The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 72 – All the Steps to Organize Your Book Launch

Maybe we should have made this two episodes because it is a doozy!

Jesper and Autumn cover a ton of tips and steps to launch your book, starting from 12 weeks out from your book release until 5 weeks after. After? Yes! Discover why there are actually steps to your book launch strategy that take place AFTER the actual release!

Check out Publisher Rocket at https://amwritingfantasy--rocket.thrivecart.com/publisher-rocket/

*Note: This is an affiliate link and using it will help us out, but we're mainly an affiliate because we use and love Publisher Rocket ourselves. ❤️

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from Writing Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper.

Autumn (31s):
And I'm Autumn.

Jesper (31s):
This is episode 72 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast and the topic of today's episode is book launches, and Autumn and I am going to share how we handle the launches of our books. And uh, you can basically feel free to copy as many of the steps that you want so when we go through it.

Autumn (54s):
And definitely some tips on things I think we've tried in the past that you don't know if they're quite worth the effort anymore, but we'll get to those.

Jesper (1m 3s):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, and, and I guess we could also say that there was a ton of ways you can do a book launches. We've put our list together based on all kinds of things that we've done throughout the years and that this is, this is a part of the, the master list that we arrived at. But uh, yeah, I will cover that step by step, uh, you know, in a, in a bit here.

Autumn (1m 28s):
Absolutely. So how are things over on your side of the Atlantic?

Jesper (1m 36s):
Well, well, to be honest, uh, it feels a bit tired today cause this morning was the first morning in quite a while where I had to get up early to take the kids to school.

Autumn (1m 50s):
Oh that's right.

Jesper (1m 52s):
Because why would there have been like everybody else in shelf quarantine for a long while now. Uh, but uh, he, in Denmark, things are slowly starting to return to normal, well, I guess normal in quotation marks, but the, the Corvette 19 pandemic a lot to everything down as we all know by now. But we are, we've started lifting. It's like we hear. So it happens to the stages here in, in, in Denmark. Um, and a, one of the first stages is to get kids back to school so that parents can start working again.

Jesper (2m 25s):
Um, and, well actually our kids were supposed to go back to school a week ago, uh, but we kept them at home last week because we were, first of all, we as parents felt that it was a bit soon that they began opening things up again. And uh, we also had a conversation with the kid's at the lunch table, um, last week and asked them how they felt about, and they both said that they did not quite feel safe, so we decided together with them that they will stay at home another week.

Jesper (3m 0s):
So, so that's what we did. So they started today. While there are friends started a week ago.

Autumn (3m 7s):
That's some peer pressure, so they knew their friends were back in as everything waited a week and that they, you know, life, nothing blew up. I guess it's a good that they decided that they felt safe enough to go back to school.

Jesper (3m 20s):
Well, yeah, we asked them all over the weekend how they felt about it in that they both said it well, the youngest said, yeah, I'm fine, I want to go back. But the oldest, it was more like, yeah, I'm still not quite feel comfortable with it, but on the other hand and you know, we'd talk to him and it's a sort of, I had a conversation around how you probably never feel entirely comfortable because you don't know what's what it is. Right. Right. You don't know what's going to happen when you get there and, and all those things. So, uh, but they went to school today and when I picked them up, they were both really happy, uh, that they went and so everything went well.

Jesper (3m 56s):
But a, but actually also I wanted to misspeaking of Corona virus. Right. Uh, these days I would really, really, really prefer to stay far, far away from hospitals. Uh, but unfortunately actually have to take my youngest son there the other day. Oh, no. Yeah, he was driving his scooter outside. Um, and, uh, well he basically just, he fell, landed with his, uh, entire body with, on, on his elbow.

Jesper (4m 28s):
So we were quite worried at his arm was broken. So we have to go to the hospital in the middle of these Corona virus days, which I really would like not answer to. Yeah. And I guess they were really busy. They're, because we spent the entire evening there, something like three, four hours to get to his shoulder or elbow. I meant, uh, x-rayed and looked over. But luckily enough, it was not broken up this morning. A couple of days later, he, he, you know, as I said, he went to school, he had no pains.

Jesper (5m 2s):
Okay. So everything seems okay now. But yeah, this has been a bit of an interesting week. That's crazy. Well, I'm glad he's fine. That's not there. They keep saying now this is not the time to do something stupid and get yourself hurt. So well, I mean is it really don't want to go to the hospital, but, but what can you do a very true, yeah. And how is a everything on your side?

Jesper (5m 33s):
We are fine. I finished my built in storage benches. We have cushions on order and so the major goals and major building projects of my little cabin are done and you know, I wanted to like finish it up over the weekend and then it was going to be, um, obviously we are working on a character development course is going to do some computers stuff, but it was going to be like I wanted to have that moment where you just stop and the sun shines in the window. Do you have a thought? Oh you know, it looks like it has done two and a half months of building and getting settled and I can finally put stuff away and get rid of the sawdust on the floor where I'm also living in such a filtering in place.

Jesper (6m 17s):
And instead it was probably the more realistic version of two and a half months of building and living and sheltering and pandemic and want to adapt.

Autumn (6m 29s):
So you can see why I think it finally hit me a nice still. I mean I feel very content and kind of calm, which is still lovely. I don't feel like there's this huge pressure to go, I got to do something, the show results. But I definitely still have that kind of like, yeah, I'm not in slow mode but I'm not in like let's get stuffed on it. I'm not, I'm not under a total drive. I'm going to sitting back on my heels going, yeah, I could have a beer. That's where I'm at.

Autumn (6m 59s):
But I think, um, I think as I recover and you know, speaking every time I'd used, you know, we have skill cells and compound miters and all these things we've been using in jigsaw calls and every time I go to cut something, I always had that moment of be careful. Don't do something stupid. You don't want to go to the hospital. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. We'll have those moments. But I've seen, I have, um, my right knuckle has been a little bit sore and I actually have a brace on my left arm cause I've a little bit of a, like a tennis elbow going on from something in my right shoulder hurts.

Autumn (7m 33s):
It's like a joke. I can't open the door with my right arm and I can't pick up my teacup with the left arm and I'm like, that heals because I've been in, I did go through my upper birthday. I'm a year older officially, so I'm not a known for a spring chicken. I'm once my body catches up so she loves me a year younger, once a week once everything catches up and I'm feel a little bit better and I can just enjoy being very physically fit, I will probably just be a little bit happier and then I'll be so excited. I'll have my moment in the sun of Yes.

Autumn (8m 5s):
I'll sit on a picnic table by the stream and the waterfall and I'll be like, this is good, this is good. But right now having a blankie, it's a good that you're going to hold it all the building stuff that, I mean you don't want me in chats of billing anything unless it's like a building, but I can build a world, but I can not build a cabin. We go on the internet with the Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.

Autumn (8m 36s):
So that was quite a few good post in the Facebook group over the past few days. I don't know if you noticed that to know. I, my husband recently pointed out, he's like, I do this every day. He has been doing a climate log and actually weather forecasting everyday and observations about the woods. He's like, and you don't even go look at it. I'm like, no, because it's on Facebook. I have been on a Facebook diet, not on purpose, just I had to cut something out for a little bit and I've got that out. Right, right. I appreciate you and taking care of the group because I know it would, it would be a dead plant if I was in my household right now a little bit.

