The last launch and promo thread you'll ever read.

[JalexM]

Or at least the last one I'll ever make 
So my novel, The Men Who Killed God, the first in a brand new series, is set to release on April 5th.

With an awesome cover by rockingbookcovers (RBC)

With the bad*ss paperback interior done by write.dream.repeat. designs.
Whoo! Since joining and learning from Kboards and the complete failure of my first release, I want to have this release to be a lot more explosive and better out of the gate and I think I can achieve it.
I set it up to get reviews and set it up for pre-order at 99 cents and will keep it at the price for the first week probably.

Here's what I did so far.
1. Ordered a new release blast with Hungry Author(heard nice things) and got a co op with patchworks for Netgalley.
2. Set up a thunderclap to go out on the release day.
https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/38100-the-men-who-killed-god
I would be very appreciative to anyone who signs up for my Thunderclap. I haven't sent it out to my mailing-list, friends, our my social profiles yet.
Next, I'm going to go through Bookrazor to try to get even more reviews for promo help.

I was originally going to submitted for promos on the 15th, but I decided to use my next major check for a book cover for the sequel of my first book, because I can't stop, won't stop. Here are the ones I wanted to have for my release. I'll see how the first few days go before deciding if I'm going to go through with them, if I do I want them before the 30 day drop off. But I made a list.

Genre Pulse ($32), bookbasset ($22)
BargainBooksy ($35), Ebookhounds ($5), Ebookhunter ($15), Pixelscroll ($15)
Flurries of Words ($5), Bookbarbarian ($8), Ebooksoda ($10), Awesomegang ($10)
Booksbutterfly, bookbub(lol), Bookgorilla ($50-150), ENT ($25)
BooksSends ($25 +$10 FB Boost), Riffle ($50)
Robinreads & OHFB

I'm probably going to front load it a little more with some of the bigger ones if I can get them and remove the ones I don't get into from the list.

Any feedback for my release plan would be appreciated!
I'm going to post updates about the release or tails if there are any.

Updated the list of promos. I decided to have a few more promos for the first week.
I have Riffle and Booksbutterfly down for the first week and I'll see what will happen after that.

sorry, no promotional links in the WC.  --Betsy

[KBoards.com]

[Book Cat]

Good luck for your launch. I hope to to have mine launched sometime next month so your info here is helpful.

[Indecisive]

I'm no expert in ads, but the line-up looks fine to me.

The cover looks great, but if it's not too expensive I would get your designer to make a couple of changes, namely fixing the author name and title font to look more like your other books. Although this is a new series, it's in genres closely related to your other books, so more consistency would be nice. But otherwise, it's a good cover.

Best of luck with your launch!

[JalexM]

I'm no expert in ads, but the line-up looks fine to me.

The cover looks great, but if it's not too expensive I would get your designer to make a couple of changes, namely fixing the author name and title font to look more like your other books. Although this is a new series, it's in genres closely related to your other books, so more consistency would be nice. But otherwise, it's a good cover.

Best of luck with your launch!

Sadly I think the same font would look bad with the cover. Luckily even though there are fantastical elements, it is a completely different genre than my first book. I do think can be a cross readership, but its just my first book is fast, flashy, intense, and epic, while this one is slower and gritty, plus it's way more grounded in reality.

[JalexM]

Has anybody stacked their promos on one day before?
Thinking of doing that, but it would be hard with a lack of reviews.

[Marseille, France or Bust]

Wonderful. Let us know how it goes.

I've never heard of Hungry Author. Have you used them before? If so, what were the results?

FYI: Just signed up via Thunderclap to help ya out (Twitter Unfinished_The).

[thenicknick]

Have you tried CoPromote? This is free. It's essentially like getting a Thunderclap without the hassle of worrying about 100 people supporting it.

Also...you may want to consider trying HeadTalker.  Not only is their requirement less, only 50 for fully supported campaign, but you can add in a giveaway to encourage people to promote it. Even $20 can make a huge difference.

Just suggestions. I'm a romance author, so take it with a grain of salt.

[RJ Crayton]

J Alex, I really like the new cover and I don't think the fonts with the other covers look better for this one.

