Timing is everything and never more important that in book publishing. So many authors obsess over how to pick the right date, so today's episode dives into a few basic best practices to ensure you are being smart with how you pick your launch day.

_______

Join the Author Craft Hub! A place for authors to get tools you can actually use to guide you through the process from writing to publishing, to launching and ongoing marketing...and more! Members get new resources for each week of the month as well as access to the whole archive. Join today and take the headache out of promoting your writing!

The Book Marketing Goodies:

Get my FREE guide for book planning if you're still writing your book. Let's get that manuscript finished! 

Get the book marketing blueprint filled with the framework you need to market your book in a simple, but strategic way before, at, and after your launch!

Download the launch team building guide and class. (AKA how to enlist others to help your book make a big splash at launch!) 

A personal brand is vital for an author, AND for selling more books. Today, we're diving in on why a personal brand is helpful for authors and how it can help you sell more books.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join the Author Craft Community!

Access Author Craft Community, a resource library that grows every month with new resources and information for authors at an affordable price. https://tinterocreative.thrivecart.com/author-craft-community-for-writers/

Join the Author Craft Hub! A place for authors to get tools you can actually use to guide you through the process from writing to publishing, to launching and ongoing marketing...and more! Members get new resources for each week of the month as well as access to the whole archive. Join today and take the headache out of promoting your writing!

The Book Marketing Goodies:

Get my FREE guide for book planning if you're still writing your book. Let's get that manuscript finished! 

Get the book marketing blueprint filled with the framework you need to market your book in a simple, but strategic way before, at, and after your launch!

Download the launch team building guide and class. (AKA how to enlist others to help your book make a big splash at launch!) 

A personal brand is vital for an author, AND for selling more books. Today, we're diving in on why a personal brand is helpful for authors and how it can help you sell more books.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join the Author Craft Community!

Access Author Craft Community, a resource library that grows every month with new resources and information for authors at an affordable price. https://tinterocreative.thrivecart.com/author-craft-community-for-writers/

Join the Author Craft Community!

Access Author Craft Community, a resource library that grows every month with new resources and information for authors at an affordable price. https://tinterocreative.thrivecart.com/author-craft-community-for-writers/

Join the Author Craft Hub! A place for authors to get tools you can actually use to guide you through the process from writing to publishing, to launching and ongoing marketing...and more! Members get new resources for each week of the month as well as access to the whole archive. Join today and take the headache out of promoting your writing!

_______

The Book Marketing Goodies:

Get my FREE guide for book planning if you're still writing your book. Let's get that manuscript finished! 

Get the book marketing blueprint filled with the framework you need to market your book in a simple, but strategic way before, at, and after your launch!

Download the launch team building guide and class. (AKA how to enlist others to help your book make a big splash at launch!) 

_______

A personal brand is vital for an author, AND for selling more books. Today, we're diving in on why a personal brand is helpful for authors and how it can help you sell more books.

 So let's say you've got this amazing book idea and you have started it. Maybe you've got a few ideas. Maybe it's just a seed of an idea. Or maybe you actually have the whole thing mapped out and you are this close to finishing it. There is something inside of us that resists the act to complete a book. And I think a huge piece of it stems largely from fear. A book is a very personal thing to put out there to the world. And so I get how it's scary. So part of this is like, maybe you just need a mindset shift around you really just need to get the book out there.

Right? You've got it written. I've heard of a lot of people who have full book manuscripts sitting on their cloud drive that the world will never see because they were too afraid to put it out there to the world. And then there are other people who have great ideas and they just need that little oomph to get it across the finish line.

So today we're going to talk about just a few - not all - but just a few of, of just some tips for busy real people to do this. It is so easy to sit there and say, well, sure, like follow these 10 steps and you'll have a book manuscript. The reality is we have a thousand things vying for our attention on any given day. And so, while we may be well-meaning in wanting to finish a writing project, there is something that just often gets in the way. And so for people like us who have a lot of things going on, which most people who are thinking about writing a book are usually involved in multiple different things in their life. This isn't something that is meant to cause extra stress. I say that in a sense of recognizing and giving full validation to the fact that what you were trying to do is going to meet some resistance. We have a lot on our plates.

