I hear a lot of confusion about writing to market and writing to trend. In this post, I’m going to explain MY personal view and my experience with both writing to market and writing to trend: how they’re different, how they’re related, and help you figure out what’s right for YOU.

LISTEN TO EPISODE 174 – WRITING TO MARKET AND WRITING TO TREND

 

WHAT WRITING TO MARKET IS

Chris Fox coined the term “write to market” and talks about it in his book called … (wait for it) … Write to Market. In the Introduction, Fox states that the book will teach you “how to analyze the market, and to use that information to write a book that readers want.” (Check out the book HERE.) 

Often, writers start out by writing that story that’s in their head. They have that one idea that they just can’t shake, or the story they HAVE to tell. That’s writing for love and it’s author-centric.

Writing to market shifts the focus from the author to the reader. What does the READER want?

I mean, we all WANT them to want that story that’s been on our heart to write, but that isn’t always the case. (There are, of course, happy accidents where this happens, sometimes in a big way.) We learn what the readers want when we study the trends of what’s selling on Amazon.

Indie authors can do this better, because we don’t need two years to publish a book once it’s done. I’ve decided to write a book to market and had it published in six weeks. It’s a little harder if you’re hoping to secure an agent, because if you study what’s hot NOW, realize that in a few years when your book has been through the whole process, it won’t be hot anymore.

So, we clear on the idea of writing to market? Study what readers are buying. Find a space that’s selling and that you also love. Write that.

More resources:

• Niche It Down a Notch
• How I Wrote and Launched a Book in a Month

WHAT WRITING TO MARKET ISN’T

I want to be CLEAR about this before we continue. Writing to market is not selling out. Most people who write to market find a market selling well that they LIKE. But even if not, even if you’re an author who needs to write in a market they don’t LOVE because you have a mortgage to pay, THAT’S OKAY.

Some people write for the love. Some for money. And some for both.

I’m okay with all three of those choices. As long as you’re okay with YOUR choices, then go on with your bad self. 

But I want to be VERY clear that if you think “writing to market” is a dirty term, this probably isn’t the space for you. Or, maybe you should reframe the conversation. Remember that writers are writing for themselves, but also for readers. Writing to market is serving readers what they want to read.

If that’s wrong, maybe I don’t want to be right.

WHAT WRITING TO TREND IS

Writing to trend is something that I hear people talking around a lot, but it’s not always called the same thing by different people. To me, writing to trend is taking the principles of writing to market, but applying them to a particular niche, genre, or trend that is HOT now … and may or may not stay hot for long periods of time.

As I’m writing this, there is a hot trend for bully romance. Essentially, that’s just what it sounds like. A guy (or group of guys) bullies a girl and she falls in love with him/them anyway. Not my fave trend (kind of an extreme example of the enemies to lovers trope) but one that went WILD this year and has made some authors serious bank.

Will this be around next year? Gosh, I hope not. But who knows. Another trend in romance (reverse harem– one main girl with a bunch of male lovers) was thought to be a hot trend and is still going strong years later. There is a big tie between reverse harem and bully romance.

You don’t always know how long a trend will last or when it will fizzle out. But trends tend to show up more suddenly, become THE thing, and might gain ground or lose steam. For a little while, at least, their star burns brighter and hotter than the others.

And they can make a LOT of money if you can hop on while they’re hot.

Other resources:

• Writing Gals Video on Finding Hot Markets

AN EXAMPLE OF WRITING TO MARKET vs WRITING TO TREND

When I launched my Emma St. Clair pen name, my goal was to write to market. I made some mistakes (notably in covers and some tropes early on) but quickly figured out that romance needs a happy ending (ha!) and that adult clean romance readers like faces on covers, while photos without faces tend to be either more women’s fiction or YA fiction.

My first few books eventually had the right covers, the right tropes, and met expectations in a market that was selling well. They did fine. I went from making $30 a month to $300 a month to over $1000 a month.

While marketing and doing all this research, I kept seeing billionaire books. They were everywhere. I tend to NOT be a trendy person, so it made me eye-roll-y. I’m also not super swayed by dudes with lots of money.

Despite my annoyance, one day I had an idea for a billionaire book. I wrote it fast. And when I launched it (COMPLETELY to market and according to the billionaire trend), in under a month, it outsold what my first two books made COMBINED over the previous three months total.