Jesper (9m 15s):
Um, Luke is good at taking care of things as well for you, but there was a quite a few good, but I just picked a few here at just to mention because I thought they were really good. Um, so Linda posted in the Facebook group, uh, a picture of the For heart horseman of procrastination. I thought that was it.

Autumn (9m 37s):
That's great. Uh, and, uh,

Jesper (9m 41s):
there was also Jason, he finished his first draft of it for nearly a 150,000 words.

Autumn (9m 47s):
Oh gosh, yes. We rolled on progress forever. I missed that. I have to go find his post now and say congratulations.

Jesper (9m 55s):
Yeah, it's a so, so, so, so well done. So a, yeah, we just wanted to call you out Jason thing and congratulating you on, on that. Um, and we also have a Tony Join quite recently, I think it was only like two or three days, uh, ago, uh, since I let her in. Uh, well, of course when you listen to this, we were pre recording it at an event. So you have been a part of the group for a while by the time we listen to this town you, but uh, but she, um, she showed some interesting creating a shared world.

Jesper (10m 28s):
Uh, so she was asking if somebody was interested in that, so that, that was pretty cool. That's really cool. Yeah. And at the quite similar as well. Alexandra's uh, he was looking for a coach, author, so that was also quite nice. And I don't know, maybe he should check out Episode 58 of the podcasts because we actually talked about how to find a co author or a writing partner in that Episode. So that was 58 but a lot of good, interesting conversations happening in the Facebook group.

Jesper (10m 60s):
So a Yeti your list know if you haven't checked it are already and how we should show you can so just search for Am Writing Fantasy in the group section of Facebook and uh, you will find us.

Autumn (11m 10s):
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to get back into it because it's always so dynamic and interesting. It's just crazy to hear what's been going on. And like I haven't been on for a few days, I swear it's not in a full week, so that's just fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. I did like the fact though that we are, you know, at least people do track us down. Um, occasionally if there outside of Facebook. But I know Audrey sent us an email, she just recently joined the Writing list to Writing Tim list. And she had said that her biggest hurdle was in finishing a novella.

Autumn (11m 44s):
And she was writing by inspiration where he got into a good conversation emailing back and forth about that, about, you know, how Writing basically I just read this great metaphor. We're writing is a muscle. It's sort of like, you know, it's something that you need to work on every day, not just because it's somebody who should work on everyday and then you build your schedule. It's like muscle memory. It's you build your stamina. So I just thought, yeah, that's my new metaphor and my new kick and the butt to my re my, my physical construction is done.

Autumn (12m 15s):
So now I've got to get back to a word construction. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's important to a, to keep doing it. Um, especially that the part about when you don't really feel like Writing that, but you still put the pot and the chair and go get it done.

Jesper (12m 32s):
Right. Because, uh, you can always edit it later, but, but do the thing about all, because there are some habits stuff and this as well, you know, if you can train yourself into the habit of this is what I do, even if it's just like a 20 minutes or 15 minutes early in the morning before you have to go off to the day job or whatever. But getting into a habit of doing it, that really helps in the long run. Definitely.

Jesper (13m 3s):
So a book launches, Oh this is something that a, a lot of people talk about quite often.

Autumn (13m 12s):
Well, there are important, I know, and it's, I think a lot of people take two views of book launches and the one is that it is a life or death of a Book. You need to launch big and launched loud and get a ton of sales. And that's how you do it. And then I think there's other people who think it's a marathon and you launch the book and it should be celebrated because that was a big deal.

Jesper (13m 34s):
But that is not the,

Autumn (13m 36s):
and by far a finishing a book, you need to do a lot of marketing plans after that. But the book launches kind of like the first big marketing.

Jesper (13m 47s):
Yeah, I agree. Of course its always nice to see if you can get a good book launch going so that you get an influx of cast. So when you release a new book that's so of course nice. But uh, I I I as well will you often hear is all the stories about the amazing book launches have a, I don't know what 50 a hundred K on whatever it is. People, I mean yeah fine. But I really don't think that that's a good way of looking at it. It's, it's, it's good to Launch wants the book well and of course you should put thought into it and do the best that you can but its, it is really not, it's not the end all.

Jesper (14m 27s):
If, if the Launch is in the best one, it could be.

Autumn (14m 30s):
No. But it is exciting if it does well enough and you get on the hot new release list on Amazon or even on the other one's bestseller. Those are exciting goals. But absolutely just because you don't get one, does it mean your book is not going to do well or sell a ton over its life?

Jesper (14m 47s):
No. So basically as I said up at the top of episode, we've put together a Launch process that we basically are more or less use, uh, for launching all of our books. And that's what we want it to share here with the listeners today. Um, we sometimes we tweak a few of the steps here and they are a bit of course a, I think that should be the method of this episode as well so that basically people listening take from it what you can and what you want and ignore it.

Jesper (15m 18s):
A rest. Right. And maybe maybe we are going to mention a few things she ended, it inspires you to do something that you hadn't thought about. And if we do that then I think that's a success enough for this episode. Sounds good to me. And I have a good, good caveat or this is what, how we were sharing. Yeah. So basically the way we do it is that we have an hour process divided into the big book launch starting 12 weeks ahead of launch and stopping five weeks after the launch.

Jesper (15m 51s):
So you got to be the one to explain time Yes it'll be a a, I think this probably a few people are scratching their head saying but its a book launch. What do you have something that you are doing something about your Book lunch five weeks later. So this will be absolutely, but I think it will make sense once we go through all these different faces. Probably the easiest way to do this to also keep some structure in the conversation would be to take them by weeks. So basically saying okay a block first block being 12 weeks ahead of Launch do this and do that 10 weeks ahead of Launch do this and do that and so forth.

Jesper (16m 28s):
And then we moved down the list until we get all the way down to five weeks after the launch. So I think that's the way that will keep some structured in place in a framework around in the conversation today. Sounds good. So Yes all right, 12 weeks prior to Launch you wanna start us off Yes so when we are 12 weeks before the launch, the you still have quite some good, you know, time your, you're willing to advance here.

Jesper (16m 58s):
So this is a good time to reach out to some relevant influences. So this could be maybe bloggers or YouTube burgers or podcasters, but the main thing is that their audience needs to match your readers. So for example, it would make no sense to reach out to us asking to be interviewed on the Am Writing Fantasy podcasts about a thrill, a book that you have coming up, for example. It makes no sense. No, this is not the audience.

Jesper (17m 29s):
Also, the focus of this podcast is to talk about writing and marketing for authors. It's not for readers. So you need to keep that in mind and try to find some sort of blogger or YouTube or a podcast or whatever it may be, who's a normal content is aligned with what your readers are watching or listening to or whatever it may be. Um, but at the same time, it's also not worth trying to get on to a hundred different podcasts Your or something like that.

