In my last two blog posts, we looked at how to deal with the pre-launch for your book, as well as the actual launch itself. This time, we will be considering the next stage in launching your book – what to do after the launch is completed. This is crucial as a good post-launch plan should keep your book sales up and aim to retain and build interest from readers. Hopefully, you will still be attracting new readers to your books, who may now be paying full price, rather than any launch day discounts you had.
In this blog post, we will look at strategies you can use to keep marketing both your book and you as an author. This second point is particularly important if you intend to self-publish more books, whether these are sequels or entirely unrelated. Try to make sure the buzz around your book will make readers excited for more so they will buy new releases. There are lots of ways you can do this, depending somewhat on what genre your book is.
What Do You Want Post-Launch?
So, what should you be aiming for with a post-launch strategy? Actually, your main aim may well vary according to what your overall vision is for self-publishing. You may decide that the most important thing is to keep up the sales on your new book, in which case you will need to focus a lot of attention on continuous marketing and driving traffic to your website.
Alternatively, you might decide that you would now like attention to spread out from your book and focus on other books you have written or a service that you offer. This will also require a lot of promotion, but this time you will be using your book as a springboard for your readers to find your other books and services.
If you are planning to do this, it is definitely worth including some details of these in the back of your book when you first launch it. This may be a list of your other books or just a way to get in contact with you to buy services. For example, if your book is a guide to starting your own business, you could then include a link to contact you for business coaching.
Videos
Another way you can build on the success of your book is to create a series of videos around it. This can work very well if you are writing in the non-fiction genre, as it allows you to summarise some key points from your book into video form. You may decide to do this chapter by chapter or on each topic, depending on the subject of your book and how it is divided up.
If you can, include some new points that are exclusive to the video to make it more worthwhile for your readers and viewers. You may also find that having the video series brings new readers to your book, as well as keeping the ones you have engaged.
Cross-Posting
If you are friends with other authors, why not try some mutual promoting? You could feature their book on your social media in exchange for them doing the same for you. You could take this a step further and write a review of their book for your blog, although for this it is probably best if you genuinely enjoyed the book and can write an honest, glowing review.
Alternatively, you could both guest post on each other’s blogs. This could be about your book, general writing and publishing tips or whatever else fits in with their blogging style. This is a great way to share your audiences that you should both benefit from. You could even interview each other if this works well with your respective blogs.
Write Another Book
Another option open to you after the launch date is to write another book. This could be a continuation in the series, on a similar non-fiction topic, set in the same universe or simply in the same genre. It might even be completely different! The important thing is to try to retain as many of your readers as possible and keep them interested until the new book is released. For this reason, if you are planning a sequel, you may want to already have a lot of the planning stage done and maybe even have a first draft.
Using Your Book
Finally, you can use your book for some post-launch marketing. Why not include a list of other books you have sold, a link to your website and social media, or an invitation to join your mailing list? All of this means that you can keep marketing directly to readers who enjoyed your book, rather than to a much wider range of people who may not be interested.
You can also offer something to encourage them to sign up, such as free additional content. In this way, you can build your author brand and create a loyal base of readers who will want to read more of your work.
Wrapping Up
I hope that this series has helped you to launch your self-publishing book. In my next blog post, we will be considering indexing – whether you need it and how to find an indexer. Good luck with your book!
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