(To understand the screenshot, the first number is sales within the first three weeks of July 2018. The second number is books sold, the third is Kindle Unlimited Pages Read, and the fourth is the number of books I gave away in that time for free. I had a free promotion on Cold Feet, Hot Summer.) 

THAT is the power of writing to trend vs writing to market. Writing to market may have hungry readers, but writing to trend is hitting on a hot button trope, idea, theme, niche, or genre that has VERY voracious readers gobbling up that particular kind of book on a likely more limited time frame.

Like Veruca Salt, they want it and they want it NOW. If you can serve up that golden goose, you’ve written to trend and may find some solid success.

HOW YOU FIND HOT TRENDS

Finding hot trends is not hard, but can be time consuming. It means spending a lot of time on Amazon, looking at categories you like (again, the goal is writing something you like that also sells) to see what readers are buying.

Narrow it down to a few categories you’re interested in writing in, then spend some time watching what’s selling in the top 20 of those categories.

You’ll want to look at:

• covers
• titles
• publishers (it matters whether it’s traditional or indie!)
• themes
• tropes
• niches
• settings
• conventions
• keywords
• pricing
• descriptions

And that’s just a start. What are the top twenty books in a category doing? What is the rank of the first book in the top twenty? What’s the rank of the LAST book in the top twenty?

I already linked to it above, but you can check out my post Niche It Down a Notch to see my slideshow presentation I did on studying categories. You can also check out K-Lytics (affiliate link!), which has paid and free resources based on Amazon data, broken down by specific niches and categories. I first started writing clean romance after studying keywords in a program called Publisher Rocket (affiliate link!), which showed me how many people were searching for Christmas Romances.

You’re trying to find a sweet spot: a market or trend that sells well, but not so well you can’t break in.

Any category where the top twenty is all traditionally published books (or super well-established indies) or all in the top 5000 will be a challenge. Any category where the number one book is 5000 or above is not going to make you a lot of money.

If you’re hanging out in other author groups by genre, you’ll also see what kinds of books authors are talking about and promoting. Sometimes I’ll spot the trends there first.

More resources: 

• How to Find a Hungry Market (Chris Fox)
• Hot Markets and Trends in 2019

 

TIPS FOR WRITING TO MARKET AND WRITING TO TREND

The thing about writing to market is that the demand for bigger niches is more long-lasting. I believe that clean romance overall will be around for a while. Billionaire books? They’re still selling, but my sales have started to flag. Sometimes they get too crowded and readers get tired. Sometimes new trends come along and get so hot they push the others out.

I’m currently writing paranormal academy books right now under the pen name Sullivan Gray. (Think boarding schools for magical creatures.) This is a hot trend right now. But are people ever really tired of vampire books? No. They trend hot, then die down, but they never really go away. (JUST LIKE ACTUAL VAMPIRES.) Indie author Bella Forrest may have started near the Twilight hot trend, but she’s still making a killing with a 70-book vampire series. And the next time vampires trend HOT, those books can burn bright again too.

All this to say: if you’re chasing a hot trend, the books will have more longevity if they fit a broader market as well and can still SERVE those readers when the trend isn’t hot. If there is ever a backlash against billionaire (in small groups, there totally is), I could rebrand and retitle my books and they would STILL fit well in the broader clean romance market with other tropes and conventions. There are more CLASSIC elements to the trendy books.

If you want to write to market or go further and write to a hot trend, hang out on Amazon. Talk to other authors. Study. Be a little nerdy. READ books.

Then see if you can find a sweet spot for books you love to write and books readers love to read. Make sure the elements of your books match the ones in the market AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Cover especially. Readers should glance at your book and KNOW where it fits or if they want to read it.

 

SO… SHOULD YOU WRITE TO MARKET? OR TREND?

Maybe! This is really up to you. No one else can tell you that you’re a sellout. Only YOU know your why. I think that this is a really important thing to consider, whether you are traditionally publishing or indie, but it may not be for YOU.

If you’re trying to be profitable, writing to market will help you get there faster.

