But putting out a book is completely different.

It’s this thing that you’ve worked on for a long time. Everybody knows you’ve been working on it. And everybody is going to be asking how it’s doing.

Even if they don’t ask, your Amazon ranking is sitting there for all the world to see.

And it often seems that if it’s not selling in the first week, then you’re screwed. If the sales are still down in a month, then you might as well give up.

I have had so many conversations with authors that give up on their book and move on to the next project because it didn’t immediately start selling.

So today, I want to give you the two most important numbers you need to focus on during your book launch.

Book Launch Number #1: 365

I was at dinner a few months ago with Jay Papasan, author of the mega bestselling book The One Thing. This is a book that has sold well over a million copies.

I mentioned in passing that it usually takes a year for your book marketing efforts to really pay off.

“I’m so glad to hear you say that,” Jay said.

“Why’s that?” I responded.

“When The One Thing first came out in April of 2013,” Jay said, “we had a very successful launch. It sold well through the summer as my coauthor and I supported it with around 30 speaking events. But then after the holidays, sales started to slow down. Each week they’d drop a little more. But I stayed committed to the promotion. Month after month I was out doing interviews with anyone who would have me. I found fans on social and would offer to Skype into their office for a Q&A. I did everything I could and the sales kept slipping.”

Jay paused for a beat, then kept going.

“Until right around a year. All of a sudden, after a year of pushing the book, the sales started turned the other direction. They started going up a little each week. That continued for over three years before finally plateauing. And I’m still committed to promoting it every week.”

This is what you see in book promotion.

It usually takes a year of work for you to start seeing the fruits of your labor.

Books are strongly and slowly word-of-mouth driven.

Think about the books you’ve bought that have sat on your nightstand for six months before you finally read them and then tell someone about them? Think about the books you’ve put on your wishlist and then bought a year later? Or, six months after reading it, you finally tell your Facebook reading group about it.

Do not give up on marketing your book for at least a year — 365 days.

That is how long it takes to truly see your efforts pay off. If you stop before then, you’ll never get to see the true potential of your book.

Book Launch Number #2: 10,000

“The goal is 10,000,” Shawn said. “You have to get 10,000 people to read your book before you’re done.”

Shawn Coyne, the author of The Story Grid and veteran editor of 25+ years experience in and out of traditional publishing was giving me this advice based editing and publishing hundreds of books.

He had a lot of interesting math to back this up, but the point is this…

If your book is only ever read by 3000 people, that’s not enough to get over the tipping point. Even if it’s an amazing book, that won’t give it enough infecting power to keep spreading.

In Shawn’s mind, his goal as the publisher is to get 10,000 people to read the book and give it a chance. Once that has happened, you get to find out if the book is good enough to stand on its own.

However, if you give up before this point, you never get to find out if the book could have made it.

The Book Launch Trajectory

I like to picture an actual rocket launch when I’m talking about these two numbers.

The amazing thing about books is, once they have enough readers, they continue to sell on their own with little to no marketing for years and years. My book, Your First 1000 Copies still keeps selling well even though I haven’t actively marketed it in almost five years. Many of the books I’ve seen that launch modestly, but were able to sell 10,000 copies over the first 1-2 years, have kept selling more year-on-year with no extra marketing effort.

Books have a lasting power that other media doesn’t have.

Your job is to get your book into orbit!

That place where it just keeps going with no extra effort on your part.

That is where these two book launch numbers come into play.

Your focus shouldn’t be on the first week of sales, or even the first month.

Your goal is a) how do I keep promoting my book for a year so that I can b) get at least 10,000 people to give my book a try.

Once you’ve done that, you can hold up your hands, say a prayer to the muse and let fate take your book where it needs to go.

What to do next?

I often teach a training called The 10 Marketing Secrets of Bestselling Authors.

In this training, I teach the principles I’ve learned from working with dozens of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers over the last decade.

Here’s a couple of the principles:

1. Promote Influencers

Most authors make the mistake of approaching influencers by asking for something first. Sometimes this makes sense, but if you can start out by being helpful, it’s always a better place.

Many of the authors I’ve worked with have diligently used their platform to promote other authors. They review their books, let them guest post, have them on their podcast, etc.

When you start by helping influencers first, they are more likely to help you market your books in the future.

