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Reader,
Today, we’ll continue with takeaways from a recent book launch we had the opportunity to quarterback.
A quick refresher on the launch:
We partnered with neurofeedback expert Michael Cohen to launch The Mind Rewired, using a cost-efficient, multi-channel strategy tailored to his existing platform and $8.2K budget. By focusing on reader seeding, ads, and owned audiences, we set a goal of 650 copies in 3 months, but surpassed it in just 30 days, seeding 699 copies while spending only about half the budget. The launch is still ongoing, with additional momentum expected through events and continued ad performance.
For a full breakdown of the launch, check out last week’s newsletter here.
3 Secrets (takeaways)
4. Sustaining sales long term
Many in the book marketing world have concluded that Amazon cares more about 30-60 days of sustained sales vs. a flash-in-the-pan launch with hundreds of sales in a day followed by silence.
Over the course of Mike’s professional career, he’s built relationships with many who have email lists ranging from a few hundred to few thousand.
Mike’s launch is about more than selling books, it’s about bringing awareness to a potentially life-changing tool.
He’s able to reach out to his colleagues with this altruistic message, making it much easier for owners of those lists to say yes.
Mike and his team’s goal now is to line up as many of these lists as possible to promote the book week after week, strategically spacing them out to little sales spikes occurring week over week.
In summary:
1. What about your book is altruistic? Make your outreach about serving readers, not about promoting yourself and your work
2. As much as you can, stagger partner promotions so they occur separately to orchestrate spikes in sales week over week
5. Getting Amazon reviews STILL sucks
Despite having a confirmed list of 250+ on his launch team, we’re still only at 93 reviews after 30 days. Between Amazon not accepting reviews, not publishing them immediately, and people just simply getting busy, expect getting reviews to SUCK!
Every author should have a list of 200 partners, clients, vendors, friends, readers etc. whom you’re going to personally reach out to and follow up with during and after your book launch. (We use YAMM to automate a lot of this work.)
Average reader-to-review rates hover around 1%.
That means that if you’re not going to launch with a review strategy, it’s going to take you 10,000 or more readers to get the first 100 reviews organically.
Build your review outreach list and build in a system to follow up with these people.
Expect and plan for this part to SUCK.
6. A reader-inspired reminder
I received a SCATHING email from an author in response to last week’s newsletter…
“…There are MUCH better ways to spend $8,200 on marketing…Please stop fooling people and show the PROFIT, which, at the end of the day, is what everyone really cares about.
What you’re teaching is a disservice to people who ACTUALLY want to make money with their books…”
Knowing this author’s background, my response reminded him of the marketing assets, backlist (32 titles), and 7 years of focusing exclusively on building an author career.
When this author launches a new book, he has robust marketing systems years in the making to support profitable launches of his new titles.
This is Michael Cohen’s second book. Since the launch of the first book, he’s focused on running his clinic, and spent little time on book marketing.
Second, the goal of this book launch was NOT book royalties (although with such a strong launch, I do believe it’s possible Mike will hit breakeven or better on book royalties alone in the coming months).
Luckily, Mike has a business that allows him to invest some budget into this most recent book launch.
If you read about this launch and thought, “Wow, this guy is crazy to think that I have thousands to spend on my launch” you’d be right.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible for me to know everyone who reads this newsletter and fully grasp what each of you is working with, but I will work to keep this in mind.
Every author launching a book need not be prepared to throw a few thousand hard-earned dollars at the launch.
There are MANY ways to start your author career free of charge:
For example:
- Starting a 100-person email by reaching out to your contacts one by one and asking them if they’re interested following the exploration of your topic.
- Focusing on building genuine relationships within your industry and serving those people for years before asking them to promote you and your work.
- Researching and pitching high-traffic blogs and newsletters with an intentionally unique angle for their readers
“These don’t take money, but they DO take time.
Understand that if your goal is to make money on book royalties themselves, the journey is not unlike an entrepreneur embarking on an entirely new venture.
No disrespect to the author whose message inspired this monologue..
He and I both backed down from a place of ego and were able to end with a productive conversation that inspired me to share this with you.
“I love when people disagree with what I write as it serves to pressure test these ideas to ensure you’re getting the most useful information possible.
THANK YOU to those who approach my writing with skepticism and offer a contrarian view.
2 Links
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Sharing this again as Beyond Belief just launched right onto the New York Times Best Sellers list and in this episode Nir shares his favorite book marketing tools. BTB173: Nir Eyal on Marketing Beyond Belief: Email Lists, Newsletter Growth, Social Media and What Actually Converts Readers. Listen here.
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1 Quote
“Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom.”
— William George Jordan
with love and sincere appreciation,
Alex
BeforeTheBestseller | ShelfLife
alex@getshelflife.com
P.S. Know someone who needs help marketing their book? We offer a $500 referral bonus 🙂
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