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hard launch from scratch? Tell me about your big guns.

2K views 14 replies 7 participants last post by  The one with all the big dresses on the covers 
#1 ·
Hi!  I am winding up to launch a few books in a brand new pen name that will not be associated with my current author name at all.  Therefore, I am launching as a complete newb, no mailing list, etc.  I was wondering if any of you have any fantastic launch strategies for a brand new set of books.

Where/when would you advertise?

What would you do as far as launch timelines?  Preorders?

What price point would you launch at?

Other hints/tips?

I've read about some people launching brand new books without mailing lists or having published anything else and somehow they make it big.  I'm wondering what I'm missing!  If any of you know the secret to making leaps and bounds straight out the gate, please share.  :)  (Oh, if it's relevant, I will be launching 2 stand-alone contemporary romances with a third to follow soon after... and two fantasy romances in a series, with a third in the works and not far behind.)  I don't mind spending some money, so long as I'm not just throwing it into the wind.
 
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#3 ·
I was want told by a top book publicist that books sell by word-of-mouth recommendation and the best way to trigger that was to give books away. I've found it useful to give books to bloggers in my genre as a mention on their sites can really help spread the word. A print book giveaway on a relevant blog can work well too. (I'm assuming you are publishing in print as well as ebook - if not, consider doing it.)

Have a look at the themes of your books? Is there anything there that might trigger interest from potential readers.

AMS ads can help kickstart a book too and, even if they cost you more than you earn, they are worth doing for the first few weeks as they are cheaper than lots of other advertising and better targeted.

Good luck.
 
#4 ·
I just launched a pen name last week with no build up, no association with my name...nothing. I can't say I recommend it.

I did find a few NL swaps to help share the news, so maybe something like that? I've recently discovered bookboast.com which is a newsletter swapping service. My first one is supposed to go out Friday so I can't really tell ya if it works or not, but it might be worth a shot.

I'm running a BookBub ad as well as 2 AMS ads to try and spread the word, though the results haven't really come in yet as I'd hoped. I intend on trying some of the smaller email blast promo sites next month when I can run countdown deals on the book (and get more per book as a result).

If you find anything that helps, I'd love to hear. If I come across anything that significantly helps, I'll post it here for ya and others.

Good luck and all the best on the launch!
 
#5 ·
Diana Kimpton said:
I was want told by a top book publicist that books sell by word-of-mouth recommendation and the best way to trigger that was to give books away. I've found it useful to give books to bloggers in my genre as a mention on their sites can really help spread the word. A print book giveaway on a relevant blog can work well too. (I'm assuming you are publishing in print as well as ebook - if not, consider doing it.)

Have a look at the themes of your books? Is there anything there that might trigger interest from potential readers.

AMS ads can help kickstart a book too and, even if they cost you more than you earn, they are worth doing for the first few weeks as they are cheaper than lots of other advertising and better targeted.

Good luck.
I haven't published a book yet, but word-of-mouth would be my go-to for pre-release promo. Reaching out to bloggers and booktubers before my book is released so *hopefully* the ones that agree would be willing to post about it on publication date. And then I would take things from there, utilizing ads and promo sites.
 
#6 ·
BonafideDreamer said:
I haven't published a book yet, but word-of-mouth would be my go-to for pre-release promo. Reaching out to bloggers and booktubers before my book is released so *hopefully* the ones that agree would be willing to post about it on publication date. And then I would take things from there, utilizing ads and promo sites.
Honestly, this was my go-to as a new author first time around, and I did not find it helpful as far as sales were concerned. I made some great connections with some lovely people who I never would have known otherwise, and even got myself a few hardcore followers out of it. If you're publishing for the first time, it is definitely worth it to have that kind of network, but I just don't see it leading to significant sales.
 
#7 ·
Lailoken said:
I just launched a pen name last week with no build up, no association with my name...nothing. I can't say I recommend it.

I did find a few NL swaps to help share the news, so maybe something like that? I've recently discovered bookboast.com which is a newsletter swapping service. My first one is supposed to go out Friday so I can't really tell ya if it works or not, but it might be worth a shot.