I’m tackling how to establish a healthy relationship with your readers. This is a topic that more authors (blogger, creatives, and influencers) should ask before they establish their online platform. If they don’t ask before, they for SURE should ask soon after. The question is: how close should authors be to their audience?

You might be wondering what this question even means. Stick with me. I think you’ll understand why I feel like this is so important.

LISTEN TO EPISODE 173- HOW TO ESTABLISH A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR READERS

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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FROM THE IVORY TOWER TO INSTAGRAM

We are living in a glorious digital age, where more than ever, authors and readers can connect. My 12-year-old self would have DIED to be able to tweet at or email or DM my favorite author online. I remember LOOKING in the backs of my paperbacks to see if there was an address so I could write fan mail. Usually? There wasn’t.

Authors were in ivory towers, out of reach, out of sight, and far from readers.

Now? You might be able to find out what your favorite author ate for lunch, because they’ve posted it on Instagram.

You could know their kids’ names.

What shoes they bought yesterday.

What they’re struggling with personally.

The switch has completely flipped. Honestly, this all started with reality TV, as far as I’m concerned. We all got nosy (okay, humans have probably always been nosy) and enjoyed getting a front-row seat to all the inane (and dramatic) details of other people’s lives.

Then: enter the internet and social media.

We have ACCESS now. You can choose not just to post your lunch, but to do a live video or create an Instagram story about your lunch. And your readers get INSTANT access to your life, lived up to the minute.

This is, on the one hand, really amazing! I love this … in some ways. And as with social media as a WHOLE for people, this access can also be very, very unhealthy.

UNHEALTHY ACCESS TO AUTHORS

Here are a few things I’ve seen recently (a few details changed to protect those involved):

• authors getting mad at their own Facebook group, make an offhand comment about killing a character to “show” readers, and a massive fallout off the hundreds and thousands of group members
• readers DEMANDING that authors finish their favorite series faster and sending angry emails or posting public rants when books in a series take more than a few weeks to release
• authors promising in their emails and Facebook groups that books are coming out, then readers getting angry because the author breaks those promises, then disappears from public view
• readers bullying authors and personal assistants to authors
• authors rallying their reader groups up to attack other authors or people on twitter or through low ratings on platforms like Amazon
• readers in an author group getting nasty and mean with each other and the author not stepping in to stop it or moderate
• authors receiving nasty personal emails about their families and personal lives because readers didn’t like books
• readers giving up on authors (and announcing it publicly) because the authors didn’t do what the readers wanted OR what the author told readers they would do
• authors apologizing profusely because they aren’t doing exactly what the readers demand

These are all pretty general examples. I don’t want to get more specific and share someone else’s story. You get the idea.

All this access has allowed for some unhealthy relationships to form! It may sound GREAT to share pics of your new baby in a group … until an angry reader makes a threat and names your child. (I know it’s weird, but stuff like this happens, y’all.)

HOW TO CREATE HEALTHY BOUNDARIES

Look. There isn’t one way to do this. It will be different for different authors. And you could do the best job ever, feel great about it, and still have someone lash out. (I’ve had readers freak out at me for things I 100% never did. Once I responded to an angry email and it turned out they sent it to the wrong person altogether! Still, though: yikes.)

We won’t all agree, but here are some things to consider and best practices for keeping and maintaining healthy relationships.

Decide how many and what kinds of personal things you want to share. Reevaluate, as this may change. Will you share the actual names of your family members? Are you going to share pictures of yourself and your family and friends? How much of your real life will your readers see?

Choose the platform that feels the best and healthiest for YOU. Where are you happy? What feels like a space that has a good vibe for YOU as a platform? If you choose too many places, you’ll be stretched thin, and that may impact how you feel and interact with your readers.

Consider establishing a space that can offer you control. If you find yourself on the receiving end of an attack, what can you do about it? (Ex: On Twitter, the gloves are off. In your personal, closed Facebook group, you can kick people out, report to Facebook, and block.)

Set the tone in your spaces. Your online space? Is YOUR space. Or, it should be. Really, this won’t be true on every space, which is why I suggested finding a place that offers control. This is one reason I love Facebook groups and would recommend spaces you can control. You can decide what stays and goes, what people post, and how people speak to one another. The culture of your group reflects YOU. So if you have a space that allows people to be nasty to each other, that can also turn on YOU.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Breaking trust with your audience is something you may not be able to come back from. Keep this in mind when you share things like launch dates or make commitments. Trust is a HUGE currency and one that’s hard to gain back once it’s lost.

