[taytheking]

My book falls kinda just right around Christmas if I publish after giving it a few weeks of ARCs. Now I am wondering if that is a bad time. I can see how facebooks ads and AMS ads are more expensive around taht time as they are more competitive.

Any thoughts on that?

Thanks!

 

[ShayneRutherford]

But on the other hand, a whole bunch of people will have received Kindles for Christmas and they will be looking to fill them up.

 

[Patty Jansen]

My opinion:

Days of the year don't make that much of a difference, with the exception of:

the worst day to publish a book: 24 December

the best day to publish a book: 26 December

 

[Nicole Simon]

The majority of this is driven by ecommerce - and they have a cut of date, usually starting around the 17th-20th.
They advertise as long as there is a real chance to have people buy it and get it shipped for xmas.
if you publish right after that phase, prices should be  going down - not fully but a lot.

 

[alhawke]

The majority of this is driven by ecommerce - and they have a cut of date, usually starting around the 17th-20th.
They advertise as long as there is a real chance to have people buy it and get it shipped for xmas.
if you publish right after that phase, prices should be going down - not fully but a lot.

Not sure I get what you mean here, Nicole. And I want to because I want to avoid any sale periods that could cut into sales. Do you mean that due to ecommerce, try to publish after the 20th; or try to sell before the 17th if publishing in December?

 

[Nicole Simon]

you mentioned the higher prices for advertising leading up to christmas. That is due to ecommerce companies trying to make their year end goals, using major part of their budget in Q4.
However this does not run until the end of Q4 but only until the end of the period when a customer can order something for xmas and gets it delivered.

if you buy on the 23rd, chances are you wont get it for xmas -which is why the companies have cut of dates for the major advertising rushes. I worked for a major global one and their cutoff date was the 17th. After that, spending was cut down tremendously. The will pick up again after xmas but not with the vehemence of leading up to xmas.

So when you look at the higher prices, you need to take that into account. Chances are that your ads directly around xmas and after will be much lower than what you experience the two months before. This relates mostly to the facebook ad universe. On amazon it is the same for categories overall - the vendors are trying to sell and will likely try to do ads across the board, however if you target well, you only run against your fellow writer / publishers. Yet again it is end of year and anybody having goals for q4 will spend budget to reach those goals and in this case likely through to the end.

At the same time you need to think about the mindset of potential customers - when I am on my way home, trying to make xmas with the family, how likely am I going to respond to an ad versus the same ad in january?

I would consider if launching it at xmas is benefitial, and maybe think about a small launch at xmas (to participate in the xmas rush) and a good push for publicity and ads in january when things should be back to normal. hth

 

[alhawke]

Thanks for all the details, Nicole!

 

[Steve M Author]

I let my readers help.

I run a YOU NAME THE ASSHOLE email promotion.

Got an old boss, an ex, a sibling, a parent that is an asshole? Immortalize them in my new novel. I can't promise they will all perish, after all karma ain't real now is it. But if you have some worthless son of a bitch send me their name and I'll use it.

Why do I do this?
1 - gets the mail list readers pumped up for the new book.
2 - I get tired of using Scrivener for names since I ran out of family asshole names last year...sorry Mom.

Now the kicker: there are some tiny little parts, the tug captain that fishes the hero out of the river before he drowns, the cab driver that gets him to the hospital after he's been shot. I use real reader names for those.

First time I've done this so results are still coming in.

 

[jvin248]

.

Some shoppers open those new Kindles on the day 25th and want to fill them up, so don't neglect that day either.

.

 

[markpauloleksiw]

For paperbacks, promote starting early November.

For ebooks, I don't think there is hard and fast rule other than right on Christmas day.

I would think you would want to publish either early December to get some hype for the holidays.

Mark

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

I always try to publish just before Christmas. This year, it will be on December 21st. Imagine all the new Kindle devices under the tree and when they're turned on, the user goes to their favorite category. If it's Action/Adventure, they'll see my latest release, right there at the top. This one will be #19 in the series, so I expect a surge in sales of book one. I only advertise book one, and my budget will double on December 24, giving Amazon an extra $1000 to spend in the last week. January has always been a good month for me.