I'm running a BookBub ad as well as 2 AMS ads to try and spread the word, though the results haven't really come in yet as I'd hoped. I intend on trying some of the smaller email blast promo sites next month when I can run countdown deals on the book (and get more per book as a result).

If you find anything that helps, I'd love to hear. If I come across anything that significantly helps, I'll post it here for ya and others.

Good luck and all the best on the launch!
Thanks. I will definitely try out some ppc ads. I think one of the challenges of a brand new launch is that advertising is so limited on a new book with no reviews. I just keep thinking that there has to be something I'm missing because I have heard of authors with no newsletter, no following, who publish their first book and make it to the top 100 on Amazon. I reallllllly want to know what they're doing to get that visibility!

I will check out bookboast for sure. Of course, the new pen name doesn't have an established mailing list, so I'm wondering how that would work. Hm.

Definitely keep in touch and let me know how your experience is going. I'll try to post my results here, too, once I launch (probably next month).
 
#9 ·
katewrath said:
I will check out bookboast for sure. Of course, the new pen name doesn't have an established mailing list, so I'm wondering how that would work. Hm.

Definitely keep in touch and let me know how your experience is going. I'll try to post my results here, too, once I launch (probably next month).
That's one of the coolest things I've found with BookBoast. You aren't swapping your list in exchange for someone else's list within the same genre.

For example, my list is under my name Jason J. Nugent. It's primarily ya scifi and some dark fiction (from my short story collections). I make it available for others to send me requests to be added in my newsletter on a certain date. I also choose what genres I'll accept.

My pen name is all horror with no following at all. However, I can search for newsletters that accept horror and submit my request with that book and it will show as from my pen name.

So it's not direct swapping, but the site allows for swaps between authors when the genres and books fit.

My first newsletter I'm in should go out tomorrow, so we'll see if it helps.

Best of luck!
 
#10 ·
katewrath said:
Honestly, this was my go-to as a new author first time around, and I did not find it helpful as far as sales were concerned. I made some great connections with some lovely people who I never would have known otherwise, and even got myself a few hardcore followers out of it. If you're publishing for the first time, it is definitely worth it to have that kind of network, but I just don't see it leading to significant sales.
I agree reaching out to bloggers and others won't make a big difference in sales. For me, what's helped me the most when I launched a new book was, writing in a popular genre--psychological thriller--and having a very strong hook. While I guess it wasn't a hard launch, at the time my mailing list was only maybe five hundred people and they were gathered from books in slightly different genres. So I had no idea if they would connect with my new, very dark psychological thriller. I still don't know if they have, to be honest, because I've gotten so many new subscribers since this book because of this book. I'm wide but I put this new book in KU and took out a freebooksy ad. You don't need any reviews for that. That ad did really well, which helped me get a bookbub for the book when I went wide with it. In those three months I got tons of reviews.

Btw, I do not subscribe to the approach that you need to write a few books in a series before you give up on it. I think it's terrible advice. I used to and wasted lots of time and money. I now write ONE book with a light cliffhanger in the end. If that book does well, I'll write two more (or maybe even more). Then I'll repeat that process. But the first book HAS to do well or I'll move on to something else. The reason my thriller did well was because of word-of-mouth and a light ad push.
 
#11 ·
Lailoken said:
That's one of the coolest things I've found with BookBoast. You aren't swapping your list in exchange for someone else's list within the same genre.

For example, my list is under my name Jason J. Nugent. It's primarily ya scifi and some dark fiction (from my short story collections). I make it available for others to send me requests to be added in my newsletter on a certain date. I also choose what genres I'll accept.

My pen name is all horror with no following at all. However, I can search for newsletters that accept horror and submit my request with that book and it will show as from my pen name.

So it's not direct swapping, but the site allows for swaps between authors when the genres and books fit.

My first newsletter I'm in should go out tomorrow, so we'll see if it helps.

Best of luck!
That sounds really cool. Someone definitely thought it through. I'll look forward to hearing how it went!
 
