#188: Is Your Book Launch the End or Just the Beginning?

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

I have a question for you. Is your book launch the end or is it just the beginning? Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz. I'm the owner of authoraudienceacademy.com and trainingauthors.com and I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to launch your light shine. And in this training, we're going to be talking a little bit about your book launch. So I have a ton of training on book launches, both on my blog and in Author Audience Academy. But it was interesting. I was hosting my third annual Colorado writing retreat recently, and one of the women said she had sold a certain amount of books during her book launch. And, you know, it was just kind of disappointing. Like, she didn't feel like she sold as many as she had hoped for. And I just encouraged all the women, women at that retreat that a book launch is not the end. It is just the beginning. And it was something that my mom recently reminded me of. I recently launched a brand new product. It's my Brush Strokes workbook. It's spiral bound. It's on really super smooth paper. And so I had to have it printed at a local printer. We're going to be shipping them out ourselves through my Etsy shop. And I put a lot of time and energy into this workbook and I really hoped to sell a certain amount of workbooks. And I sold about half, half of the amount that I really wanted to sell. Now, it was still a success. It was still awesome, amazing. It was more than enough money to pay for my first print run and to have a little bit of money, that is profit. But my mom was reminding me that when I launched my broken crayonstall color book in 2016, I put a ton of time, a ton of energy into that launch. It was okay, like, it wasn't a failure for sure, but it wasn't the success that I thought it was going to be. You know, expectations can lead to disappointment. Have you ever heard that before? I mean, that's true in our marriages, our relationships, our jobs, our goals, whatever it is, you know, when we have these really big expectations, it doesn't happen. It can lead to disappointment. So the first thing I recommend is to set tiered goals. So for this workbook launch, I had three different goals. Now, I didn't meet my very, very top goal, but I met my medium goal and my small goal. And so I did meet those two goals and you know, that made me feel successful even though I didn't meet my really big goal that I really hoped to meet during initial pre order launch. And my mom was reminding me again of that broken crayonsto color launch and how I was disappointed. Well, that book has went on to sell so many copies. Like I don't have the total number of copies in front of me right now that it has sold. She was reminding me. Shelly, even though that initial launch didn't go as you initially hoped, that book is selling really well ongoing. It reminded me that a book launch is not the end, it is just the beginning. And every book do as well as my broken Crayons Still Color Book sells? Of course not. We have over 50 books and none of our other books are selling that well right now. But when you get a book that really sells well, it can sell well for a long time and it also depends on your ongoing marketing efforts. So after the initial launch, what have you done to continue marketing your book? For my Broken Crayons Still Color book, I am using Amazon ads. If you haven't checked it out, I have a training inside author audience academy that you can take. And I share exactly how I've done my ads and how I set them up. And if you're not a member yet, join us@authoraudienceacademy.com I'm doing the marketing through the Amazon ads and then God opened up an opportunity for me to write a five day devotional plan for YouVersion. The YouVersion app is huge. I think they have over 3 million users. And so my plan has been downloaded over 30,000 times in just a few months. So it has content from within my book. But then at the end it gives a link where they can get free resources like the coloring book pages and the videos and all of that where they can also buy the book. And so that has been a great marketing opportunity for me as well. There's other things that are happening for that book. And so what have you done to continue marketing your books ongoing? And if you're not doing anything, then it probably, you know, you're not going to be selling as many books. Marketing is like parenting. You don't quit being a parent once you give birth to your child. You know, it's an ongoing process. And even once your child leaves the home at 18 or whatever age they leave for college or to get a job or to get married, you don't stop being a parent, you continue to nurture that relationship, continue to pour into them. And marketing your book is the same way. It's a marathon and not a sprint. So my encouragement for you today is your book launch is not the end. It is just the beginning. It is just the beginning of what you can do. And what I teach in the platform module of authoraudienceacademy.com is a long term strategy to market your books. Things are changing all the time and that's why we have our Facebook group so that you can get up to date information from me. I just recently shared a new strategy I'm using in place of a permanent a free book. And so it's something new that I'm doing and that's inside the Author Audience Academy Facebook group for you to have access to that strategy if you're a member. And I'm always sharing new and updated things with you in the Academy. That's where I spend a majority of my time. I love sharing with you on the podcast and giving you this free training. But if you've been on the fence, join us. Come join us. It's an incredible community of Christian authors. There's so much information and content for you broken up into bite sized pieces. Broken. Broken up into a plan for you to actually implement it. I had somebody tell me recently they had signed up for a $1200 training on writing and publishing books. And they said, Shelly, I didn't learn anything new that I didn't already know from Author Audience Academy. And she said, you're so much cheaper, you could be charging so much more. And I know that. I know I could be charging so much more. But I love to equip you and empower you and help you reach more people with the message that God has given you to share in your books. So I hope that this has encouraged you that whatever success or whatever results you've had with your book launch, keep going. You never know what is around the corner. You never know what may happen next. You never know what opportunity may open up for you. I just got an email this week that a subscription box company is going to purchase thousands of my books next year. Two of my books in fact. And so that's something that we teach inside Authoritative Academy as well. And so there's so many different opportunities. You just never know what may be around the corner. I encourage you to keep asking God for how he wants you to market your books. Ask him. He has the best ideas. He knows what's going to work. He knows how to connect you with the right people and can give you favor and can and just give you the best marketing ideas. I hope that this has encouraged you and I'll see you next time. Bye Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Author Audience. I would like to invite you to attend one of my free trainings all about how to sell more books without being pushy or self promotional. It's called Amplify youy Message. Plus I will give you two free gifts just for attending, no credit card required. First you'll get my best selling book 9 Strategies to Build and grow your author Platform and you'll also get my ebook titled List Vend 5 powerful emails you can use immediately to grow your business. These are basically fill in the blank style templates and they are yours at no charge when you join us for the training. You can sign up for my free training by going to shellyhits.com/ that's shellyhits.com S H E L L E Y H I T Z.

Amplify this training and the two bonus ebooks are free and I would love to help you sell more books.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.