Let's see if we can find some tools and systems to help get our book draft book draft across the finish line.

It is a lot of work. So first off, let's just recognize and celebrate that if you are pursuing this idea. That in and of itself is a huge accomplishment.

Mentioned in this episode:

Join the Author Craft Community!

Access Author Craft Community, a resource library that grows every month with new resources and information for authors at an affordable price....

Join the Author Craft Hub! A place for authors to get tools you can actually use to guide you through the process from writing to publishing, to launching and ongoing marketing...and more! Members get new resources for each week of the month as well as access to the whole archive. Join today and take the headache out of promoting your writing!

_______

The Book Marketing Goodies:

Get my FREE guide for book planning if you're still writing your book. Let's get that manuscript finished! 

Get the book marketing blueprint filled with the framework you need to market your book in a simple, but strategic way before, at, and after your launch!

Download the launch team building guide and class. (AKA how to enlist others to help your book make a big splash at launch!) 

_______

Transcript:

 Pre-selling your book. Okay. So I get this question a lot from authors. And honestly, it's a topic that I've had to kind of do some different research around myself to see, you know, what works, what doesn't, what scenarios could it work in? What scenarios does it not work in and all of that. And so over the years, I've learned a lot when it comes to pre selling a book and offering it up for pre sale.

It's not, it's not a cut and dry answer. So if you talk to someone who comes from a more traditional, book publishing background where they worked for a traditional publisher or a hybrid publisher, they are probably gonna have you do a pre sell of your book. Um, they're gonna, they're probably gonna push that and you know, it's, it's not a bad thing, but people from those backgrounds traditionally are not necessarily thinking about the way that Amazon works for, um, for going after bestseller and some of those, those metrics that a lot of authors care about, and they're also not necessarily thinking about it from a marketing standpoint, which is a little ironic because a lot of publishers.

You know, that's what people traditionally, like, they think that the publisher is going to help them with all this marketing expertise. But they're not marketers. They're publishers. They know how to get your book live. Okay? They know the ins and outs of this traditional industry. They're not always thinking about things from a marketing standpoint.

And there's a phrase I believe Donald Miller uses a lot in his podcast around the story brand. And it's, uh, if you confuse, you lose. And so I see this way too often, especially when it comes to a pre sale for a book, is that it becomes confusing for the audience. They don't really know when your book is live.

You're talking about your book a lot, but unless you are crystal clear about the actual date that the book is live, people are going to be confused. Because you've been talking about it for months and months and months, and then if you're not explicitly clear that your book actually went live, Then you don't really you confuse your audience and also a lot of authors that go this route They will pop up out of nowhere to say that their book is available for pre sale And so there's no lead up.

So all of a sudden this this author comes on the scene sending to their email list Or sending you a private message or...

Join the Author Craft Hub! A place for authors to get tools you can actually use to guide you through the process from writing to publishing, to launching and ongoing marketing...and more! Members get new resources for each week of the month as well as access to the whole archive. Join today and take the headache out of promoting your writing!

_______

The Book Marketing Goodies:

Get my FREE guide for book planning if you're still writing your book. Let's get that manuscript finished! 

Get the book marketing blueprint filled with the framework you need to market your book in a simple, but strategic way before, at, and after your launch!

Download the launch team building guide and class. (AKA how to enlist others to help your book make a big splash at launch!) 

_______

Transcript:

 Let's talk today about the big white elephant in the room when it comes to launching a book. And that is the, uh, big white elephant of imposter syndrome. I think all of us have felt it at one point or another, whether it's in just our job or our business. Uh, but when it comes to books, I think most authors feel like, who am I to be writing a book about this subject?

Uh, It all creeps up from time to time and the reality is there's always going to be someone who is smarter than you, who's more successful, who's more wealthy, who's written more books, who has more reviews than you, who's on a bigger bestseller list. Like there's always gonna be somebody who is further along in the process than you are.