2. Two Things a Week

The goal isn’t to do a huge blitz of marketing all at once. This isn’t usually effective for authors and is extremely hard to maintain long-term. I’ve seen so many authors get burned out on marketing because they try to do everything at once.

Instead, play the long game.

Start doing two things every week to promote your book. If you do two things a week, that’s a 104 things a year. You’ll see things start to add up and have an impact.

Want to learn the rest?

This coming Monday I'm teaching my entire Book Launch Checklist.

Click here to grab your spot.

In my book Your First 1000 Copies, I outline a proven three-part framework that any author can use to build their platform, connect with readers, and sell more books:

1. Permission – Communicate with your fans in a way that gets their attention and drives them to action.
2. Content – Offer free content and spread it widely and freely.
3. Outreach – Move people from not knowing you exist to knowing you exist.

If you can accomplish these three interconnected levels, you will build a thriving author platform full of fans excited to buy your next book.

But so many things can distract us and get in our way while we're on the road to building our platform. While some of those things are important, most aren’t.

So often, we tell ourselves a task is important, just so we can dodge the real, hard work of what we really need to be doing.

Doing the Right Thing

A while back, an author wrote to me and asked if he should overhaul his website with a new WordPress theme he had found.

I took a look at the website. While it wasn’t the most gorgeous site I’ve ever seen, it was getting the job done. It had an email signup, his books were displayed prominently, he had an author bio and was offering free content.

My question to him: “How much traffic are you getting to your website?”

Another author wrote to ask if she should start buying Facebook ads to get more people to “Like” her Facebook author page.

First, I had her read my post on the myths of social media.

Then I asked, “How many authors have you reached out to in order to create mutually supportive relationships?”

Then there was the author who was agonizing over what he should give away to new website visitors, so they’d sign up for his email list. He kept changing his free ebook—rewriting the hook, uploading new versions, etc.

When he asked me what to do, I asked, “How many podcasts have you pitched, to have you on as a guest?”

There are always tons of things you can spend your time on, but almost all of them – 99.9 percent – are a complete waste of your time.

Creating Long-Term Connections

Another question I received recently:

“It seems like nothing will work without Outreach. So why do you talk so much about Permission and Content first, when none of it matters if new people aren’t finding you?”

Here’s why . . .

Think of your website as a bucket.

For most authors, the bottom of that bucket is full of holes.

People come to your website, check out your books or read a blog post, then immediately leave.

They flow into your bucket all right — but then they drop right out of the bottom.

That’s because you’ve created no connection with them, no way to stay in contact long-term.

Once you figure out how to plug those holes in your bucket, things will start changing for you.

If you make the #1 goal of your website getting people on your email list (Permission) by prominently displaying email signups that include a great offer, you’ll start getting those visitors to sign up.

That gives you long-term access to communicate with them.

Then once your website is set up to get people on your email list, you start putting up compelling Content that gives people something to interact with.

A reason to come to the site in the first place.

You’ll start seeing even more of your site visitors signing up for your email list.

Only then is Outreach useful.

If you do Outreach before plugging the holes of Permission and Content, you’re just pouring more people into a bucket with holes. They’ll drop out of the bottom, and you’ll never see them again!

However, once you have plugged the holes in your website . . . leave it alone!

And focus on Outreach.

Focus on finding groups of people that don’t know you exist and introduce yourself to them.

Solving Obscurity With Outreach

At this point in your platform-building, your #1 problem is Obscurity.

If nobody knows you exist, it’s going to be really hard to sell books.

You could have the most gorgeous, engaging website that gets 100 percent of the people who visit to gladly give you both permission to stay in contact with them AND buy a copy of every book you’ve ever written.

But if nobody knows you exist, it will all be for naught.

Here’s why . . .

Once you have your Permission and Content set up and working – even if it’s not the absolute best it could be – it’s time to move on to Outreach.

Outreach is the scary part. It’s the most ambiguous part.

It’s the part that requires us to reach out and face rejection.

So when it comes time to do it, we often shrink back and distract ourselves with things that aren’t important — like fiddling with our website, fixing the header on our Facebook page, or reading about successful social media marketing.

