Learn about Presales, Launch, and Post-Launch Tactics
“But ultimately you want sales. You want influence. You want authority. And those things come from continually marketing and promoting your book.” —Azul Terronez
Many authors treat marketing as a dirty word or see it as a one-time event that is over really quick. I want you to know that even if you’re not a salesperson, you can effortlessly market your book. And it doesn’t have to feel sleazy or hard.
On this week’s episode of “Authors Who Lead,” I talk about the three phases of marketing your bestselling book and the marketing tips and tools we offer in our private community, The Leaders’ Circle (TLC).
The Preorder Phase
As I see it, book marketing has three phases. The first is the presale or preorder phase. This is where you’re talking about your book before it’s actually available for purchase. This could be even up to a year in advance, but at least thirty days ahead of the launch is good.
This phase is where you start engaging your audience and talking about your book. Whether you have your book available for presale or not, you can still start talking to people and building some excitement around it.
The first thing you can do is to talk about your author’s journey, why you’re writing the book, where you’re writing it, or where the idea for the book came from. The second is to gather a special group of people—I call them superheroes. These people will be your first readers and should be willing to read and talk about your book. Lastly, you need reviews. These superheroes can help you with these.
Another important aspect of the preorder phase is social marketing. This includes promoting your book on your website, attracting people to join your email list, and posting regularly about your journey on social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Are these 100 percent necessary? No. But these are things that successful authors do to create attention for their books.
The Launch Phase
The next phase is the launch of your book. This is where you focus attention on the first official day or week when the book becomes available for sale. If you publish on Amazon, they give you thirty days of attention after you launch a new book. This is important because it helps push your book during that time.
This is also an important time to keep asking for reviews. There are two types of reviews on Amazon: verified and unverified. Verified reviews are from people who have purchased the book on Amazon, whether it is a paperback or ebook. These verified reviews are weighted more by Amazon’s algorithms.
The Post-Launch Phase
After your book has been launched into the world, you move into the last phase: the post-launch phase. This is where you continually support your book, whether it’s speaking on stages, talking about the book, advertising on Amazon or social media, or doing workshops or courses. Because if you don’t care about your book now and for the rest of its life, no one else is going to. You have to be the person that cares about it more than anybody else.
Four Actions to Take
There are four things you should do during all three phases of marketing your book. The first is to spread the word and encourage people to buy one of your books for themselves and another one for a friend or family member. Remind them that your book has great content.
The second is to get reviews before, during, and after the launch of your book. There are so many ways to solicit reviews that I could do a whole podcast episode on that topic alone. We also have a three-day book marketing workshop in our new private community, The Leaders’ Circle, where we go through all aspects of marketing your book.
The third action is to constantly have a plan for the life of your book. Are you doing social posts, podcasts, giveaways, or ads? It’s important that you consistently promote your book, even years after it’s been released.
The fourth thing is to create a connection with your audience. I suggest creating an email list because social platforms could close your account or change the way they work. Whatever way you choose to connect, try to be consistent in reaching out or adding content.
The Leaders’ Circle
I mentioned The Leaders’ Circle earlier. This is our private community where authors come together to connect with other authors at every stage of writing, publishing, and marketing a book. Belonging to a community is really important because not only will you get resources and content, but being connected to others can help you feel not so alone. To learn more about our new community, go to authorswholead.com/tlc.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. I appreciate anybody who leaves a review; it really helps inspire us to keep contributing and giving content here. What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? In the comments, share your biggest challenge in marketing your book.
That’s all for this week. If you have a message inside you that needs to be written, know that you can write the book that’s been on your heart. Don’t delay—get out of your head, put words on the page today, and make a movement with your message!
Episode Resource:
Authors Who Lead
Mandala Tree Press
The Leaders’ Circle
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