The Smart Ways to a Successful Book Launch Has Four Routes

I’ve been doing some study again, and found the truth in this phrase:

“No one school has all the teachers.” (An ancient Polynesian saying.)

A book I recently released, An Honest Kindle Booksales Blueprint, goes into some of the courses I’ve been working with (in Chapter 4). But I still hadn’t found what I needed.

The closest I came to real success was after that, when I found Tim Grahl’s course. And oddly, you’ll get a the best overview from his free email course and his free ebook.

However, there’s another old phrase, “close, but no cigar.” (Some old carny saying.)

What Tim clued me in on is that there are several approaches. What he hasn’t seen yet is that launches he described are really part of a bigger system:

• Vision
• Content
• Audience
• Network

All of these interact with each other. Some will be better than others for you, but as you work on any one of them, the rest improve.

Vision is what you want to accomplish, that book you want to publish (even if only an idea.) This also involves your mindset, goals, and attitude. Many of these courses approach this. Some really emphasize this as important, others gloss over it.

Content is those books you’re publishing. But it’s also your emails, your social media posts, your blog, your podcasts, everything that you generate. This is really the expanded idea of “book-as-an-idea-container.” There is no one version of a book that is the best for your audiences. Because each one prefers other versions. Audiobooks and podcasts are in vogue right now because they are the author personally talking to the listener and fills the time when a person is doing something else, such as working out in the gym or during a commute. What you say to your audience also falls under this, which includes all your emails. So this is your brand, and is really mostly covered by references on Content Marketing, but goes further.

Audience is all the people who receive your content. Simple. This is the point that authors  miss, because this is your readers, it’s your listeners, it’s your social media followers, and it’s also all those podcast and radio host audiences where you haven’t shown up in front of yet. It’s also all your network’s mailing lists and their audiences. You appear in front of other people’s audiences in order to build your own.

Network is everyone you know and the people you want and need to know. This isn’t “influencers.” That’s another one of these poorly defined words that trip you up. You have a close-in network of your mastermind and people you trust. It’s also the wider-out circle of people you have ever had conversations with on social media.

Together, these build your “platform”. Finally there is a working definition of this term. Earlier, traditional publishers would send away authors who came to them without one. What they meant essentially was a promotion network that would enable response to any ads run. But the traditional publishers are really a publishing and wholesaling setup. They never have done any real promotion, except for those clear winners they had picked (and given huge advances that they needed to earn back.) And the promotion they have done is pretty weak, as it still relied on the author to make appearances and so on.

How to Use Your Platform to Launch Your Book(s)

Grahl is an expert at doing a book launch, with several of his authors hitting the top positions of various bestseller lists. He is an expert at launching single books. And so his advice is key in this area.

If you compare his advice to Nick Stephenson’s and Mark Dawson, then  you’ll see another approach, that of selling an entire backlist of books by promoting the last one through its launch.

Two different approaches? Actually part of the same system.

You use this based on what your strengths are.

Grahl laid out three of these:

1. For those with a good network, then you use them to pitch your books to their audience.
2. For those with a big mailing list or audience such as podcast audience, or regular blog readers, then you would sell to your fans.
3. If you had neither of these, then you would work the “long game” of building your network and your audience before you launched.

That takes care of two of these elements. But note that again, Grahl is dealing only with a single book being launched.

Here’s how those elements can be assessed to determine your approach:

Audience – means mailing list. This is pushed by Dawson, Stephenson, and their network. Build a mailing list and mail to them to get your books sold. This primes the pump for Amazon so they start promoting your book. Back this up with Facebook ads, which simply contacts Facebook’s audience for your type of book. Selling the latest book in your series will get people buying the other books in that series or by that author. So if you have a mailing list or are a genius at using Facebook (and the book blogs like Bookbub) then you can use this approach. A less responsive approach is to use your blog to promote the book, and the least responsive is to use social media.

Network – this is traditionally affiliates, but can be anyone you know. The approach here is to hit podcast and radio hosts to get interviewed, as well as any other media you can contact. Again, you are contacting their audience and getting recommended by them as an authority. Affiliates will do this for pay, a split of the take. But affiliate networks aren’t instantly built. Like any network, there has to be mutual trust.

Content – this is best described in Geoff Shaw’s “Kindling” course. He also has several courses on Udemy which cover the approach of writing short reads and publishing regularly. I found this by re-publishing public domain works and PLR as ebooks where they were accepted. Lots of content will find you buyers based on the title or author. This alone, without building up audience or network, can be very lucrative, but takes years of consistent weekly effort to build. Shaw’s approach of publishing a few original books every week, under your own name or pen-names, is essentially the same approach. Amazon rewards series of books published every two weeks, and so the short read approach is an effective strategy.

Vision – is having nothing but a dream out in front of you. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark recommends this, and is essentially how he built his empire with a single blog. He promoted a course via that blog and sold it without much more than the first lesson ready. Other promoters say to get onto podcasts and radio shows with the title of “author of the soon-to-be-published book (Your Title Here).” You have a set of bullet points based on your audience research and then the interviews will tell you what they want you to write. Other authors have done this, blogging their book (The Martian, 50 Shades of Gray) first and then converting it to a published book with the audience feedback. This is Grahl’s Long Game, essentially.

Four Approaches to Becoming a Published Author

1. Audience-centric: promote to your list. Run ads.
2. Network-centric: promote to your network’s audiences.
3. Vision-centric: pitch an idea to other’s audience, while building both and writing your book.
4. Content-centric: flood Amazon and all outlets with your books in all possible formats while you build a regular audience and your network.

I mentioned before that when you use this system for a book launch, it builds all other parts when you work on any given point. Of course, this is somewhat automatic, but let’s be smart.

When you get on other’s shows, then you work with them to get you as part of their network (so you can get invited back.) And you also ask them who else you should be contacting. You also set up a special offer for that audience so they can become part of your mailing list – and so, grow your audience.

If you run ads to get people into your mailing list, this is pure audience-building. You give them something in return for signing up. Once part of your list, then you build relations with them so they start buying your book. This probably works best when you give away a set of your writings along with a first book in a series so that they will buy your other books. (Works best in combination with content.) But you can also do this with your first book, and write some additional material to go along with it.

Getting onto talk shows to promote your upcoming book is a way to find out what people want. Of course, you are grooming up the host to become part of your network and also writing some content to give to that audience to join your list.

If you are prolific, then you simply crank out a lot of works and have reader magnets in the front and back of them to get people to join your list. Once you have some series that sell well, then invest some FB ads into a collection so you’ll earn enough income to pay for your advertising from sales, as well as raising the earlier books in that series. Then start getting onto some podcast/radio shows or other media to tell about your bestselling series of books, and get them to opt-in, etc. as above.

Know Which Best Foot to Put Forward

Now you have a way to build your platform from nothing but a book launch. You can start with just the idea for a book for simply start writing and publishing. Or contact your buddies and ask to get in front of their audience. Or just start running ads on Facebook for whatever you already have published, even if only a single book that you’re giving away.

Just assess your strengths above and step off in that direction.

Your choice.

Have fun with this.