Jesper (18m 3s):
It was just Yes that stopped by fucking making a list of like 15 mid range influences because the top, the top influencers, it's impossible to get on their podcast without invitations and the very low level once you might be very easy to get on the podcast, but the other hand you're not going to get out of it because the, they are low range, 50 in mid range influence. That's a pretty good to start with. And um, and then you, you go from there.

Jesper (18m 35s):
Um, yeah.

Autumn (18m 37s):
No I think that's pretty good. Yeah, I think so too. I think it's important to remember that even though your reaching out to influencers by 12 weeks prior, you should be, I mean hopefully by now you've got your book cover. I like it in the book cover as well. I'm still writing a lot of authors due now because one is inspirational but you can start sharing social posts, trying to build your audience and keeping it up to date. So you 12 weeks out you should have your book cover and even if you're not sharing it, even you have for doing teasers, you should be doing some posts on social media.

Autumn (19m 9s):
So generating, you know, getting people interested, letting people know about your book, what's coming out. Some of the world building your character is a, if you have a blog, these are the things that you should be doing right now to make sure that they are kind of getting on the vibe. I mean I remember, I know I've recently said this to someone that book launches used to be, you know, publishers would need a year to year and a half to generate all this stuff and the excitement about launching a book. But I think just like reader's are kind of expecting book's to be like coming out every month, which is probably not possible.

Autumn (19m 42s):
But there's also, it's everything's more of a flash in the pan. And I think the lunch strategy, I think that's why we started at 12 weeks out is because if you do it too soon, six months before you publish, people are maybe a little less enthusiastic. It's kind of good to start building up that energy, you know, three months before you launched because that's more the timeframe for us to get enough people in your resources together and get people excited.

Jesper (20m 10s):
Yeah, absolutely. And this is also then at the time where you upload your book to two different, uh, online retailers. So like Amazon and, and wherever else you want to tell you a book. Um, and at this point you are not, uh, which will make sense in, in, in a moment, but at this point you are not uploading the final version of the book. So this is like the, probably the, the edited version, I think at this point. That sort of leads to what we do. And so from our view of it is done but its not gonna be the final version.

Jesper (20m 44s):
We'll get back to that. So you have uploaded there and then there was a whole debate that one can have around should you do pre-orders or should you not do preorders and there are long debates and views about is it better or worse for you, your Amazon author rankings if you do pre-orders or not and all of that. And basically we sort of circled when that whole conversation by saying because we have a 12 week slow burning building anticipation process in place yet we are doing preorders.

Jesper (21m 17s):
Yes. And basically what are we saying is I don't care if it hurts the author ranking doing preorders who cares? Uh, I don't, so we are just building as a low anticipation over 12 weeks and hopefully uh, once we get down to the list, you, you will see how the stepping stones leads to some excitement.

Autumn (21m 37s):
Yes. And a big tip that I never thought about until, I don't know it was probably, it's been a year or so now, but I never thought of it. When you upload this draft version or nearly finished version, you don't have to upload your final cover. So if you are planning something like a cover reveal or something later, you can do a placeholder image of just about, you know it, it should be something I like. I have a couple of, yeah, it should be a, I have a little scrap one that looks like an old antique book cover and so you can just do that with your title and upload that so that if you do have a big cover reveal something later, you can upload your fake version, your holding version on good reads on Amazon and your distributors is drafted digital Smashwords so you know, keep that in mind.

Autumn (22m 25s):
If you want to be clever and do a big reveal later. You don't have to have the final version revealed to the public quite yet. That's such a good point of view just before but also 12 weeks ahead of launch. I wanted

Jesper (22m 40s):
to say a few words about email, newsletter squash, but just before I get there, before I forget, Please if you are reaching out two podcasts as a speaking as a podcaster, could you please listen to a bit to those people's, uh, episodes before you reach out to them to understand what is this kind of show and at least do a bit of your own research to find out why am I a good match for their audience and what they normally do. Because, for example, on our podcast yet, we do not take pictures for people to come onto the podcast.

Jesper (23m 14s):
We only invite people to come on AM. So once in a while, as you know, about once a month we'll have a guest on, but those are the only people that we have contacted because we want it to have a conversation with them. So sending pictures to people like us in a, I'm just using us an example here, but it's not gonna work. If you're trying to find 15 mid range influencers and you want to get on a podcast and you will never listen to it, even a single one of the episodes and you don't understand that this is not how they, they, they maybe they don't even do interviews at all.

Jesper (23m 48s):
Right? So you just wasting your time. Right. So please do that. A bit of research before you start reaching out to people is so annoying and getting emails from people who clearly don't know what they are, what the podcast is about, and then they're making pictures for something that makes absolutely no sense. It's so unhealthy

Autumn (24m 5s):
that I totally agree. Even with audience, somebody might look at ours and like, Oh, Fantasy I'm going to talk about a Fantasy book, but we're targeting Fantasy authors, not readers. So we do make sure you're not wasting your time and effort, um,

Jesper (24m 19s):
bothering someone who you're not even the right target audience. Yeah. Okay. So let me move on to newsletter swaps. This is basically where your reaching out to another author saying, okay, can you feed your, my book in your newsletter? And then I will feature in your book, in my newsletter we talked about that on past Episode as well. Um, here I have to say that for Autumn and myself we don't really use email newsletter swaps. And the reason for that is when we are publishing out our books, you hear that I don't like featuring another author's book in our email unless I've read it and I just don't feel comfortable with doing that.

Jesper (25m 4s):
Um, but if you do do newsletter swaps and if you do like to do that then uh, basically this, uh, 12 weeks prior to Launch is the, its a good time to get that organized. Find out who you want to do newsletter swaps with and a yeah and get yourself organized. Know why you still have a quite a while yet. And there are a lot of good places as a, in my private, my, my Writing individually last, I have done them in the past. So

Autumn (25m 32s):
yeah, there are good Facebook groups. There's a story origins, which has a fantastic newsletter swap area and BookFunnel. It's more for group giveaways but sometimes you can find some swaps through there. So those are the two of them are good places to look. Right.

Jesper (25m 45s):
And keep it John or a specific same as looking at influencers. Right. Good. So I think we can move on to the next Am bracket here. Which system 10 weeks ahead of launch. Absolutely. So,

Autumn (26m 1s):
and I was going to say, so we've already talked about reaching out to people and what are the steps to reaching out and I think we might've might have mentioned, should have mentioned this sooner, but you could mention it here. It's, you should develop a media kit for your book. So it sounds so professional, but this is a great way of AM sending people. So if you are reaching out to influencers, especially instead of sending them a bulk load of material, especially if you happened to have a website, put up media kit and have everything, some blurbs, some excerpts, some images, uh, you know, all of the information, the way that it's going to be released.

Autumn (26m 37s):
Is it going to be on sale? Are you going to have some reviews? Do you have some earlier reviews? Put it, all of that on some websites or a download or something and be able to direct people to it. It will save you so much time and money. Just just do that and have it ready to go by the time you either start contacting people are definitely by 10 weeks out.