Make sure your readers know that you’re in charge. Serving your readership is great. Creating a connection can be wonderful. But if you let the readers think that they OWN you or that you are going to do everything as they want, when they want, it’s not going to end well. They won’t be happy. You certainly won’t be. Find a balance between making the decisions YOU want and taking into account the readership you’ve built.

Don’t get so emotional, baby. It’s so easy to get emotional online. We are emotionally tied to our work. Social media can incite our feelings. But posting in an emotional state rarely brings good things. Take some time before posting. Step back. Sharing your feelings on occasion can be a really good thing, but if you’re posting a lot in the heat of the moment, it’s going to come back to bite you.

TAKE ADVANTAGE; DON’T BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF

As a final point, let social media and all this connectivity serve YOU. Don’t become its servant or let your readers demand things of you.

If you started out and hadn’t thought about this, THAT’S OKAY! Take some time to decide how you want to handle the relationship with your readers, where you’ll interact, how you’ll communicate, and what you won’t tolerate.

Have you ever given this thought? What is important to YOU in terms of establishing boundaries with your readers?

 

 

It’s a well-known fact that many authors hate marketing. But more and more, marketing is something authors must understand and take part in, EVEN if you’re doing the traditional route. My goal? Is to help teach marketing for authors who hate marketing. 

First of all, we need to reframe the conversation about marketing.

What comes to mind when you think of marketing? A sleazy car salesman? That person who is constantly shouting BUY MY BOOK! BUY MY BOOK! on Facebook and Twitter? Maybe the direct sales rep who keep sending you private messages?

Put those ideas out of your mind. Let’s shift how you see marketing.

For authors, marketing is about connecting with the ideal readers for your books. You are serving up your books to readers who WANT them. The end.

Sounds much better, right?

Whenever you’re feeling frustrated about marketing and promotion, take a moment to shift your mindset back to this. You are writing books for readers, then helping those readers find them.

Oh, and if you’d like a handy-dandy PDF with more resources, sign up below!

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LISTEN TO EPISODE 172 – MARKETING FOR AUTHORS WHO HATE MARKETING

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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FOUR PILLARS OF MARKETING

While there are lots of ways to market, I’m going to break down four main ways that you can market your books:

1. Direct: email
2. Public: social media
3. Paid: ads
4. Networking: cross-promotion with other authors

Again, there are many other things you can do to market. But this is a simple overview of the largest avenues for marketing right now. Let’s break them down a little!

EMAIL

Email is my favorite thing. You know this if you’ve been around for a while. Why do I love email so much? Email is a classic. It doesn’t go out of style, though for some, it goes out of favor. It hasn’t changed much in twenty years. It has no algorithm.

Email is the best way to connect with your readers directly.

If you are just starting out or trying to build your sales, start with building an email list. Here are some other resources on that right here on the site:

How to Grow Your Email List

Email Resources

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is not the best sales tool. It’s great for engagement and brand awareness, getting your book out there in front of people.

ADS

More than ever, ads matter. But ads also have a learning curve. (Check out my longer post on paid promotions for more.) The main ad platforms that authors use are Amazon ads (formerly AMS ads) and Facebook ads.

NETWORKING

Other than email, this is my favorite tool for promotion and can have massive impact. Oh, and it’s free. When you work with other authors, you’ll not only learn what’s working for them and find support, but also discover great cross-promotional opportunities, whether through newsletter swaps, Facebook group takeovers, or other events.

Look to connect with other authors of all kinds of genres. You won’t share cross-promotion as much outside of your genre, but might learn what’s working for other authors or get ideas there. Or just find moral support.

BEFORE YOU THINK ABOUT MARKETING…

If your book cover doesn’t match your genre or look professional, you’ll struggle with marketing. If your blurb isn’t enticing, you’ll struggle with marketing. Period.

Writing to market isn’t about selling out. It’s about researching where your book fits, or even better, researching a market that feels like a good fit FOR YOU, then writing books that meet reader expectations.

WANT TO GET A HANDY PDF WITH LINKS, RESOURCES AND ALL THIS? SIGN UP FOR MY EMAIL LIST!

