Back in 2012, I self-published and launched my first book, Living, Healing, and Taekwondo. This book detailed a six-year journey my son and I took while training and earning our black belts together. It was my teaching memoir and included journal entries from my life as a physical therapist, wife, mom, and martial artist. It was about healing, mindset, and what it took to move through my fears.
It was an epic journey, my first attempt at a book, and very important to me.
And the launch wasn’t what I expected or dreamed of. It was actually stressful and really disappointing.
The company I hired to help me move through the process of self-publishing was Balboa Press. Many of you have shopped Balboa’s programs because they’re tied to Hay House. And isn’t it every healer’s dream to be published by Hay House?
It was mine. I also attended the Hay House Writer’s Conference and crossed my fingers, praying my book proposal would be chosen for their contest. It wasn’t. But I learned a lot that weekend. I learned that book publishers were looking for authors with tens of thousands on their email lists. I think I had 150 on mine at the time.
In the end, my book was published, but there was no launch strategy, there was a turnover of helpers on their end that kept me constantly confused, and the advice about covers, editing, and launching was sorely lacking. In fact, some of the advice made a successful launch impossible.
The thing is, I can only write this in retrospect because back then, I didn’t have the amazing book mentors I do now. I didn’t know the tricks back then. I didn’t know anything, really. But now I do. And I’m paying that forward to every first author who needs these tips.
I get a lot of what went down back then. This is a business. Every business needs to make income to survive. That company produced my book for me. I had the product. But there was so much more I needed to actually make that book launch successful. And now, I’m creating a publishing company that offers the support you need. I’m grateful for every past experience I’ve had because it helped me create this amazing company and offer a service I’m proud of now.
I truly want you to avoid every one of the book launch event mistakes I made back then. I want you to have a powerful book launch checklist and book launch strategies and feel totally confident and excited about putting your important work out into the world.
Book launch mistakes happen because we don’t do our research first. But even nowadays, with so much information on the internet, even if we try to do the research, we can easily be overwhelmed by the tons of advice and information. Sure, everything exists out there to do this by yourself, as long as you’re willing to spend the time and energy to research it and take the steps. Most busy business owners don’t have that time. So, the process becomes a drain. This is not the inspirational energy you went into writing a book with!
Here are some book launch strategies you might want to incorporate:
- Build a launch team and community well before you launch the book.
- Reverse engineer a strategy from your prospective launch date so that you have enough time to build the launch team, inform them, deliver your advanced reader copy of the book, and launch successfully.
- Make sure your launch team actually likes and already reads your genre of book.
- Choose appropriate and powerful keywords and categories on Amazon so you have a successful launch.
- Make it easy for your launch team to sign up, read, and participate with the appropriate technology, systems, and processes.
- Treat your book like a business, not a hobby. Make sure you have a website or landing page set up where they can read about you and the book. That website should include an email list. Find the Building Your Author Platform resource in the Brave Healer Resources Vault HERE.
- Make sure planning a book launch is part of your overall business strategy.
- Find a book publishing company who treats you well, cares about your project, and shares in your mission to leave your legacy.
- Find launch partners willing to share the book and interview you on launch day/week.
- Deliver value and gratitude in every single step of your process. The energy matters.
One of the things we do the best is help you build a business-building community from your writing. Our expert collaborations are one of the most exciting and successful programs we offer in terms of launching with a dedicated community. We can’t wait to talk to you about sharing your brave words with the world in a bigger way!