Jesper (26m 58s):
Oh yeah. And then this is also a good time once you are updating your website anyway, so put you a book on to your website and make links to those preorders everywhere that you have the book for sale. And of course use affiliate links when you are on your own website. You are well within the terms of service from, for example, Amazon that you allow us to take an Amazon affiliate link and put on your own website to your own Book so that if people buy your book through your own website, you are not only get the royalties For from the book, but you are also getting affiliate income royalties.

Jesper (27m 37s):
So there's no reason not to do that. So make sure that that's what you do on your website.

Autumn (27m 41s):
Yes. And a little tip there. A, Amazon's not the only one with affiliate links. Even Google has affiliate links now. So if you have books on Google play Yes, it will make sure that you get them from each of your places and it really make a difference. And so as you're setting up all of this information, a do a preorder alert for a BookBub anyway, this is a good time. You know, make sure your book is up there in places where people are going to start seeing it in that they know that it's going to be alert. You know, I'm on Smashwords and I can also do alerts.

Autumn (28m 11s):
They're saying, Hey, new book's coming. You could preorder it,

Jesper (28m 15s):
let people know. Yeah. And there's a few more things to set up as well here. 10 weeks ahead of launch. So you should also get it on to, well, I'm saying book funnel now. I guess you could use other things, but honestly BookFunnel is just as a such a cheap, an amazing service that there was no reason not to use it. So you get, you get, the book's set up on AM on BookFunnel. So this is basically going to be your ad copy or the act also means advanced readers copy.

Jesper (28m 46s):
So this is basically the, the, the copy that you are going to ask you, a bunch of readers to read ahead of the actual launch that we're going to come back to that in a minute. But you upload that here, uh, to book funnel. And then you also add the Book on good reads if you have a profile there. Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I would also, at this point in time, I will also start booking promotional sluts on different promotional sites, ah, for the launch week.

Jesper (29m 16s):
Now that you are still ahead of time, so are, you should be able to snatch up those, uh, those times slots.

Autumn (29m 24s):
And to me this is a good reason to do the preorder is because by having a preorder, you have a link and you can go ahead and book those promotions. If you're not doing a preorder, you can't do that until the book is live. Uh, it is just, yeah, you know that you're scrambling to try to get any last minute slots. And there's

Jesper (29m 42s):
only like, there's only so many advertisers who will do something for a book launch. Where do you have no reviews and they're basically standing on other books you have out in your overall review as an author. So you want to show, you want to make sure that you got in with them as soon as you can. So 10 weeks. That was a good time for that. Yeah, indeed. So do we have more on this or should we move on to nine weeks ahead? I think that's a good, that's good.

Jesper (30m 12s):
At 10 weeks, if you, if you said you were in building your media kit, still you've got plenty to do. Yeah. Well that was a, nobody set that book. Launches should be easy. You know, your running a publishing business and you're stinking a home, you're and a half a book launch into three to three months. You're gonna be on your toes. You thought you're a busy writing, wait till you trying to launch something while there is more work. Anything that you might think, at least if in my view if you want to do it right, but that's what we are.

Jesper (30m 42s):
That's what we were going through here. Yes so nine weeks ahead of Launch. So now, um, and this one, this first one that I'm going to mention that this is not vital at all. It's completely optional basically. But if you want, you can create a book trailer at this point or a, some sort of video promoting the book. If it's not directly a book trailer, then it could be something else. It could be a video with some of the world building in it or a something related to the Book. Um, this is optional, but why I have it on here, it's not because book trailers or videos like this is not going to move a lot of book sales at all.

Jesper (31m 20s):
But why I'm mentioning it is because it's quite nice to work with on Facebook ads because you can then retarget a, when you can set for Facebook to say, okay, everybody who watches at least a 50% of this video, I want to retalk it. And then you can use that as an audience once you get down to the day where the book goes live and retarget all of those people with, okay, the book is now out there. That's good to know that that's, that's quite a nice thing to do.

Jesper (31m 52s):
Um, and that, that's more the benefit of the book trailer than anything else. It's not the portrayal itself, but it goes without saying. Obviously if you want to do this, it has to look professional. If it's like a subpar, a video that you upload, nobody's gonna think it's interesting. Okay. So there was that and it's, it's not easy to do. So it's something to consider. It is I still once a book trailer for my own books and have it done it yet because I really want something high end.

Jesper (32m 24s):
No. Ken burns pictures panning to the left or right. I can't do it. So, um, I actually, I actually did one. Yeah, I did it. It's actually, it's on the Am Writing Fantasy YouTube channel. So if anybody's interested, interesting. You can go on there. But this is, so, this is like the do it yourself. The book trailer. Uh, I think it's okay. It's not the best top quality professional stuff, but I think it's okay. But I'll leave it for the listeners two jobs so you, you can let me know, just tweet me or something.

Jesper (32m 56s):
Once you watch it, you know what you think. But, but there was one day that people can look at it, see what it looks like if they want.

Autumn (33m 2s):
Yeah. But okay, so it still it nine weeks prior to the Launch I'm going to go and look at this now cause I don't think I have seen it there. So you have it. I don't think so. I've got to go look anyway, since we were off of that, it was a time if you are going to do cover reveals or a book title review or anything big, it's time to make sure that you're getting those scheduled at nine weeks out. One of the things I will say that you might, you know, book cover reveals are there used to be a big Facebook parties and things like that. And there, there, okay you gather a whole bunch of authors together and you'd maybe all give away free books or you do something and there's still events like that, but they become, instead of like hundreds of people, they've become a lot more cozy.

Autumn (33m 47s):
Often you'll see almost like it's like an author's you invited and just a few readers, even the big ones. So you know, if you can narrow your sites down, you get maybe 20 or 30 readers. That's exciting. It's good enough. But you'll have to decide if it's worth it. And I'd almost say the same thing. Booking blog Torres, this is something that you would do about it now. And as sort of the same thing, blogs are kind of fading. It's video as much more important. So if you had to choose between like a cover reveal party, Book tours or approaching influencers, go for the influencers.

Autumn (34m 21s):
Go for the video of the podcast format over going on Facebook and having something going on there.

Jesper (34m 29s):
Yeah, I would agree with that. Um, and I think as well for the cover reveal indeed, I mean if you go back and read some old blogpost on the internet and whatnot, you will see that it's being hyped a lot and I think it worked quite well as a strategy a while back. But I don't think you can get you get nuts getting much mileage from cover reveals to today. But the reason that we still do the cover reveal and uh, at this point in time, nine weeks out is basically only because it gives you another excuse to email your readers about the book coming out there.

Jesper (35m 7s):
There's a limit to how many times you can email them to say, Hey, the book is coming out now it's nine weeks and now its eight weeks and now it makes, it gets boring after awhile. And so this just gives you an excuse to email them again and remind them that the book is coming out and then you give them the cover as a cover reveal in that email. That's basically all I will. I mean, you can post it on social media as well. Why not? While you were at it, it's another reason to do a good book or a post on social media and Instagram. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so do that. But, but it's not that the cover reveal will assault all of sudden turn it into a load of the pre-orders or something, but not at all.

