Reader,
As promised in last weeks newsletter, here’s a breakdown of a book launch we’re executing for Michael Cohen and The Mind Rewired.
A HUGE thank you to Michael and his center director, Jessi Trifiletti, for being willing to open the door on their launch for your benefit. If you’re interested in discovering how people unlocked the brain’s natural ability to learn, adapt, and heal you can pick up your copy here.
Background:
Michael Cohen is one of the world’s foremost experts and practitioners of Neurofeedback. He released his first book, Neurofeedback 101, back in 2020. Mike did not do much for the launch, but that didn’t stop the book from reaching over 20,000 readers in five years through podcast guesting and Amazon Ads that operated at or slightly below breakeven. Mike runs a clinic in Florida that has seen many patients come in after finding and reading his first book.
Mike’s primary goal with this new book, The Mind Rewired, is to bring awareness to this emerging tool in mental health and brain trauma recovery. That said, Mike wanted to ensure we had a cost-effective marketing strategy that fit within his budget.
Please remember there are many ways to launch a book depending on your budget and timeline – most of the time there’s a tradeoff between cost of a marketing tool and time needed. You don’t need a budget this size to launch a book but you may expect a much higher time commitment if that’s the case.
The first step was to take inventory of the tools and strategies we could and would use for this launch:
1. Street/ARC Team (Budget: $0, Goal: 50 copies)
2. Reader Seeding Organic/Earned Friends & Partners (Budget: $2,000, Goal: 200 copies)
3. Author Owned Email list of ~5,000 subscribers (Budget: $0, Goal: 200 copies)
4. Amazon Ads (Budget: $4,500, Goal: 150 copies)
5. META Ads (Budget: $1,000, Goal: 30 copies)
6. Editorial Reviews (Budget: $0, Goal: 5-10 highly credentialed/influential reviews)
7. PR (Budget: $0, Goal: identify and respond to related mental health queries)
8. Amazon Ratings (Budget: $700, Goal: 100 ratings within 7 days)
Based on Mike’s marketing assets and budget, we set the goal of seeding 650 copies within 3 months of launching. Total budget for marketing tools was $8,200.
We also applied for and were accepted for BookBub New Release for Less.
Results to date:
Yesterday marked 30 days since launch…
Ebooks purchased: 384
Print purchased: 258
Audiobooks: 57
Total copies seeded: 699 (we hit our 650 goal 2 months ahead of schedule and $4,013 budget left to be used)
To date, we’ve used $2,347 on Amazon Ads, $140 on BookBub New Release for Less, $1,000 on META campaigns, and $700 on Kbooks for a total of $4,187 of the $8,200 budget.
We’re currently speaking with a few different relevant event organizers to use the $2,000 reader seeding budget to have free copies provided to attendees so this launch is very much still ongoing.
Thanks to a strong launch, strategic author, and Amazon Ads, Amazon orders appear to be leveling out at around 5-10 a day for this seeding phase of the launch.
9 Takeaways (3 each week for the next 3 weeks)
1. Notice what’s not included as a tool
Zero social media.
This launch is proof that you have permission to focus on the marketing tools that make sense for you and your situation.
That said, don’t just write those tools off, especially as TikTok affiliates and social media selling are becoming some of the most effective ways to market a book in 2026.
2. Amazon Ads aren’t dead
Mike came to us almost a year ago with the idea to launch this book. We were able to help make sure the book was positioned as a unique product within his niche.
Working with him so early in the project allowed us to create the perfect storm of listing and content optimization for the Amazon platform (description, keywords, categories, positioning).
It’s a beautiful thing when every part of your listing builds a coherent reader profile for Amazon to operate from.
Another contributing factor to this successful Amazon Ads strategy was our plan for sustained sales post launch, not a bunch of sales on day 1 and then silence by day 7. We scheduled various marketing activities to support sustained sales vs. a flash in the pan.
“Amazon loves you after everyone else loves you first.”
This data/listing alignment meant that Amazon was not guessing when it came time to show the book to people. Sustained sales means Amazon knows this is a product people want – not just an author trying to game the system.
The result: 168 direct Amazon Ad orders (~25% of total seeded copies to date) at close to breakeven on ad spend.
3. It’s not just about the editorial review – it’s how you use it
Mike has run in the same circles as top selling The Body Keeps the Score author Bessel van der Kolk for a decade so they were not complete strangers before Mike reached out for a blurb.
Mike approached with his noble goal: To use this book to get the word out about Neurofeedback and how it can make a huge difference for those who’ve not seen success with traditional methods of healing.
Bessel responded that he’d be happy to support this important work.
“Mike and his colleagues hereby offer a lucid guide on neurofeedback’s vast capacity for helping people achieve their full potential.” – Bessel van der Kolk M.D., #1 New York Times bestseller author of The Body Keeps The Score
This was a HUGE win as The Body Keeps the Score is one of the most recognizable works within the field of trauma recovery.
Two ways we put this blurb to use:
1. Putting the review at the top of the Amazon listing: We then targeted The Body Keeps the Score and other books within the space using that quote to build a bridge for readers of Bessel’s book to Mike’s.
2. Using the blurb in meta campaigns: We don’t run meta campaigns for most nonfiction but being able to use Bessel’s quote was too good an opportunity to pass up. Armed with an endorsement from one of the top voices in the niche, we targeted groups that are likely to be fans of Bessel.
Stay tuned next week for an update and 3 more takeaways from this launch.
2 Links
- BTB173: Nir Eyal on Marketing Beyond Belief: Email Lists, Newsletter Growth, Social Media and What Actually Converts Readers. Listen here.
- Kindlepreneur book rank calculator to figure out what your sales rank means in terms of sales
1 Quote
“I want to do business with a company that treats emailing me as a privilege, not a transaction.”
— Andrea Mignolo
with love and sincere appreciation,
Alex
BeforeTheBestseller | ShelfLife
alex@getshelflife.com
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