And so it's very easy to compare yourself to somebody who might be further along in the process. And a book, for some reason, feels a little bit more final for people. So the imposter syndrome, I think, can creep up because there is this permanence in what you're putting out to the world. You can't take some of it back, right?

You put a book out into the world, it could show up at garage sales and used bookstores and library shelves and all that for years and years and years to come. And once it's out there, you can't change. Some of those things you can put out new additions, but that original edition is going to be out there as well.

So I am always Encouraged when I come across someone else who feels imposter syndrome Only because it gives me that validity that I'm not the only one who thinks this way And it also gives me a little bit of grace to say it's okay that you are feeling this But it is not okay to stay there Imposter syndrome is one of those things that we need to move past And it shows up in so many different ways.

But for the author, I think there's a lot of, you know, it creeps up all the time. One, it creeps up like before you even start working on it. And then it'll creep up and it'll halt your progress.

Even once a manuscript is done, I've, I've come across many authors who say they have a manuscript done sitting on a cloud drive that they have done nothing with.

Imposter syndrome is going to creep up. And one of the hardest things that you will do when it comes to marketing your book and to launching your book is to actually put it out there. So for me, imposter syndrome actually kind of goes hand

Join the Author Craft Hub! A place for authors to get tools you can actually use to guide you through the process from writing to publishing, to launching and ongoing marketing...and more! Members get new resources for each week of the month as well as access to the whole archive. Join today and take the headache out of promoting your writing!

_______

The Book Marketing Goodies:

Get my FREE guide for book planning if you're still writing your book. Let's get that manuscript finished! 

Get the book marketing blueprint filled with the framework you need to market your book in a simple, but strategic way before, at, and after your launch!

Download the launch team building guide and class. (AKA how to enlist others to help your book make a big splash at launch!) 

_______

Transcript:

So when it comes to launching your book, a lot of people have questions around what formats of my book should I launch first, second, third? Should I phase things? Should I launch everything all at once? The reality is, it's really great you have these options between having a hard copy, a print version, uh, the e book, and then audio.

And, you know, big picture, I think it's important to probably have all of those different routes as much as you are able to. However, how you pace those and how you launch those is one of those things that's going to be up to you. Now, some authors hate hearing that. For some people, it gives them a little bit of freedom.

To say, you have the choice to decide what you're going to do. Especially if you're going the self publishing route. Now, if you're working with a publisher, they're probably going to dictate to you what you should do and when. Um, and you're going to be probably locked into certain commitments based on that.

But if you are self publishing, or you have the option to delay making certain versions, Ultimately, that choice is up to you, and you can, you can make that however you want. We'll walk through a few things to think about as you're determining, you know, what you, what order you want to do things in, what you would want to do first.

Does it make sense to launch all at once? Um, when I first launched my book, this was in 2019, it wasn't, I'll just say this, audiobooks were becoming more popular, becoming more of the norm. But they weren't there yet. It also was a lot more cumbersome to publish and produce an audio book version of your book.

Today. It's a lot easier. I've seen in just the four to five years from recording this episode from 2019, I have seen a huge difference in how, how much easier it is to publish and produce an audio book. It felt like a bigger lift four or five years ago. So when I launched my book, I only did ebook and paperback.

And even when I launched, my, uh, advice that I was given was to launch with just my ebook. And I'll be honest, I knew that it was going to be a little bit harder. Because, you know, the platforms see the ebook and your hard copy version as two separate products. So, in terms of wanting to get rankings and moving up in the algorithms for going after different accolades, I knew it was going to be a little bit more of a...

Join the Author Craft Hub! A place for authors to get tools you can actually use to guide you through the process from writing to publishing, to launching and ongoing marketing...and more! Members get new resources for each week of the month as well as access to the whole archive. Join today and take the headache out of promoting your writing!

_______

The Book Marketing Goodies:

Get my FREE guide for book planning if you're still writing your book. Let's get that manuscript finished! 

Get the book marketing blueprint filled with the framework you need to market your book in a simple, but strategic way before, at, and after your launch!