After sharing how my co-author and I wrote and launched a book in (almost) thirty days, I wanted to have a simpler episode geared toward YOU. Here are some ways to market your book while you write and where to stop wasting your time. 

You want to write a book. You want to self-publish (or, as I like to say, publish independently) on Amazon and/or other retailers.

But marketing?

Ick. Overwhelm. No. Help!

If that is YOU, then I want to help make this a little more accessible. Ready for it? Here are some tips for marketing your book WHILE you write.

HOW TO MARKET YOUR BOOK WHILE YOU WRITE

Many of you might think that you don’t want to market while you write. You want to write a book and THEN figure out marketing.

That’s not BAD…necessarily. But you want to talk about overwhelm? That is someone who has written a whole book and now thinks, “Oh, I guess I should consider marketing.”

Honestly, even if you aren’t taking steps to think about marketing actively, you should at least consider marketing in terms of where your book FITS.

What category does it go in? What are the reader expectations for that category? What do the covers look like? How long are the books?

Those are things to consider before or AS you write. I mean, if you want to sell books. If you are just writing a labor of love, then do what you want. But I’m assuming that I’m speaking to people wanting to SELL books. In that case, you should look at the market, even if you aren’t marketing.

But here is my very big, very simple advice on marketing while you write:

Write everyday. Do one marketing task daily. 

That’s it. The end. Simple.

Too simple? Yep. So, let’s dive into some things that you can do daily.

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LISTEN TO EPISODE 171 – MARKETING YOUR BOOK WHILE  YOU WRITE

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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DAILY MARKETING TASKS

I’d honestly love to make a freebie for this. I probably will… soon. But not today.

Overall, I would say that you should focus on things that have lasting power, like building an email list. Create a freebie that relates to the series you’re launching, or give away a teaser of a few chapters in exchange for an email address with a site like Bookfunnel, Story Origin, Book Cave, or Prolific Works.

Join author group promos and send paid traffic to that freebie to grow your readership WHILE YOU’RE WRITING. So huge. When you go to launch your book and you have even a few hundred subscribers, that’s POWERFUL!

Also see:

• A Simple Book Launch Framework
• How to Start Building Your Email List

Some potential marketing tasks to do one day at a time:

• Pick categories on Amazon that might work for your book
• Look at other book covers in your genre
• Take note of other blurbs for books in your genre
• Research keywords
• Set up your author profile on Bookbub
• Add your books under your author profile on Bookbub
• Set up your author profile on Goodreads
• Add your books on Goodreads
• Come up with cover concept
• Order a cover
• Start a short story, prequel, bonus scenes, or first chapters teaser to use as a reader magnet/freebie
• Order cover for reader magnet (I do paid covers for these too)
• Write description for reader magnet/freebie
• Create email welcome sequence for reader magnet to promote the preorder of book 1
• Promote your reader magnet/freebie
• Send paid ads to reader magnet/freebie
• Post in appropriate Facebook groups/social media about reader magnet
• Format reader magnet and upload to Bookfunnel (I use Vellum to format, but you could use Draft2Digital or just format in word)
• Write description for the book
• Set up preorder (if you’re going to do a preorder)
• Claim the book with your pen name through Author Central (more on that here)
• Start sharing preorder with your email list and on social media
• Create graphics to promote the book
• Join a bunch of FB reader groups (see below for tips on good/bad groups)
• Join a few author groups for the genre
• Start setting up newsletter swaps in the YA swap groups
• Post engaging content like graphics and teasers on social media
• Sign up for author takeover in YA academy group
• Start FB ads to the reader magnet
• Email list about the new series

There are so many more things you could do. But this is a start.

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THINGS TO STOP DOING TO “MARKET” YOUR BOOK

This is where (if you listen to the audio) I get a little rant-y. Now, hear me: there isn’t always ONE way to do things. So, take this with a grain of salt. BUT GENERALLY SPEAKING, these things will not help you sell more books. Period. 

Wasting Time on Social Media

Realize that if you think that building your Facebook likes or Twitter followers is going to sell books, you’re probably wrong. Email sells more books. Focus on email lists, not follower counts.

