Reader,

Next week, I’ll be co-hosting a live book marketing session (How to Sell More Books Masterclass with Alex Wieckowski) where we’ll break down what’s actually working right now (and what’s a waste of time).

Date: April 9th, 2026, Time: 12pm – 1:30pm EST
If you’d like to attend, you can get your ticket here.

Tickets are $100 (the price of a dinner for two, except instead of overcooked steak, you’ll learn things that WILL change your life).

I don’t control the event pricing, but I know life ain’t cheap right now so if you’re one of the first TEN to buy your ticket and email me back, I’ll ship a complimentary print copy of Before The Bestseller to you anywhere in the U.S.

Just email me a screenshot of the confirmation page and a physical address to ship your copy to.

Okay, now back to 3 final takeaways from this launch…

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.

*Update*
42 days in and 891 copies in the hands of real people. We set a goal of 650 copies over 90 days based on the author’s marketing assets and budget.

See here for a full breakdown of the launch strategy.

3 Secrets (takeaways)

7. An editorial review strategy that worked

Mike has run in the same circles as New York Times bestselling author Bessel van der Kolk for years—attending the same conferences, working with similar people, and showing up in many of the same places.

When we initially met with Mike, we told him now was the time to call in a favor, but not for the reason you may think.

Yes, validation from one of the top authors in his space was important, but the ability to use his own words as a bridge for readers of The Body Keeps the Score to walk across to The Mind Rewired is what we were looking for.

We specifically used versions of this quote in Amazon Ads and Meta ads to target readers of The Body Keeps the Score.

I can’t overemphasize the importance of having an altruistic mission for your book.

Bessel provided a quote to advance the field of trauma recovery.

Takeaways:
1. When asking for a review, make it about the reader and improving their life, not about how their quote will help yours.
2. When creating your launch strategy, if you can get someone with their own huge following to blurb your book, you can use that blurb to convince their readers to check out your work.

8. Pricing for purpose

How warm the traffic is that you’re able to send to your product listing determines how much you’re able to charge for the various formats of your book.

A reader who hears your message on a podcast and buys into it is going to be willing to spend more than a cold reader who saw the book in an ad. The podcast listener is considered warm traffic because they are going to Amazon with the intent to purchase your book. The reader who found the book through an ad had no desire to buy the book when logging into Amazon.

Mike had a few hundred ‘warm’ readers he could rely on to buy the book out of the gates.

That said, we would be driving a lot of cold traffic as well through Amazon and meta advertising.

Additionally, we ran 2 promotions (kbookpromotions and Bookbub) which required the ebook be priced at 2.99 during launch month.

If you’ve been following along, you know that I believe prices should remain as low as possible, at least until you’ve seeded 1,000 copies (or even 10,000 for a more aggressive strategy).

So…

We determined that a $2.99 ebook and $14.95 print price for at least 90 days made the most sense (Audible determines the audiobook price).

I was told once that ending with 95¢ instead of 99¢ (for example, $14.95 vs. $14.99) indicates a more intentional and premium offering but I have no data to support that argument.

We could have priced the print book at $19.95, but since the author’s goal was first and foremost awareness, we opted for the lower $14.95 print pricing.

On the other hand, I know firsthand that, all else equal, Amazon will show the product it can make more money on so we didn’t want to price the print format too low at $9.99 for fear that Amazon might choose higher-margin books within the same niche.

Hopefully seeing, our pricing logic gives some insights and questions for you to ask yourself when determining your own pricing.

9. Ongoing marketing

After beating our goal of 650 REAL readers within the first 90 days (we’re currently at 891), we reset our goal to 1,000 readers within 90 days.

This book is a flagship marketing asset for Mike and the neurofeedback field, not some flash-in-the-pan hobby.

So our next goal is to seed 10,000 copies.

We’re continuing on with 2 core marketing initiatives:
1. Finding relevant events across the country to offer copies to attendees

If you’d like to steal it, here’s a template we’ve seen work well:

2. Amazon Ads
ACOS for our campaigns continues to drop (from 144% to 115% in March).

Although the author’s main goal is awareness for neurofeedback we’re still focused on reaching breakeven or better on ad spend in the next 2-3 months.

2 Links

  1. BTB175: Sierra Melcher, CEO of Red Thread Books, on Goal-Driven Book Marketing, Conference Strategy, Book Seeding, Goodreads Giveaways, Reviews, and Long-Term Momentum. Listen here.
  2. The first step in any book launch should be to “take stock” of your network and marketing assets. Here is a list of questions we ask authors to take inventory of their assets.

1 Quote

“You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.”
— Babe Ruth

with love and sincere appreciation,

Alex
BeforeTheBestseller | ShelfLife
alex@getshelflife.com

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