Jesper (35m 43s):
But, but it's, it's just a small building blood in the building. Anticipation castle that remit creating here. Yes. And don't forget though, if you do the cover reveal and you put up a temporary holding spot for your book on Amazon to go and AM put up your Real cover before it's too long, but it might be a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. But this is also then nine weeks out is also at a time where I will then set up this arch team. So basically you our advanced readers team, and this is pretty simple in the sense that you send out an email to your email list and you explain to them that you are looking for our team members and make sure that they understand what that means in the sense of what is it that you are expecting from them.

Jesper (36m 29s):
So you are going to give them a free book, a of this upcoming novel, um, and you are going to give them the opportunity to read it for free. And it's a, it's, it's been through your editor already. So it's the, from your point of view is the final version or we all know how typos getting past everybody. So they are a job in return for getting to read this book for free. The job is to learn to let you know every time they see a typo or out or if something or as well is unclear in the explanations or in the text or whatever, then they should also let you know.

Jesper (37m 6s):
But make sure that they understand that this is what they need to do. And also let them know by what date you need the feedback. And that is not even their most important role. That's an important role. But really the key wonderful thing about having this arc team comes on lunch day. But that is part of the agreement Yes uh, we can have come back to you exactly. Well save that for the lunch day. Yeah. Okay. So that was nine weeks.

Jesper (37m 37s):
10 so we move into seven weeks ahead of launch. So you can see sometimes we're skipping two weeks. They're, it is not an error, it's on purpose. It's just because then you have enough time to go through all these steps. Right. So it's not because we can't a, we do math while we probably can't do that either. But that's not the reason because we figured you need a break for a week eight and you probably had a bit of homework to catch up on to get ready for week seven. Yeah, exactly. So seven to seven weeks ahead of launch.

Jesper (38m 7s):
There's not too much here. Be honest. It's really going to get in touch with your arch team, making sure that you know everyone is up to speed, that they have gotten the book. If you've sent it out by now, it's always a toss up. It depends on how long your book is. You want it to be pretty close to your Launch day that they are finishing. It is, but you don't want it. You know, if you don't want to have to have finished it a month before and then by a long time launch day comes, they're like, Oh right, I'm supposed to do something else. You want them to be engaged and excited.

Jesper (38m 39s):
So I know when I do mine, AM sent out my Launch team Book it's within the last month or so. It might be a little early to send it out now, but it depends on your book and who you have recruited and also how many people you have recruited. It's good to good to have enough people. You know, there is nothing wrong with having a hundred people who want to read your book and will help you out on lunch day. But you also have to figure is that too many of you have to decide what you need for your group.

Jesper (39m 10s):
Yeah, I think that that part depends a lot on what it is that you are asking for. If your asking for content feedback, then hundreds of people is too much. It's gotta take you forever to go through all of that content. But I mean, I don't mind when we send it out because we're, the only thing we asking for is typos for them to tell us the type of it. So I don't mind giving out 200 fee out copies. I don't mind at all. If 200 people can look through four and try to hunt for typos, they're going to catch probably 90% 99% of of the hours that are still there.

Jesper (39m 44s):
And then you should be pretty clean after that. So, but the other thing as well as I wanted to mention by reaching out to you as a team here is again you were hunting for a bit of content that you can use in emails to read us again so you could, the arc team members probably haven't read the entire book by now, but at least they've been part partly through it at this point. There should at least, and so you can ask them to share some of their favorite quotes from so far with you because those quotes then again gives you an excuse to email your readers.

Jesper (40m 17s):
Again, reminding them that they book is coming and giving them some of the quotes and you can basically tell them that these are the favorite quotes from the advanced reader team that they picked out for you. Just to tell them where it came from, that it's not something that you pulled out and because it also makes it more, well, it humanizes the process, right? It's not like, Oh, I picked the 10 quotes so I could send them to you, but it's rather like, no, I had a conversation with the art team. They liked these. So I just wanted to pass them onto you guys as well.

Jesper (40m 47s):
Right. So that makes sense. And of course made sure to provide the link to the preorder in that email as well. So those who haven't pick up the book yet and do so. And you couldn't repeat the whole process on social media as well. Of course. Absolutely. And also a good tip too is if this is a book on a series a, it doesn't hurt to make sure that you have any of the previous books. You can have those on sale right now as well. So you might probably have one to two already get those scheduled. Maybe do some promotional advertising with those.

Jesper (41m 19s):
But it's also good to, you know, get some funnels, some new readers into your series. If this is going to be another book in the same series. So if you want to get that stuff and make sure that you have that all going okay, so that wasn't much. So now you're not going to get two weeks' break. How are you going to get a one week? Break it down. Yeah, six weeks ahead of Launch. So here, this is the time to do something a bit different as well is that it's not unique in the sense that is not something that you never heard about before, but it's basically like an exclusive bonus.

Jesper (41m 54s):
So you set it up as a release, a contest. Um, there was a million ways you could do this. Um, but basically the, the, the main idea of this is of course that you are going to create a deadline, meaning that people need to take action now because if they don't, they're going to miss out. That's what you were playing on here basically to get people to preorder the Book because if you don't, you are going to miss out on this very awesome bonus that you can't get and you can only get this bonus here and now.

Jesper (42m 25s):
So once the bonus goes away, it's gone forever. So this has to be something that you are creating specifically for this book launch and that you are not going to offer anywhere else afterwards. So you create something and you create an opt in form for it, meaning that people, we'll have to deliver that email address to you so that you can communicate with them. And then of course the idea is that on one hand they should be more than willing to give you their email address because they are showing interest in the a bonus here that you are offering.

Jesper (42m 56s):
But on the other hand, it then gives you the possibility to email them and not only tell them about the bonus and who you want it if it's like a contest or if everybody gets it. Then of course later on your you have to be able to email them with the actual bonus itself. Uh, but it also gives you the possibility to email these people wants to book launches and tell them, okay, it's now available, which is quite nice. Yes, definitely a very good, definitely a good way to have that on your mailing list as well as get some more excitement going.

Jesper (43m 31s):
Yes, and I should also mention in terms of ideas for what can you do as an exclusive bonus later this year, later in 2020 a Autumn and I should be releasing in a free course for you. And in that course that will actually be some ideas about this particular point about how you can run contests, but also what kind of ideas could you tell? What kind of things could you offer as a price? But the main point here for right now that I want you to take away is please, please, please help yourself by making sure it's something that you can deliver electronically.

Jesper (44m 10s):
You don't want to be shipping something now, it's, I mean, maybe if you run one free book somewhere as a grand prize, but you don't want to do that for a whole bunch of people. You, you know, and it's much more exciting if everyone at least skits one thing, even if there was a grand grand prize, and I do, you want to make sure that you make it very clear in your rules that it has nothing to do with reviews. I, Amazon has very strict rules that you cannot buy. Give away is nothing can be done. You can never give a reviewer a prize or a payment.