Facebook is amazing for groups and collaborations and newsletter swaps with other authors, but many authors go into FB groups for a genre and then just drop links to their books. Any group that is filled with authors dropping links to books with no likes or comments is a WASTE OF TIME. Look for actual reader groups with actual readers and see what their rules are for self-promo. Or just listen and learn what readers in your genre like.

Designing Your Own Book Cover

I once designed my own book cover. In the time it took me to create a cover (and I’m okay at stuff), I could have paid someone $15 on Fiverr to do it better and saved myself hours. Unless you’re GREAT at book cover design (not just graphics) you’ll waste time and money and lose sales because your book cover won’t hold up against other books in your genre. Stop it.

Blogging

Blogging isn’t dead. But it’s shifted. People don’t read blogs like online diaries anymore. Authors didn’t get this memo. They either write blogs that are diary-esque (which really only appeal to hardcore fans) or they write blog posts that are not to the right audience. An example of the second one is a fiction writer blogging about writing tips. That attracts other authors and writers, not the people who’ll read your romance novels.

If you want to drive sales on your blog, you’ll have to actually take the time to create a content strategy based around things your readers are already searching for. You’ll use things like SEO (search engine optimization) and Pinterest to actually drive long-term traffic and then have your site set up for sales. This is a lot of work. Your efforts are likely better spent elsewhere.

Making Bookmarks and Swag

I’m biased because I hate bookmarks. But even beyond that, bookmarks don’t sell books. They’re fun. If you have time and money to put into swag, cool! But don’t make this a priority. This isn’t how most readers FIND a book. So, if you’re focused on sales, then stop focusing on swag. Superfans like swag. But if you’re working on your first book(s),  you don’t have enough superfans to make this important.

Setting Up a Patreon

There have been some successful Patreon campaigns for books. But FOR THE MOST PART, this adds one more thing to do and dilutes your effort. When you sell a book, the most important thing is driving traffic TO THE BOOK. When you add Patreon, that’s one more thing to do (set up, giving out prizes, the bonus content, etc) and one more place you’re sending people THAT ISN’T YOUR BOOK.

I see people setting these up trying to help pay for launch and I’ve looked at the breakdown of what they’re paying. Usually? It’s too much money on things they don’t need to spend money on. My first book launch for Emma St. Clair probably cost under $300. I got a cover (that I still love) from an artist on FB having a sale. I paid $125 for editing. And I think I bought 2-3 paid promos. The end.

Creating a Patreon just takes away your time and effort and gives another place to send people that is not your book. Keep it simple. Bootstrap. Focus on sending people to your book to buy books, not to a site like Patreon to focus on bookmarks and bonuses.

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DO YOU HATE ME?

Was that too mean? Too honest? Feels a little bit that way.

But here’s the thing: I hate wasting time. And I hate the thought of you out there, wasting your time when you could be writing and doing marketing tasks that WILL SELL BOOKS.

Want to disagree? Have ideas of what is or isn’t important? Leave a comment or head over to the Facebook group where we can talk and you can call me a meanie. 😉

When I wrote this post, I got overwhelmed. You might too! Fair warning. But in the moment, this was FUN. Not overwhelming. I’m going to share what I did with my co-author and then will have follow up posts that are more geared toward a practical-for-YOU way to launch. There will still be takeaways here for you in the details. Just pinky swear you won’t read and then get overwhelmed and stop writing? Please? Okay. Great. Let’s go!

*This post contains affiliate links for products I use and love. This is at no extra cost to you!

Over the past 18 months, I’ve written more books than I ever thought I could write in a year. I had no idea I was capable. Truly.  Here’s an image I made for my Facebook cover of my books (and two short stories) I wrote in the last 18 months:

So, let’s just start with this fact: I write fast. Maybe or maybe not fast than you. But fast. I’ll be sharing the timeline here for my most recent book, but that does NOT mean you need to ever attempt my timeline.

Just focus on the launch and the action steps. You can even move them around! You do you, friends.

You’ll get some good nuggets on how to launch a book, EVEN if you know in your heart of hearts you’ll never launch that fast. You don’t need to! It’s not a race! I just like to go super speed. That’s me.

Whatever your speed, you’ll find the steps you need to launch a book here! Future posts will go into more detail in a more accessible way.

