts on the way to and from work and joined every imaginable author Facebook group and read through the archives. I attended conferences and immersed myself as fully as humanly possible into the world of indie publishing including lurking on the Writer’s Cafe on kboards.
7. The Border Ambassadors. Without this group, I have no doubt my books would not have been as successful. I started with a few romance readers I knew, added a “join the Border Ambassador” (ARC/Launch/Street team) call to action to the newsletter welcome sequence and started a private Facebook group. I run exclusive giveaways for this group, release covers and book details to them first, host private Facebook live videos, and conduct a “pre-release” party (two days before launch) just for them. In return, they read early, some review and many are super fans that have really helped launch my career. I started with a handful and recently closed the group at approximately 500. Treat this team well!
8. Once the books were ready for launch, I shifted to Mark Dawson’s book launch strategy. I asked the Border Ambassadors to read, review and share the word. I don’t pre-order since I’m in KDP Select, but I do put the book up 24 hours early for this team at .99. With the novella and book 1, I used promotion sites such as ENT, Freebooksy, BKnights and others, and have since learned they don’t really work on full-priced books. With book 2 I didn’t use any of these promo sites and also did not run a blog tour again, and it was a bigger launch than the first two combined. I did run a countdown deal after 45 days on book 1 and made the prequel novella free leading into both new book launches, but so far I’ve not discounted my current release from June 6th.
9. Ads. Sigh. I have been able to get AMS ads to work moderately well, but the same unfortunately can’t be said for Facebook ads just yet. With the success of book 2, I’m learning the power of the Amazon algorithm is real. Launch the book. Segment your newsletter (NL) since Amazon likes steady sales over spikes.
Do something each day of launch week:
- pre-launch party
- newsletter to ambassadors
- 1st half of regular newsletter list
- concerted social share push with Facebook boost
- newsletter swaps
- 2nd half of newsletter list
- launch newsletter to all unopens
- special launch giveaway
In addition, I launch to book at $2.99 which allows me to promote the “special launch price” and then send another newsletter two weeks later before it goes up to the regular $3.99 price point. After that, I begin to focus on the next book.
10. I found a few hacks such as Brain.fm which I swear has helped me to write faster, a social media share generator that I love and the best newsletter service on the planet. The Emotion Thesaurus for writers is pretty awesome too and this is one of the best posts on finding free images for teasers and such. Finally, Pretty Links works well for link-redirecting which took me forever to wrap my brain around. And this really is just the tip of the iceberg.
My final bonus tip is this…not all writing/publishing/book marketing advice is worth taking. In one author group I was told “not to expect much with the first few books.” Luckily, I dismissed that idea and a few others as well. Sift through it based on your unique goals, circumstances & genre.
I hope a few of these tips are new for you. If not, you’re already a book publishing and marketing ninja, so send ME some tips @CeceliaMecca. If they have helped, great. Consider leaving a heart. Happy publishing!
Cecelia Mecca, PhD is the author of medieval romance including the #BorderSeries, a sizzling historical romance series set on the 13th Anglo-Scottish border. The next book in the series, The Chief’s Maiden, is coming September, 14, 2017. Become a CM Insider for free border bonuses & updates.