Here’s the deal — the plan that works, and that will save you months of wasted effort:

1. Get an email list set up with an email service provider, and display your email signup prominently on your website.
2. Regularly put out compelling free content on your website. Then, once that's done:
3. Spend the rest of your time on Outreach and solving your obscurity problem.

Then be honest with yourself, and only do the kinds of Outreach that may actually move the needle.

Doing What Matters

I’ve been working with a friend of mine as he’s been getting his platform off the ground. We’re talking starting from zero.

The first part was pretty straightforward.

He wrote out a series of helpful emails that people get when they sign up for his email list.

Then he used a WordPress theme to get his website up, put an easy-to-spot email signup on it, and started blogging regularly.

While this work wasn’t always easy, it was crystal clear in terms of what needed to be done.

Digging a 50-foot ditch isn’t easy, but how you go about it is pretty straightforward.

And then he hit Outreach. The hard, ambiguous part.

He struggled, pressed into the fear, tried several different things.

He despaired a few times. He wanted to quit.

His first 45 subscribers came in slowly.

Then last week, one of the dozen or so things he’d been trying finally started to work.

Within a couple of days, he’d popped more than 100 new subscribers. Now he’s following up on that by offering more free content, to drive that number even higher.

I’ve seen this pattern before. He’ll be at 500 subscribers within a couple of months.

It takes work. It takes trying and failing. But the reward is worth it.

The end result? Direct connection to a few hundred and then thousands of fans, who aren’t just visiting your website once or twice.

They’re excited to buy your next book.

As with all books, a lot went into getting it published and out in the world. One of the hardest things for a lot of authors is getting blurbs.

It’s hard to know who to ask and how to ask. It feels weird because there’s not a big win-win. This important person has to read your book and then come up with a review.

When it was time to start getting blurbs for Running Down a Dream I sat down and made a list of everyone I wanted. I whittled it down, reshaped it a bit, and came up with five people. I had backups, but these were the main five I wanted.

I ended up getting all five to say yes.

When I showed this list to a buddy of mine, he said, “That's ten years of relationship-building right there.”

And he’s right.

In this article, I’m going to walk you through each blurb, how I asked for the blurb, and what you can learn from the process.

Let’s jump in.

Ryan Holiday – The Acquaintance

I’ve been following Ryan a long time. He’s been in the book marketing space for about as long as I have and worked for big name authors like Tim Ferriss, Tucker Max, Neill Strauss, Tony Robbins, and many more.

He’s also written seven books including Trust Me I’m Lying, Growth Hacker Marketing, The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, Perennial Bestseller and his latest, Conspiracy.

I wanted Ryan to blurb my book because I’ve always respected the way he chooses to live his life and the methodical thoughtfulness he brings to everything he does. He’s the type of writer I aspire to be.

We talked on the phone once five or six years ago, but that was the most contact we had even though we ran in a lot of the same publishing circles.

Then about a year a half ago after I’d written the first draft of Running Down a Dream, I reached out to Ryan and paid his full hourly rate to talk to him for an hour to get some help on my book.

Afterward, I did all of the homework he recommended and sent it back to him within a couple of days.

From there we kept in light touch, and he even allowed me to write a guest post for a site that he helps out with. As I made progress on the book, I would send him short updates. I also sent him notes letting him know how much I liked Perennial Bestseller and other things he had written.

My goal here was to stay in touch with someone I respect. I started by paying for his time because I want him to know that I respect what he does and it’s worth whatever he chooses to charge for it. From there, I would just follow up from time to time. I don’t keep a schedule, I’m not trying to get anything. I just like having connections with people I respect.

Then earlier this year I read Ryan’s newest book Conspiracy and was blown away. I spent most of a weekend actively hiding from my family so I could finish it. Afterward, I invited him to be a guest on The Story Grid Podcast. At the end of the interview, he asked how my book was coming. I told him it was just about done and he said, “Well let me know if you need a blurb or any other way I can help.”

And so, when I asked him for a blurb a few months later, he agreed, and here’s what he sent.

“Running Down a Dream is a book about how to do the thing most people want to do but tell themselves is too scary, too hard, too unlikely. Tim Grahl is not some once-in-a-million-years genius. He’s an ordinary person who has managed to do what most ordinary people think is impossible. That’s why you should listen to him.”