Download the launch team building guide and class. (AKA how to enlist others to help your book make a big splash at launch!) 

_______

Transcript:

Websites have become kind of a big topic that's come up with some of my clients. And it's one of those things that if your book is very tied to your business, it can be kind of a great debate of like what you should do. Like, do you need to have your own website for the book? Or how do you incorporate your book into the website that you already have?

So today we're going to dive into author websites. And talk through some of the basics of like what you need to have, what you need to not have. How do you approach how to build your author website? So that it is something that is truly going to work and be a success for you. My name is Valerie Morris. I help authors launch their book strategically.

Leveraging my digital marketing background and my own expertise. Launching my own book as well as many other authors over the last four to five years. I love working with authors. Largely because... Their passion rubs off on me. So whatever you're passionate about for your own book, because let's be honest, authors are very excited about their subject matter, that often rubs off on me and gets me excited.

I love working with people who are excited about what they're doing and it's really an honor. So, but as a result of working in this space, you come across that question of how are you positioning your book? On your website, and obviously you have your book listed on different sites like Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Or IngramSpark, or some of these other audio book platforms, like, you could have your book in so many different places, first off. But let's be honest, like, those are places where, like, you're filling in the blanks for what they want on their website. So, if you want to be showcasing testimonials in a strategic way, or you want to add a video, about the author talking about the book.

You can't always do that on these other platforms. And yes, they're great as sales pages, and as a product page for actually purchasing your book. But what about promoting your book at large? The why, the testimonials, the process, the behind the scenes. Some of these extra bonuses that people will add with their book, that kind of stuff really only lives on a landing page of some sort, whether that landing page is just a page within your main website for your business, or it is.

Maybe a whole website about your book. I've...

Join the Author Craft Hub! A place for authors to get tools you can actually use to guide you through the process from writing to publishing, to launching and ongoing marketing...and more! Members get new resources for each week of the month as well as access to the whole archive. Join today and take the headache out of promoting your writing!

_______

The Book Marketing Goodies:

Get my FREE guide for book planning if you're still writing your book. Let's get that manuscript finished! 

Get the book marketing blueprint filled with the framework you need to market your book in a simple, but strategic way before, at, and after your launch!

Download the launch team building guide and class. (AKA how to enlist others to help your book make a big splash at launch!) 

_______

Transcript:

So, today's topic is one that's very near and dear to my heart, largely because it's a feeling that, and it's a topic that I've experienced myself, but it's also one of those things that a lot of my clients have experienced, whether they recognize it or not. It's one of those things that I see in people a lot, I, that I witness them experiencing whether, yeah, whether they realize it or not.

So, it, it's ultimately overthinking. I think overthinking is one of the things that holds people back so much when it comes to launching a book. And, you know, it's, it's not one of those things that we're gonna solve in this podcast episode. Like, we're not gonna solve this problem right now. But my hope is that we can each walk away with like, Okay, am I overthinking something right now?

What am I overthinking that is paralyzing me and preventing me from actually making some forward progress on my project? So, for me, overthinking looked like a few things. It honestly showed up before I even wrote the book. And it came up in the form of not knowing Which route to go for publishing? Do I go the self publishing route?

Do I look into getting a literary agent and going after a traditional publishing deal? Do I look into a hybrid publisher to help me through the process? I felt like I needed to do the research to figure out exactly how best to go after the process. Once I made that decision, then I was able to pursue the next steps.

So like for me, I had a, an outline and, you know, I, that's about as far as I got for a long time. Once I decided and gave myself the permission to move forward with the self publishing route, I felt like I had a game plan and knew what to do. Then I could write the rest of my manuscript. But until I had that permission almost, I felt a little strange about, Doing too much work that might just get ripped to shreds and not ever see the light of day.

And at the time, like, I just wanted to be smart with my time and make sure I was investing my efforts in things that were gonna work. So, once I went the self publishing route, then it was like I was off to the races. But there's other points in the process where I see people get stuck as well. Um, another big spot where I see people get stuck is figuring out their book title.

Now, don't get me wrong, coming up with a book title is extremely difficult in my...