Prepare to be overwhelmed! But remember, this was 100% fun for me! I promise.

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Listen to Episode 170 – How to Write and Launch a Book in (almost) a Month

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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HOW TO LAUNCH A BOOK IN A MONTH – OUR TIMELINE

DAY 1 – June 29

• Wake up with an idea for a genre I’ve been following that’s hot (YA paranormal academy)
• Email a friend that I think would do great on this project with me — she agrees
• Write out a not-very-legal contract in Google Docs (I would recommend a real one, but I’m okay with my choice in this circumstance)
• Start a planning Google Doc + a manuscript Google Doc (usually I write in Word, but this worked for co-writing)
• Start writing and finish the first few chapters
• Come up with cover concept
• Find stock photos on Depositphotos
• Create mock-up cover & send to my designer
• Write a rough outline/summary of all three books in the trilogy (we’re both pantsers)
• Create a chapter list and an ideas section in our planning doc
• Talk a LOT on FB messenger

DAY 2 – June 30 

• More writing on the novel
• Start a short story prequel to use as a reader magnet

DAY 3 – July 1

• Keep writing on the main book
• Many, many FB messages with co-author
• Finish reader magnet
• Research keywords + comp books

DAY 4 – July 2

• Order cover for reader magnet
• Edit reader magnet
• Research keywords and comps
• Write description for reader magnet

DAY 5 – July 3 

• Format reader magnet and upload to Bookfunnel
• Send reader magnet to betas
• Write description for book one
• Set up preorder for the first book
• Claimed the book with my pen name through Author Central (more on that here)
• Continue writing

DAY 6 – July 4

• Start sharing preorder with my list for this pen name & on FB
• Continue writing

DAYS 7 – 16 – July 5 – 14

• Keep writing on the main book
• Continue trading ideas with my co-author
• Join a bunch of YA reader groups, esp ones around paranormal + academy
• Join a few author groups for YA urban fantasy (the broader genre for paranormal academy)
• Start setting up swaps in the YA swap groups
• Created graphics for promotion with the book covers & source files using Canva
• Form a FB group with my co-author
• Post engaging things in the FB group
• Create welcome sequence for reader magnet to promote the preorder of book 1
• Send paid ads to reader magnet
• Post in share threads in paranormal academy/YA groups about reader magnet
• Sign up for author takeover in YA academy group
• Start FB ads to the reader magnet
• Email list about the new series

DAY  17 – July 15

• Order cover for the second book in the trilogy
• Write description for book two (super brief & bad, updated later)
• Set up preorder for the second book in the trilogy

DAY 19 – July 17

• Finish writing the book
• Start editing (I let my phone feature read it to me while I followed along to check for errors)

DAY 20 – July 18 

• Format edited book, format, send to betas
• Send out the first betas (I talk about the difference between ARCs and Betas in THIS post)
• Bite my nails while waiting for feedback

DAY 25 – July 23

• Finish edits
• Format for ARCs
• Upload to Bookfunnel
• Email to ARCs
• Send to paid proofreader
• Order cover for the third book in the series

DAY 26 – July 24

• Start writing book two

The goal is to publish as soon as we’ve gotten the paid proof back as well as some feedback from the ARC readers. If we need to make any last minute tweaks, we will. The launch date on the preorder was August 20, but we hope to release early. The goal would be to launch each book in the trilogy within 2-3 weeks of each other, making use of that Amazon algorithm that favors new releases.

My plan right now is to set up some Amazon ads for the preorder as we continue to work on the second book in the trilogy. As of now (day 27 – July 25) we are 15k words into book two. Book one ended up being just over 60k words.