Jesper (44m 43s):
So make sure it's clear that it is literally for buying the book and supporting you, uh, but never give anyone anything for, I'm actually leaving a review other than the thank you because everything else, if Amazon finds out you were in touch, Oh you're a, you're at the Crick without a paddle. But it does say, yeah, that's correct that, but it even goes further than that because actually you cannot also run an exclusive bonus where your demanding people to buy the book either. That's not a lot.

Jesper (45m 13s):
That's very true. So the only thing you can do is you can, this is what we're going to talk about this free course later in the year. Once we release it, then we're going to talk you through exactly how to do this. But the main idea is that you can say your chances of winning is significantly higher if you buy the book, which means that you can tell them, for example, so two, win this price. You need to tell me the first word in chapter 28 those are the things you can guess, you can say.

Jesper (45m 44s):
I think it's a fine Maybe. Maybe you are wrong, maybe a REIT, but if you buy the book you probably have a better chance of winning. So that's how you can do it. But you cannot force them to buy the book, but it cannot be like you can only enter this contest if you're by the book. That's not allowed right there. Good. So we should be clear about that. But we got to explain that more in the course of that. Yes, yes. Let's move on. Okay. Oh, where, where are we? Where are we still in six weeks? Yes. If you have more for that bracket. Otherwise we can move on to five.

Jesper (46m 15s):
I think we're on five. I think we're good. Cool. All right, so you already added the book to your own website previously. Uh, and what I really like, and this one is not something necessarily that everybody can do, but I can, because I have Autumn. So if you have your own version of Autumn out there that you can do this too but, but it's really a nice, if you could put at this point in time on your own website so the people can purchase directly from you here on the website.

Jesper (46m 50s):
Oh this is such a cool tip because it gets to be so excited. Cause I guess in a computer geek group gurus runs in my family, um, you get to sell the book directly to readers, get a hundred percent of the profit and for the people buying from you, they get to get it early and it's just like win-win. Everyone's winning. I think my only warning is do check with your state laws. You might need a business license if your selling on your own website. So a big tip there. Otherwise you, I just think it's so exciting.

Jesper (47m 20s):
You get, you're your own little book store and readers are getting in early and yes you might lose sales off of Amazon but readers are getting your Book early. So this was a good thing. But yes it is. And, and I think of course, unless you are enrolled in Kindle unlimited and Your on pre-order, then this is a no-go because then you are breaking the terms of service. But if you're not in Kindle unlimited or any exclusive exclusivity programs. So that was hard to say. But if you're not in any way, any such programs, then this is where I will then schedule an email already now to go out 10 days before the release date and here in that email tell you the email subscribers that you can get the Book already.

Jesper (48m 3s):
Now if you buy it directly from this link so then you can point out to them how it actually supports you as Autumn was just explaining because you don't have to give, it gave a cut of the royalties to sites like Amazon. So basically you're telling them, Hey, as a surprise, surprise so you can get the book already now 10 days before everybody else and you are going to help me out by making sure that I get all the royalties, which you're a reader should be interested in. Absolutely. So that's a win win. Yeah.

Autumn (48m 33s):
And it's, like I said, it's fun and it's not too much coating, but you definitely have to check it out. So that's all you have to do it. It can, especially in the first time through, it's a little bit to set up. So that's enough for you. You were five weeks out. Unless you have some spare time and you know you're you, you are closer, you get to Launch you, the more things are going to take your time and the more you want it you're going to get tired. So the more spare time, if you want to make some images, you know, start gathering stuff for a social media posts because you were one of the day you release the day before you release, your going to be willing to put up a whole bunch of different images, different quotes, different reviews as they come in.

Autumn (49m 15s):
You want to make sure you have all of that stuff together. So start, make, you know, make yourself an electronic file and just dump images and ideas and stuff into it so that when you go to grab it, you have a whole bunch of stuff already there and you're not searching the web and getting frustrated because you just want to get it done now.

Jesper (49m 32s):
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So let's move on. Four weeks ahead of launch soon, a month out now. And uh, well this is basically where you can fall once you do your future self a favor. Cause normally it happens so that your past self is an asshole is not right. It's true. Yeah because isn't it a soda? Your past self is always the one who's thinking, yeah, yeah I can do that later. Then your future self is like, Oh why the hell did not take care of this?

Jesper (50m 6s):
That's how it always worked. Right? So now you can flip that around and make you make your future self happy about the past self. And that's right. So schedule in an email again. Now two, go out to your email list. Seven days before the release date. And here you are going to tell them about that exclusive bonus that we just created. And your also going to tell them that this amazing book is available for preorder. Excellent. That's always useful.

Jesper (50m 36s):
And again this is, you still want to make sure you're posting about your book out on social media. And again you don't get things organized to get things together, get quotes together as well. Just make sure you have a whole bunch of stuff to share so that you have it all ready at your fingertips so that you are your future self is so happy with you having it was a good way to put it, your organized because it's so much easier than trying to look for passages. Um, during release week you want to sit there and celebrate really a sweet Necco.

Jesper (51m 11s):
I need to come up with 20 posts today in India. And to clarify, so you, you created the bonus itself six weeks ahead of launch and now we are at four weeks ahead of launch and I'm telling you to schedule an email only seven days before on. So basically why was it that we didn't just email people six weeks ahead of launch as soon as we create the exclusive post, and this is basically the reason for the that we don't email them is that we want to narrow the time window where they actually have the ability to get their hands on this bonus because the way people work and the way this goes and it is every single time without a fault, it is everybody only do what they need to do in the last second before the deadline expires.

Jesper (51m 58s):
And that's just the way it is. It is. If you don't believe me, fine. But that's the way it is. If you don't leave us alone, go on to our Facebook groups and find the four horseman of procrastination. Yes. And so that's why you are only giving them a seven day window and you are saying by the end of this week this is going to go away and a puff of smoke, it's going to be gone forever so they have to take action. Now. It's not like if you email them and say, well sometimes within the next six weeks you need to look at this, they will forget about and not do it.

Jesper (52m 29s):
So that's why that's very, okay. All right, so we're on two to three weeks. Three weeks now? Yes. All right, so that was a good time. You should be getting back, uh, messages from your arc team. Uh, if there were looking, hopefully again, and hopefully they were not doing content edits because that should have been beta reader is probably six months ago. So hopefully there's just some typos. There's going to be, typo is, trust me, there's always typos. You want to make sure that you have gathered those, you fix them and you don't upload every time someone gives you a type out, don't upload at the final version, save the, fix them all and a draft so that as you get closer, I think, what does that, Amazon's, what, three days?

Jesper (53m 9s):
You can't upload anything prior to Launch. So when you were in that window right now, you still have three weeks. Keep gathering. Um, but make sure that you're fixing them on a master a manuscript so that you will be ready to upload it once you have all of them back. Yeah. Amen. That's it. Yeah. So once you have all the information back, are you up to update your files and upload the final version once you are ready? All right, so we can move to two weeks ahead of Launch. So this is where I really like to start collecting keywords for the future Amazon ads that are going to run towards this book.

