Hello friends! Sagan here. Welcome back to Indie Author Weekly, where I share my behind-the-scenes journey of writing and self-publishing books.
If you’re new to this podcast, I am a productivity strategist for multi-passionate creatives at SaganMorrow.com: I help people manage their time and energy effectively, through customized, actionable strategies that work for your unique life and business. When I’m not teaching about productivity to solopreneurs, I spend my time writing romance novels, and occasionally, business books. And that is what this podcast is all about: the adventures of the author life.
Now let’s get into this episode of the Indie Author Weekly podcast. Today, I have some exciting news: I’ve finished writing Her Bad Idea, Book 7 in the Polyamorous Passions series! I’m so excited. This is an enemies-to-lovers, forced-proximity romantic comedy chick lit novel, featuring a fake relationship, age gap romance, and dance competition.
This book will be available on Tuesday August 25, but you can pre-order the book today when you visit SaganMorrow.com/books, or search Polyamorous Passions on your favourite e-bookstore.
I have a BIG goal for Her Bad Idea: I want to get on the Romantic Comedy bestseller list on Amazon, during the week of this book release.
This isn’t something I’ve planned for or attempted to do with any of my past romance novels, and quite honestly I have no idea if my particular book marketing plans are going to get me there, but that’s my goal. So I thought it might be helpful for you to learn about the breakdown of my book launch plan, which is what today’s episode is all about. In September, a few weeks after the book launch, I’ll do another podcast episode to share my results!
Also, just a quick side note: this is the first episode of Indie Author Weekly that I’m recording in small town BC, where I’m living with my spouse, Mr Science, for the summer. It’s a particularly windy day here and the waves on the lake outside my window are noisy. I’m hoping that there isn’t too much background noise for this episode! For the rest of the episodes I record this summer, I’ll try to do it on calmer days when the lake isn’t quite so active.
Okay, end of side note. Let’s dive into the book marketing strategy I’m working on...
There are 6 things I’m doing as part of my book launch plan for Her Bad Idea:
#1: Putting together a book launch team
The more we can all support one another, the better, right? That’s the entire concept behind this Indie Author Weekly podcast, after all! I’m sharing the behind-the-scenes of this writer journey to help you, so that you can take advantage of my own experiences and apply them to your situation.
With the book launch team, I’m providing everyone with an advance reader copy of Her Bad Idea, and in exchange, everyone on my team will share about the book on social media leading up to the release day on August 25, and they’ll also review the book on Amazon.
I’d love for you to join my book launch team, too. Join the team at SaganMorrow.com/booklaunch! My goal is to get 50 people on my book launch team.
#2: Offering the book to book bloggers
Sending advance reader copies to book bloggers and bookstagrammers is something I’ve done right from the beginning with my Polyamorous Passions series. I have a list of more than 100 book bloggers and bookstagrammers that I’ll approach, and my goal is to have 50 of them agree to receive an advance reader copy, and share about my book release with their audiences.
#3: Doing a social media countdown campaign
I’m still working out the logistics of this, but basically I’m making a point of talking about my books every single day leading up to the book release. This is beginning with sharing reviews from previous books in the series on Instagram Stories, and over the next month I’ll post a lot on my Instagram feed about the upcoming book, and I’m thinking I’ll do some kind of big 5-day or 10-day countdown.
I’ve already noticed a few sales of previous books in the series as a result of doing this for a couple weeks, which indicates that consistently talking about my books is translating into sales. Who knew, right?
#4: Getting serious about keyword research
This is something I’ve struggled with A LOT. So I invested in Publisher Rocket, which is $97 USD, so I can start getting a better handle on it. I’m pretty impressed with it so far, and I’m tracking all of my keywords and my current book rating in different categories every week, so that I can see whether this actually makes a difference for getting my books noticed on Amazon. I’ll keep you posted with that experiment!
#5: Offering a previous book in the series for free
There’s some complications around publishing the first book in the Polyamorous Passions series for free on Amazon, so instead, I’m going to try making the fourth book in the series free on Amazon, and see if that gives some boost. I expect that it’ll result in more downloads of that particular book, which will enhance its visibility and therefore ideally result in that many more sales of the rest of the books in the series—including Her Bad Idea.
#6: Purchasing paid promotions on reputable sites
I will likely spend some money on BookBub and Written Word Media ads, to promote the most recent previously-published book in the series—I’m estimating I’ll spend $200 or $300 on that. Then, I might purchase a “featured new release” ad for Her Bad Idea, either on BookBub or Written Word Media or both, in the couple weeks after my book release. That’ll be another $300 to $400.
The reason why I don’t want to promote Her Bad Idea on those platforms as soon as it’s released is because I tried doing that in the past with a different book in the series, and it wasn’t very effective, which I suspect is because I didn’t have any reviews at that point of my book. So, if I can get a good number of reviews up through my book launch team and book bloggers, then that’ll provide social proof when I spend money on a big advertising spend for Her Bad Idea.
All in all, between stock photos, the book cover design, Publisher Rocket, and the paid promotions, I suspect I’ll have spent somewhere around $800 — $1,000 USD on this book launch. I earn about $2 for every book sale, so if I can sell 400 or so copies during book launch week at the end of August, that would be absolutely fantastic—that means I’d be able to break even on the book launch, and it might give me the boost I need to get higher on the category lists in Amazon, and hopefully sell more copies of other books in the series too.
Again, I honestly have no idea how realistic this is, but these are my goals! I’m looking forward to seeing how this experiment goes, and I really hope that it’s effective, because I’m investing quite a good chunk of money on this. It’s scary and exciting at the same time.
A major goal with my business is that the author side of it pays all my bills, and frankly, that just hasn’t been the case at all for the past 2 years. I haven’t broken even yet as an author—so far, my books cost me considerably more money than I make with them. I’d really like to flip that around. I’m hopeful that this book marketing strategy will be a turning point!
To recap, here’s the breakdown of what I’m doing for my book launch plan…
- Putting together a book launch team
- Offering the book to book bloggers
- Doing a social media countdown campaign
- Getting serious about keyword research
- Offering a previous book in the series for free
- Purchasing paid promotions on reputable sites
And with my big goal of getting on the Amazon Romantic Comedy bestseller list, I would absolutely LOVE your support!
Join my book launch team at SaganMorrow.com/booklaunch. I can’t wait to work with you on this!
Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this book launch plan. Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram, @Saganlives, to chat about it! And you can send me a message on either of those platforms if you have requests for future episode topics, too. The more you tell me what you’d like to see more of on this podcast, the better that I can accommodate that. You can also submit your questions or topic ideas anonymously at SaganMorrow.com/question.
If you enjoyed this episode, please take 2 minutes to share this podcast on social media and subscribe and rate it on Apple Podcasts—any time you share it or leave a rating or review, it helps more listeners find the Indie Author Weekly podcast, so every bit counts! I really appreciate your support.
By the way, you can access complete word-for-word transcripts of this episode and all past episodes, plus sample chapters of my books and a few other bonuses and goodies, on the “secret” version of this podcast. Get access to all of that at SaganMorrow.com/secretpodcast.
Thanks so much for tuning in to the Indie Author Weekly podcast, and I will see you in the next episode.