As for stacking promos, I know several authors who run on 2-3 sites per day. It works just fine. The real issue is you don't know which one caused the sales. So, you can't mark an advertiser as ineffective (or at least put it on your watch list of sites you'll think twice about using). Most sales come from sites that email their lists out, so if one site goes out in the AM and the other goes out in the PM and you watch sales, you might be able to figure out which one brought you more sales (when you double up), but a lot go out at similar times.  Even when you stack a couple on a day, you still want promos to run for several days in a row. Somewhere on kboards is a study a guy did that found that Amazon rewards steady sales, not one day spikes. So you want several days of good sales.

You also mentioned that you didn't have any reviews. While you can't technically get reviews on the pre-orders, there is a way to have them appear on your pre-order page. What you can do is release your paperback version 3 to 4 days before your preorder is set to launch. Then, go to your Author Central account and make sure they join the ebook and the paperback editions. Then, you can have your ARC or beta readers leave reviews on the paperback. That way when your ebook ads run close to launch there will be some reviews.

[Marseille, France or Bust]

But with Thunderclap, at least you know the people who are there to help you aren't spam accounts or fake accounts. Seems more reliable than CoPromote.

Have you tried CoPromote? This is free. It's essentially like getting a Thunderclap without the hassle of worrying about 100 people supporting it.

Also...you may want to consider trying HeadTalker.  Not only is their requirement less, only 50 for fully supported campaign, but you can add in a giveaway to encourage people to promote it. Even $20 can make a huge difference.

Just suggestions. I'm a romance author, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Sever Bronny]

What a killer cover. And love the blurb. Wish you the best of luck, Alex. Strategy sounds good too

[PJ_Cherubino]

Has anybody stacked their promos on one day before?
Thinking of doing that, but it would be hard with a lack of reviews.

Yes. I had a week long promotion. Three of those days had at least two sites scheduled. The stacked days were the best. The book had no reviews. Stacked days scored no fewer than 15 sales @ .99 cents.

[JalexM]

Wonderful. Let us know how it goes.

I've never heard of Hungry Author. Have you used them before? If so, what were the results?

FYI: Just signed up via Thunderclap to help ya out (Twitter Unfinished_The).

Thanks!
I haven't used Hungry Author's book blast/new release service before. I've heard good things about them. It's run by theforevergirlseries.
I have used their review service which didn't get as many reviews as I wanted, but I won't lie my first book isn't the most assessable(Because of the way it is written. present third person) although it did get me one of my favorite reviews!

Have you tried CoPromote? This is free. It's essentially like getting a Thunderclap without the hassle of worrying about 100 people supporting it.

Also...you may want to consider trying HeadTalker.  Not only is their requirement less, only 50 for fully supported campaign, but you can add in a giveaway to encourage people to promote it. Even $20 can make a huge difference.

Just suggestions. I'm a romance author, so take it with a grain of salt.

Thanks for the suggestion! Hmm, never heard of it. I'll look into it, but since I already set up the thunderclap, I don't want to wear my favors too thin. I have heard about Headtalker, I forgot why I didn't go for it. I am worried I won't hit 100 supporters.

J Alex, I really like the new cover and I don't think the fonts with the other covers look better for this one.

As for stacking promos, I know several authors who run on 2-3 sites per day. It works just fine. The real issue is you don't know which one caused the sales. So, you can't mark an advertiser as ineffective (or at least put it on your watch list of sites you'll think twice about using). Most sales come from sites that email their lists out, so if one site goes out in the AM and the other goes out in the PM and you watch sales, you might be able to figure out which one brought you more sales (when you double up), but a lot go out at similar times.  Even when you stack a couple on a day, you still want promos to run for several days in a row. Somewhere on kboards is a study a guy did that found that Amazon rewards steady sales, not one day spikes. So you want several days of good sales.

You also mentioned that you didn't have any reviews. While you can't technically get reviews on the pre-orders, there is a way to have them appear on your pre-order page. What you can do is release your paperback version 3 to 4 days before your preorder is set to launch. Then, go to your Author Central account and make sure they join the ebook and the paperback editions. Then, you can have your ARC or beta readers leave reviews on the paperback. That way when your ebook ads run close to launch there will be some reviews.

I think the first day is almost important as a steady day. At least in the first few weeks, based on my observations. But if it doesn't explode out the gate in the first week then I can have a week of promos instead. I've done a few promos before so I got an idea of what works best. I'm actually going to trim down the amount of promos after thinking about it for a while.
It probably won't explode at all, but it's worth a try. 

What a killer cover. And love the blurb. Wish you the best of luck, Alex. Strategy sounds good too

Thanks!