Jesper (53m 44s):
So basically start building up the list of keywords. Sounds good. And I will prefer tool For this is Publisher Rocket Yes that's an amazing piece of software and a way back when in episode 11 and matching that, that's a long time ago. But back then I talked about Publisher Rocket in that episode and then again in episode 32 we have Dave Chesson, he's the creator of Publisher Rocket. We had him on to talk about what you can do with Publisher Rocket and is one of my favorite tools.

Jesper (54m 16s):
So we will include a link to Publisher Rocket in the show notes so you can check it out. And if you want, we don't, you know, affiliate, we don't, we're not even an affiliate with him but we don't push to me as well. Oh I forgot about that. All right, so we asked, we are, you know these things more than you keep it organized, but as we don't feel to share too many tools. This is a really great one, but Publisher rocket is a really great one. And I will also say a huge shutout shout out. It's not that I think he listens to our show, but Brian Cohen, I just took his five day AMS edge challenge and it was a ton of fun and I learned stuff and he made some great tips for finding keywords and categories and stuff as well.

Jesper (54m 56s):
And he also mentioned publishers Rocket so those are a fun things. If you a join up with one of his challenges, you'll learn some great tips for getting more keywords as well. Yeah. Okay. One week ahead of Launch. Oh, are we getting to know? Yeah. So this is where I'll send another email to our list. And again, the purpose of this email is to build anticipation. Umm, so this could be the time where you and are using it as an extract of the actual book.

Jesper (55m 28s):
Perhaps you could also email the entire first chapter to people with a to be continued at the end of it. Um, and once again, yes, you guessed it, don't forget to include links to the preorder. Absolutely. I always, I do this for my readers. I especially cause a, you know, I'm Writing at least 40 chapter books. I will give away the first three chapters with links at the end of even the three chapters of where to go get a preorder and I get that to all my reader's on my mailing list. Yes. And now that you were inside, you are emailing software and doing email's anyway.

Jesper (56m 2s):
Then schedule and email as well to go out to your list at 6:00 AM am on launch day with the details about the book and all of the purchase links as well. Excellent. That's getting close. And so definitely at this point it's probably looking at where at one week Launch so you, you should have your final manuscript up

Autumn (56m 24s):
and ready to upload your final version two, the channel's because if you wait to close to launch it again, that three day window for Amazon. After that you can't touch her Book file. If you have it uploaded your for a final version, guess what? They are going to get the not final version. So get yourself a few days at a deep breath and get your final book up there. Yeah, hopefully you're already done it by now, but at least at this point it's just the latest yet. This is what you need. The original definition have a deadline is a lion.

Autumn (56m 55s):
You deduct CROs on pain of death. Am this is your deadline and get your book up there.

Jesper (57m 0s):
Yeah. Okay. So we are heading into the final stretch here at a three days ahead of Launch. Uh, there is only a few things that I do here. So basically logging into Amazon author central to basically claim your book there. So there is a co, a tab in author central called Book top and you click on add more books there, find your niche, search for your name, find a book that you're publishing and click at it and then it will be visible on your author page on, on Amazon. So I'll do that. And, and the same thing if you have a book or a profile or a profile on a BookBub, then you go there and claim the book there as well.

Jesper (57m 36s):
Yeah. And if you don't have it by now, make sure that you have good reads. Yes, yes, yes. And with BookBub AM do update all the Stallings on on your profile because that will automatically trick a book bub to send out and a new release alerts to your BookBub followers, which is, there is no reason not to do that.

Autumn (57m 56s):
That's very true. All right, we're really close to Launch. So right before she out, don't forget, this is where you're going to check for reviews. You're going to make sure, make sure that you just create a reminder. So you go in and you're going to check for some reviews coming up so that you can look for them. Oh, you're going to actually use the good ones, the five star Wars and stuff. You wanna use those for two year tips. But I know you have some tips, don't you? For if you get any bad reviews, right?

Jesper (58m 29s):
Well yeah well that the TEP is basically to make sure that you check that the bad reviews is within terms of service. So if somebody starts complaining about things that are not with in terms of service, which to be honest, we are going to cover a much more in the free cost. So maybe that's too much detailed to go in to hear. But make a long story short just to say that there are ways in which you can get Amazon to remove a bad review. Um, but I think there are all the details of that is not really related to launching.

Jesper (59m 0s):
So maybe we can come back to that and in the free course I am going to explain it in detail there. Sounds good. Yeah. So all I will do here one day ahead of launch is just to send out an email to your list to say, Hey, it's coming tomorrow. Uh, and remind them as well that this is now the last chance to get that exclusive preorder a bonus. Excellent. It's Scott, that's a good tip. And this is probably the place where you are going to get most people.

Autumn (59m 27s):
This is pretty and there always wait for the last bit. Yes. Um, but then so that's Launch exciting. All right. First are you going to wake up and you're going to toast yourself with a mimosa to celebrate? Don't forget to celebrate. This is a big, big day. No matter how many books you launch, it's always exciting to lunch a book. So, but also hopefully you already had a schedule, but you know, email your launch team because this is your arc team. This was the reason you gave away all those free copies.

Autumn (59m 59s):
It was helpful to get the typos. Admittedly, they have saved my butt on more than one occasion, including the very careful reader who's did you mean this guy and not that one can. I can I tell you that

Jesper (1h 0m 10s):
by the way, that it was once as well as the one of the arc team members came back to me and said, so why is half of this chapter in this book twice? Oh no. And I went and apparently once I got the edited version back from the editor, for some reason I, I can't remember what I have been doing, but I have been copying, pasting stuff for some reason and I forgot to delete my old original first draft version. So it had my first draft version of half of the chapter in there together with the editors.

Jesper (1h 0m 42s):
Correct it. Luckily this person capture recorded and told me about it so I could delete it. But it was like Jesus. I mean if I hadn't, if the act team hadn't told me, I wouldn't have noticed.

Autumn (1h 0m 55s):
Yeah. Uh, you know how your arch team members, they are lifesavers but the whole of the reason that they're really there and the reason you recruit them in the reason you vet them as well, which is important, you shouldn't just let everyone in it, especially if you've written a few books, is because on today the day you Book Launch you tell them, Hey, it's time for you to do your job and say thank you and leave a review. That's that sort of what the whole deal was.

Autumn (1h 1m 26s):
They get to leave an honest review. That's the important key. You're not asking them for a good review or a bad review. It's

Jesper (1h 1m 33s):
an honest, right. There is even more important key here because you need, this is where you need to be really careful and you also have to be careful how you are a word in your email because according to Amazon's, again in terms of service, you cannot give out an ad copy and demand a review in return. So the only thing you can do when you are wearing your email here is that you can appreciate it. Tell them how much you would appreciate it. If they would want to leave an honest review on a book, then it would really mean a lot to you and then you can of course explain how reviews means a lot to the success of a book and explain why it is important because most people actually even know we are authors.

Jesper (1h 2m 14s):
We know why it's important, but a lot of readers don't. So you explain that to them and you can kindly ask them that. It would be really nice if they would want to do it, but you cannot say, I gave you an art copy. Now you need to give me a review. Because you knew that when you were breaking the terms of service. Absolutely. A very good tip because you don't wanna piss off of Amazon. No, no. It's weird. Most of the book sales come from so be nice to Amazon, follow their rules and Yes.