#12 ·
juliatheswede said:
I agree reaching out to bloggers and others won't make a big difference in sales. For me, what's helped me the most when I launched a new book was, writing in a popular genre--psychological thriller--and having a very strong hook. While I guess it wasn't a hard launch, at the time my mailing list was only maybe five hundred people and they were gathered from books in slightly different genres. So I had no idea if they would connect with my new, very dark psychological thriller. I still don't know if they have, to be honest, because I've gotten so many new subscribers since this book because of this book. I'm wide but I put this new book in KU and took out a freebooksy ad. You don't need any reviews for that. That ad did really well, which helped me get a bookbub for the book when I went wide with it. In those three months I got tons of reviews.

Btw, I do not subscribe to the approach that you need to write a few books in a series before you give up on it. I think it's terrible advice. I used to and wasted lots of time and money. I now write ONE book with a light cliffhanger in the end. If that book does well, I'll write two more (or maybe even more). Then I'll repeat that process. But the first book HAS to do well or I'll move on to something else. The reason my thriller did well was because of word-of-mouth and a light ad push.
Fantastic. This is really helpful.

So, when you listed the book with Freebooksy, was it a KDP free days promo? You have to wait 30 days before you can do that, don't you? I'm just wondering if there is a way to navigate that 30 day cliff. I'm wondering if pricing it at say 99 cents at the beginning and going with a BargainBooksy ad would be as effective, thus getting you "in the door" sooner. What do you think?
 
#13 ·
RScott said:
How big is the market and how hungry is the genre?
Well... I have books to launch in contemporary romance and fantasy romance. I decided to write in the romance genre because *cough* people are making money. :p It was really a marketing decision, bottom line. ...And I would rather write fantasy romance because I primarily write scifi and fantasy anyway. So it's more my comfort zone. Not entirely sure how that niche is doing, but I definitely see other authors killing it, so I figured I'd join the party. I'm kind of one of those authors who is happy just so long as she's writing *something*. The pipe dream is to write full time, and scifi dystopian is a bit of a financial roller coaster.

So, yeah, romance readers... they're voracious, right?
 
#14 ·
katewrath said:
Fantastic. This is really helpful.

So, when you listed the book with Freebooksy, was it a KDP free days promo? You have to wait 30 days before you can do that, don't you? I'm just wondering if there is a way to navigate that 30 day cliff. I'm wondering if pricing it at say 99 cents at the beginning and going with a BargainBooksy ad would be as effective, thus getting you "in the door" sooner. What do you think?
OMG, as I read my original post, I see there are tons of grammatical errors. I'm too lazy to read through it before I click Post ;D
Anyway, to answer your question, yes, it was KU free days. I did two free days a week after book launch, so I didn't wait 30 days at all, Just double-checked. The first day was a Freebooksy and the second was ENT. The Freebooksy did much better than ENT. As I said, I didn't have any reviews, but ENT usually accepts you anyway if you have other books with lots of reviews (or at least some). I personally have not had good success with 99 cent deals. I do much better with free days. I didn't experience a 30-day cliff with this book. It went strong for about two months and then I published a sequel. I've never experienced 30-day cliffs. Except for this last one (and the two that followed it), my books never take off right away, but somehow build and then sell better. I'm an anomaly I guess...
 
#15 ·
katewrath said:
Fantastic. This is really helpful.

So, when you listed the book with Freebooksy, was it a KDP free days promo? You have to wait 30 days before you can do that, don't you? I'm just wondering if there is a way to navigate that 30 day cliff. I'm wondering if pricing it at say 99 cents at the beginning and going with a BargainBooksy ad would be as effective, thus getting you "in the door" sooner. What do you think?
I'm pretty sure the waiting 30 days thing is only for Kindle Countdown Deals and not for free promotions. (The KCD has price restrictions for a certain number of days before and after because they specifically advertise the book as being at a discount.) Going straight for a free promotion could definitely make sense since it sounds like you have more than one book to launch at once (or in close proximity anyway).
 
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