Yes. I had a week long promotion. Three of those days had at least two sites scheduled. The stacked days were the best. The book had no reviews. Stacked days scored no fewer than 15 sales @ .99 cents.

Good to hear. Yeah, from what I've seen, having a promo site a day doesn't seem worth it unless it was a really good promo site. Gotta have multiple of them a day.

[Antara Mann]

Great ranking, Alex! let us know how the promos go! I supported you on your Thunderclap campaign but what is the benefit of it?
I'd d advise against the small promo sites - they are ineffective and you just throw money for no sales, the most 1-2 sales. BookBarbarian is very good but now it costs $15, not $8.
By the way, I have been always curious, how do you make your book cover goes larger when one clicks on it?

[Indecisive]

I'd love to know how the Hungry Author/Netgalley Co-op works out for you, in terms of reviews, because I'm thinking of doing the same for my June release.
I see now that it's not due out for a few more weeks. Will keep an eye on it.

[Antara Mann]

I'd love to know how the Hungry Author/Netgalley Co-op works out for you, in terms of reviews

Yes, me too

[Jarmitagetheauthor]

Just chipping in - I love the cover
I did the thing with the paperback on pre-order and now have reviews even though the book isn't out until April 10th. Good luck

[JalexM]

Great ranking, Alex! let us know how the promos go! I supported you on your Thunderclap campaign but what is the benefit of it?
I'd d advise against the small promo sites - they are ineffective and you just throw money for no sales, the most 1-2 sales. BookBarbarian is very good but now it costs $15, not $8.
By the way, I have been always curious, how do you make your book cover goes larger when one clicks on it?

Thanks! The potential benefit is a social media blast that will hopefully net me a few sells. But right now I fear that I won't hit 100 supporters.
Yeah, i'm going to rework my promo list to only include ones that worked for me in the past after some suggestions.
The cover becoming larger is a glitch I think. It works on other peoples covers I click but not everyone's.

I'd love to know how the Hungry Author/Netgalley Co-op works out for you, in terms of reviews, because I'm thinking of doing the same for my June release.
I see now that it's not due out for a few more weeks. Will keep an eye on it.

I'll keep you updated! I think i'll get more out of Hungry Author than Netgalley to be honest.

Best of luck and I hope to read another promo thread from you in the future :-)

Thanks! I hope this release goes well.

Good luck. Hope you sell a ton of books.

Thanks!

Yes, me too

Just chipping in - I love the cover
I did the thing with the paperback on pre-order and now have reviews even though the book isn't out until April 10th. Good luck

Nice and thanks!
The interior is almost done, so hopefully I can upload the paperback by the end of next week.

[geronl]

great cover

[JalexM]

great cover

Thanks, I was thinking of asking the designer for some multicolor streaks along the face on top to add some pop to it for the thumbnail. Might be too much.

[jaehaerys]

Thanks for posting this, JalexM. Congratulations on the new book, and hope you have a great launch! 

[Adair Hart]

Awesome cover and I think you have a sound plan. You have a similar list of promos to what I used for my second book (minus bookbub of course @[email protected]). I'll be following from the shadows and watching how the new blast release works for you. Colleen does fantastic work, so I'm sure your interior is rocking. Hope you clean house with this launch!

[JalexM]

Thanks for posting this, JalexM. Congratulations on the new book, and hope you have a great launch! 

Awesome cover and I think you have a sound plan. You have a similar list of promos to what I used for my second book (minus bookbub of course @[email protected]). I'll be following from the shadows and watching how the new blast release works for you. Colleen does fantastic work, so I'm sure your interior is rocking. Hope you clean house with this launch!

Thanks y'all! I don't have bookbub, but i'm going to try. It's just a list of promos I'm going to try to get at the moment.

[JTriptych]

Great cover and I'm sure you'll do well! Now write the next one! 

[JalexM]

Great cover and I'm sure you'll do well! Now write the next one! 

Easier said than done.
I'm taking the unconvential route and writing two series in tandem. Book 2 & 3 of my first series will be out by the end of the summer and then book 2 of this series by winter.

[JalexM]

So after doing some research it seems like also boughts are the most important part of a good launch. So, I only submitted for two promos, both running near the end of the week. I'm only going to have it be .99c for a week.
I don't the also boughts to be filled with cooking books.

[KBoards.com]