The Launch Culture Trap: Sell More Books Without Chasing the Next Release

So today's show, this is interesting.

This did not come from an author per se, but this is something that, this is a cycle that authors oftentimes fall into.

So we have said many times on the show, the best way to promote your first book is with your second.

The best way to promote your second is with your third, and on and on and on.

The problem with saying that, and that is a true statement, however, the problem with that is that you continually get into this must launch book, I have to launch a new book all the time.

I have to keep launching a new book.

And you forget that you have one or two or three or more other books that are not really, that you're not really doing anything with.

So you're focused, you're very launch-focused-

Mm-hmm

... and you're not necessarily focused on the books that you have already released.

The reason that we wanted to talk about this is because a lot of authors that Amy talks to, that I talk to, when I ask them, "What is..." So for authors who have multiple books, "What's your, what's your promotional cycle?" Say, "Well, I haven't really done anything with these books because I've been focused on writing the new one." Again, which is a fair statement.

Writing a book takes a lot of effort.

I get it, but there's a magic to creating a promotional rotation, which we'll talk about today, that can really help to boost, continually boost your overall visibility, and it doesn't have to take a ton of time or money.

It can, to some degree, be a little bit set it and forget it.

I mean, Amy, we talk to a lot of people who sit in this must launch next book all the time kind of head space, right?

Yes.

And we get a lot of authors that come to us, I will say, and this is something that I see surprisingly a lot, where they've been in production mode for five-plus years.

And so when you go to their Amazon page, you see quite a few books, but then, and we've talked about this before, when you think like a shopper, and you go to a virtual bookshelf, like your Amazon Author Central page or something like that, and you see a reasonable number of titles there, but there are clear disconnects, the covers don't have anything to do with each other.

There are few to no reviews.

You can kind of get a sense that the author was kind of head down in just getting books out and was neglecting to do the TLC required to make sure that those books were actually getting the time and attention they deserved with the correct audiences.

And so they were actually...

They existed, but they didn't go much farther than that, and it's a real bummer because you can clearly tell a lot of time and effort was put into it, but each project was kind of treated like its own little bubble instead of continuation of the brand.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

I think that we are so launch-focused, and we've done a lot of shows on launching your book and launching your book correctly and all about the book launch and all of those things.

So today's show, this is interesting.

This did not come from an author per se, but this is something that, this is a cycle that authors oftentimes fall into.

So we have said many times on the show, the best way to promote your first book is with your second.

The best way to promote your second is with your third, and on and on and on.

The problem with saying that, and that is a true statement, however, the problem with that is that you continually get into this must launch book, I have to launch a new book all the time.

I have to keep launching a new book.

And you forget that you have one or two or three or more other books that are not really, that you're not really doing anything with.

So you're focused, you're very launch-focused-

Mm-hmm

... and you're not necessarily focused on the books that you have already released.

The reason that we wanted to talk about this is because a lot of authors that Amy talks to, that I talk to, when I ask them, "What is..." So for authors who have multiple books, "What's your, what's your promotional cycle?" Say, "Well, I haven't really done anything with these books because I've been focused on writing the new one." Again, which is a fair statement.

Writing a book takes a lot of effort.

I get it, but there's a magic to creating a promotional rotation, which we'll talk about today, that can really help to boost, continually boost your overall visibility, and it doesn't have to take a ton of time or money.

It can, to some degree, be a little bit set it and forget it.

I mean, Amy, we talk to a lot of people who sit in this must launch next book all the time kind of head space, right?

Yes.

And we get a lot of authors that come to us, I will say, and this is something that I see surprisingly a lot, where they've been in production mode for five-plus years.

And so when you go to their Amazon page, you see quite a few books, but then, and we've talked about this before, when you think like a shopper, and you go to a virtual bookshelf, like your Amazon Author Central page or something like that, and you see a reasonable number of titles there, but there are clear disconnects, the covers don't have anything to do with each other.

There are few to no reviews.

You can kind of get a sense that the author was kind of head down in just getting books out and was neglecting to do the TLC required to make sure that those books were actually getting the time and attention they deserved with the correct audiences.

And so they were actually...

They existed, but they didn't go much farther than that, and it's a real bummer because you can clearly tell a lot of time and effort was put into it, but each project was kind of treated like its own little bubble instead of continuation of the brand.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

I think that we are so launch-focused, and we've done a lot of shows on launching your book and launching your book correctly and all about the book launch and all of those things.