Jesper (1h 2m 44s):
The reason you got an arc team together was hopefully to get, you know, if you had a hundred member team, if you get over 50 as you can get like 75 reviews, that's been stick a while. That's a little bit, but again, most the time, you know a year not going to get a hundred percent of people leaving reviews. Some people are going to be busy and they're not all gonna happen on the first day. I've most of the time, if they come within the first week, that's, that's great. Yeah. We again, we are going to talk more about this in the, in the free course. So now that's basically all you need to do on launch day.

Jesper (1h 3m 16s):
So thankfully, thankfully, because we've been doing so much work ahead of monsters, so much to do now it's everything has been set up and everything is running. So that's nice. And then one day after launch I would just go in and start activating Amazon ads and if you want to do Facebook ads then this is also at the time where I would get those going. But that's basically it. And if you did do a preorder sale price, you know, you have to think about how many days you want to leave that going. But you might have some people change it after one day.

Jesper (1h 3m 47s):
Some people leave it up for a week. But if you had a preorder, um, a special discount. Yeah. The book's live now that you might wanna think about changing that. Yeah. And of course that exclusive launch bonus thing that you did it, this is also a course of time now where you need to disable all of the signup forms for that and then start giving away the actual price. Absolutely. And now you will be really happy that it was something electronic. Yes. You can just hit send Yes.

Jesper (1h 4m 16s):
Okay. Uh, so one week after launch, I would then send out a thank you email to the art team and you're not asking for anything in this email at all. You're basically just thanking them for us, for their involvement and what they've done for you. Because honestly, as we just said, these people are amazing. It helps so much. So we sent them a sincere thank you message. That's, I think that's a nice touch. Absolutely. I mean the arc team is often a made up of Your super fans are the ones that stick with you. I've been, I've had ones through like six book launches and you can't pay these people enough to know to be there and supportive and often a lot of them are happy to be a part of the team, so thank them.

Jesper (1h 4m 59s):
That's all you can do. Okay. Two weeks after launce a I was just at this point go and check out. You're a good reach account if you have one and just see if the book has accumulated enough reviews on it. And if it has, then you can consider running a good wheat to give it away if you want. And if there's not enough reviews then maybe come back and check again later. Um, the one thing I do like about these good reviews, good reads, giveaways, even though they did crank up the prices for these are a while back to yeah.

Jesper (1h 5m 32s):
But, but what I do like though is that it's, it has this sort of social amplification method in or trigger in it that, so once somebody enter the giveaway, it automatically, it has to Book add a two. They're want to read shells, but it also creates a story in the newsfeed for all their friends and followers to see Yes. So I do think that's quite nice, but of course for you to evaluate if you think it's worth the money and not, but um, it might be,

Autumn (1h 6m 2s):
absolutely. I think there are exciting and fantastic. I was very disappointed when they raised the prices high as that you did, but yeah,

Jesper (1h 6m 8s):
yeah, yeah. We won't go there. No. Okay. Three weeks off the Lance AM it's now too time too for another email to your list and this time it is also a thank you email and I think it's quite good to talk a bit about how the Launch has gone so far. And you could possibly include a screenshot of the Amazon reviews stats or something like that. Maybe the sales ranking, I don't know. Something because it could also be, you know, you could also do a screenshot or a short of a quote from good reviews or something.

Jesper (1h 6m 43s):
But the point is just to give them some sort of social proof because they're will be some people on your list. And I'm also going to talk more about this in the free costs, but for whatever reason, or a third of your list never buys anything. I don't know why, but I don't know why they're on the list, but, but this is just the case. And uh, so by giving some of these people some social proof that other people actually liking the books that sometimes push some of them over the S and then they'll buy the book, uh, so it's good to, to collect those extra sales there.

Autumn (1h 7m 14s):
Yes, very true. And I will say it's amazing how many people who are on your list and they, maybe they just don't read every episode, have read every thing, you know, email that you send them. But there's times that there'll be like six months, almost a year later. Oh, you published a book. So it definitely does not hurt even though you've sent all these emails off, pre-ordering and everything else. Say one more time, but you know, by the way it's live. Thank you for going and buying it. And if you haven't, you know, these are some of the early reviews.

Autumn (1h 7m 45s):
Is it some of the reasons what the things people have said and you can go still pick up a copy.

Jesper (1h 7m 50s):
Yes. Okay. Should we move on here? Four weeks after lunch. So we are almost there now. This is just after lunch. Steps yes. This is just the small little trick that I want to share. Um, so if you sent you our team another short email and you can just thank them once again for all the help that that's never in any harm to thank people a lot. But then while your doing that, also ask them if they read any of your other books and maybe they forgot to leave a review.

Jesper (1h 8m 23s):
That's a good to know that this is the yes, just like a short little smart trick there to maybe collect some more reviews for some of your other books is exciting. Very excellent because yeah, reviews are a wonderful, I've noticed that, you know as my serious goes on as you would think that the reviews should go up, but they seemed to go down at the numbers of them are so good tip. Okay. Five weeks after lunch. This is the final one and this is basically similar to the week before, but this time you are emailing the rest of your list or not the art team, but the rest of the list and basically ask them what they thought about the book and then this gives you an excuse to mentioned the importance of reviews.

Jesper (1h 9m 4s):
Yes. And then see if you can check, you have some additional reviews or this way,

Autumn (1h 9m 8s):
which is excellent. A good tip, and I will say we haven't kind of mentioned it, but throwing all of this lunchtime, you should hopefully have still been using some of those information and images and reviews that you've gathered and you've been posting on social media as well. So make sure that you've done that and also make sure if you happen to have to set your book up with some Book specific hashtags, which has definitely a trick I like doing and I even have a Book hashtag section now in the back of my Book, uh, make sure that you're searching for people to see if they, have you been at all sharing your book hashtags and read picture your re tweeting, reposting, whatever platform you are on the re in front of it and you know, thanking people for sharing some of this stuff about your book.

Jesper (1h 9m 54s):
Yeah, so that was a ton of stuff around book launches and basically this is the process that Autumn and I more or less go through when we launch the book sometimes should we tweak a few Steps here and there, change things around a bit of maybe sometimes, but, but overall this is the framework and uh, I know that that was quite a lot of a, maybe we gave you a few ideas here in there that you took note of, but also it was sort of an overload of information. Then in the free course again that we were going to do later this year for you.

Jesper (1h 10m 27s):
We will also have some information downloads in there where you can basically get the entire process laid out for you and explain so you can look forward to that if, if, but at least in the meantime we just talk you through the entire thing. Yeah,

Autumn (1h 10m 42s):
and so if you're launching books could luck to you this summer. It is an exciting time to start reading and will look forward to seeing what new books are coming out.

Jesper (1h 10m 53s):
All right, so next Monday we are talking about something that could be mistaken for a show about fishing or even boxing, but the, that's the hook.

Narrator (1h 11m 4s):
If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also Join Autumn and Jasper on patrion.com/am Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.