TOOLS WE USED TO LAUNCH OUR BOOK

• Google Docs for writing/planning (free)
• FB messenger to chat (free)
• Canva to create graphics (free)
• Depositphotos for pics (I always buy the deal with AppSumo so already paid)
• Fiverr for covers (~$50 each)
• Vellum for formatting ($250, one -time fee – I used for all books, so already paid)
• Bookfunnel for the reader magnet and the beta/ARC copies ($150 annually I’m on midlist paid plan + upgrade to email list)
• Publisher’s Rocket to search keywords ($99 one-time and I’ve owned for a while)
• Mailerlite to email list (I think with my two pen names, I’m paying a total of $20/month)
• Book Doggy + Insta books to send paid traffic to the reader magnet (~$30)
• FB ads to promote the reader magnet ($175 at 14 cents per click, slowed down now to $5/day)
• AuthorsXP to build list ($55)
• Proofreader ($75)

Would I recommend you invest in all these things to launch a book? NO. If you look up there, other than tools like Vellum I use for all my books (so the cost for this ONE book isn’t $250), the bulk of our cost went into ads to grow the email list. The FB ads build the list. BookDoggy and Instabooks build the list. AuthorsXP builds the list. If you’ve been around for a while, you know I believe the money is in the list.

WHAT I’D RECOMMEND SPENDING IF YOU HAVE A SMALLER BUDGET

• Mailerlite for email (starts free or $9)
• Bookfunnel to deliver your reader magnet (starts at $20)
• BookDoggy and Instabooks (Fiverr) to send traffic to your reader magnet ($12-18)
• Covers ($25-50 for a premade cover or on Fiverr)
• Proofing ($75-1000 – this varies WIDELY depending on what you need and what the editor charges)

The biggest investment would be email list. I’m all about getting email subscribers. Create a freebie related to your book or give away the first three chapters. Build a group of fans you can contact directly to tell them about your book. If you just put up a reader magnet, you’ll struggle to get a big list going. (If you don’t get eyeballs, aka traffic, to your freebie, you can’t hope to grow it.) 

If you don’t want to pay to send traffic to your reader magnet, join a multi-author promo at Bookfunnel or Book Cave or through Story Origin. You need traffic to get subscribers.

I would NOT recommend FB or Amazon Services ads if you haven’t used them. My FB ads were fantastic at conversions. 14 cents per click was fantastic. We grew our list to over 600 with these methods. I haven’t gotten the emails from AuthorsXP, but I often get 700-1000 with a promo. I already had over 1000 on this pen name list (growing it with a different reader magnet using these same strategies over months), so when we launch, we’ll likely be at over 2000 emails.

WHAT WE ALREADY HAD GOING FOR US

I knew this market well, so we didn’t do market research. I hadn’t planned to write in this market, but I’d spent so much time looking at books there (because I was interested) that it inspired an idea. As soon as I had the idea, I knew which books were comps, which weren’t, and what the cover needed to look like.

I also had a list already for this pen name, a designer I love, and editor I’m trying out, and a knowledge of where the readers and authors are hanging out on Facebook. I’ve launched so many books this year that it’s really old hat to put it up on Amazon and do this process.

The more you write, the more you publish, the less overwhelming and more easy this will be for you. Don’t get overwhelmed if you’re a first time author and are looking at this list.

A NOTE CO-AUTHORING AND SPEED

I am not going to cover writing with a partner (yet) but may have my co-author on to talk about this. When I first asked her, my thought was that having two of us would help with speed. Honestly, I think I could have done it alone at the same speed, but I wouldn’t have wanted to do it alone. This project really shined with BOTH of us bringing things to the table. I love the characters she created and continues to create as we go. A storyline she brought into book two is amazing me right now!

Co-authors CAN help with speed if you are both writing around the same pace and figure out a split. But working with a partner can also slow you down. That didn’t happen for us. We’re both pretty fast.

Why do I keep talking about speed? Why publish a book in a month?

As I flexed my writing muscles this last year, I learned JUST what I could do. I didn’t ever ever EVER think I’d write a book in a month, much less two weeks. But last summer, I penned my fourth novel in two weeks, mostly on an elliptical machine in the gym, typing on my phone. I still love that book and it has over 100 reviews!

I’m not speed obsessed. I don’t think you should try to be faster (unless you want to). I love speed. I have a million ideas and want to get them out there. This is just me personally–what I like and how I work.

Also? We are trying to hit a hot genre. Paranormal Academy is super hot right now. We are writing to market (as in, writing a book that readers are already hungry for) and the faster we can get it out, the more we can take advantage of that market. If you want to write to market, especially hitting a hot trend, you need to be faster.

WHAT’S NEXT: 

In the next post, I’ll talk more in detail about aspects of the launch. Not sure which ones yet! You should join the FB group and tell me what you want to know more about! JOIN NOW!