There are many, many things that go into a successful book launch. For a self-published author it can be enough to make your head spin. That’s why it’s such a great thing to have an experienced and successful self published author like Mark to walk you through his own best practices and mistakes. That’s exactly what you’ve got on this episode because Mark recently launched his most recent novel and took the time to record his own thoughts and comments each day as he progressed through his launch sequence. You’re going to be the beneficiary of his hard work as he walks you step by step through the things he did.

74% open rate and 53% click rate from Mark’s beta team.

One of the practices that many Indie authors have implemented is an advance or beta team of readers who serve the author in a few very important ways in exchange for a free, advanced copy of the book.

• #1 – These readers help tighten up plot holes, errors, and oversights through feedback as they read the book
• #2 – They provide reviews on Amazon and other retailers once they book is live on their platforms
• #3 – They also can be a great source of encouragement and affirmation for the author
  

Mark’s beta reader team was fairly large (over 700 people) and they were very active in this most recent launch. You can hear how Mark fared and the role the beta team played in this episode.

Facebook advertising to accompany the book launch.

Once Mark had sent out his book to the beta reader team he began thinking through ways to leverage the book to his mailing list. Not everyone he mailed to opened the email, so he decided to upload that mailing list to Facebook and target ads for the book directly to those people who had not opened his initial email. That put the opportunity in front of them again in a way that many responded to by purchasing the book. But that wasn’t all he did with Facebook. Once the soft launch was over Mark used Facebook to advertise the book to specific segments of people, especially those who had liked or followed his pages, and sales benefitted greatly. You can hear how Mark went about making his Facebook advertising decisions in this episode.

The most successful launch to date.

Within the first few days of launching his latest novel Mark’s book was able to break into the top 100 books on Amazon and his U.S. sales were over 1600. That kind of success is the direct result of a well-planned, strategic launch using a variety of tools and approaches to market the book. You can hear Mark’s insights and feelings about the entire process as well as hear his insider tips about what he did and why.

How Mark helped his launch with a launch party.

Since his last book launched, Facebook has rolled out its live video streaming platform in full force. He’s already been using Facebook live video a bit and knew that he had a significant number of people who followed him on Facebook. So, with a beer in hand, Mark sat down in his home office and interacted with thousands of fans the night of the book launch. The post was shared all across facebook and got lots of attention all across the platform, boosting his books sales even more.

Outline of this episode

• [1:32] Preview of next week’s episode AND a powerful upcoming webinar on Facebook ads.
• [5:10] Mark’s audio diary for his book launch: Getting things to the proofer and editor.
• [6:19] The manuscript is heading to the advance team.
• [7:46] 74% open rate and 53% click rate for the manuscript sent to the beta team.
• [9:51] Received the manuscript from the copy editor – 50 to 60 emails from beta readers.
• [12:10] Cover reveal and prologue sent to the beta team & on Facebook. Positive responses. Pre-order links sent.
• [14:45] Final changes made to the copy edited manuscript, sending for formatting.
• [15:52] The soft launch: over 100 reviews already.
• [18:08] The final touches done for the launch emails – 50,000 emails on the way.
• [20:25] The most successful launch results: 1637 copies sold in the U.S. Broke the top 100.
• [22:00] Using Facebook ads in conjunction with his email list and cover art.
• [26:43] Total sales figures well after the launch.
• [28:13] Reviewing the cover price – $17,000 profit so far.
• [29:20] Spending more on Facebook this time.
• [32:20] Things that went wrong during this launch.
• [34:22] The Facebook numbers.
• [36:00] The launch party and results of it

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