— Ryan Holiday, New York Times bestselling author of Ego is the Enemy and The Obstacle is the Way

Lesson: In the publishing world pecking order, Ryan ranks far above me. He’s written multiple NYT bestselling books and is a highly sought after publicity and marketing expert. And so I approached him with this in mind. I paid for his time up front instead of asking for a favor. I emailed him occasionally, never requiring a response and always keeping it short. And in all of this, I wasn’t doing it because Ryan was a big-time guy that I thought could help me. It all started with my respect and love for his work. All good “networking” or outreach is simply connecting with another human over a shared interest. That’s it. If Ryan had been unable to blurb my book, no big deal. I just enjoy getting to learn from him in any capacity. Always bring this attitude to relationships and it’s impossible to be disappointed.

Derek Sivers – The Cold Ask

Derek Sivers is the founder of CD Baby, frequent TED speaker, and author of the book Anything You Want. I have been a fan of Derek’s for a very long time. His short, straight-forward writing has had so much impact on the way I live and make decisions. You should spend a day reading every one of his articles. It will be a day well spent.

Over the years I had emailed Derek a couple of times. I even recommended one of the books he ended up putting in his book notes section. I’ve read his book Anything You Want at least six times. I even met him once at a conference and ended up in the group lunch that he was a part of, but I was so nervous I barely said a word to him.

I wanted Derek to blurb my book for two reasons. First, Derek is known as a musician, speaker and, entrepreneur. I thought it was important to have a blurb from someone that wasn’t “just” a writer. Second, I respect Derek’s work so much that it would be personally meaningful to have his name on my book.

The problem was, I had no real angle to ask for the blurb. I didn’t know him well enough to lean on our relationship (in fact, he didn’t realize until after doing the blurb that we had exchanged emails and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember meeting me… I was pretty unmemorable at that moment) and I didn’t want to come at him sideways through a mutual friend.

So I just asked.

I sent him a short email telling him about the book, why I thought he would like the book and dropping in the fact that it was being published by Steven Pressfield’s publishing company.

And then I just asked.

I figured the worst he could do is say no.

But he said yes, and I sent him my manuscript, and he sent back this:

“What does it really look like to succeed? Slow, painful, terrified, stumbling, humble, and persistent. Tim’s amazingly vulnerable story convinces you you’re not alone in your struggle, and shows a path through it.”

— Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, frequent TED speaker, and author of Anything Your Want

Lesson: If you don’t have existing relationship, just be straight forward and ask for the blurb. Keep the email short, give a good reason why you think the book is a good fit for them, and then let it go. If they say no, that’s fine, just move on to the next one.

Steven Pressfield – The Idol

I first found Steven Pressfield through his book The War of Art. It was one of the most meaningful books I’ve ever read. From there, I went on to read almost all of his non-fiction, and still make The Authentic Swing a yearly read for me.

Five years ago I connected with Shawn Coyne and we started The Story Grid Podcast. Shawn has been an editor for over 25 years and has been Steve’s editor for almost that long. They are now partners in Black Irish Publishing.

Through my work with Shawn on Story Grid, I got the chance to talk to Steve a few times. We recorded a couple podcast episodes together and I helped them on the behind-the-scenes marketing and systems for Black Irish.

Each time I interacted with him, I was more impressed. He loved writing and writers so much and constantly looked for more ways to help them.

Eventually, when it came time to start figuring out how to publish my new book, Steve and Shawn both agreed that they would like to publish it through Black Irish.

The idea that Steve would want to be a part of one of my book projects seemed absolutely surreal and when he also offered to blurb it, I was over the moon.

“Full disclosure: Tim Grahl is my own secret guru for exactly the stuff that Running Down a Dream is about. My own book, The War of Art, was about the concept of self-sabotage as it afflicts us as writers and artists struggling to be our best professional selves. Tim’s book is the workingman’s tool-belt. His gift is to show us in nuts-and-bolts, no-nonsense terms exactly how to navigate this crazy life and how to actually Get Our Stuff Done. Indispensable!”

— Steven Pressfield, New York Times bestselling author of The War of Art

Lesson: It’s honestly hard to pull a lesson from this one. The way I came to meet Steve was a such a circular, long route that it would be impossible to recreate. If anything, I would say “always seek to help first.” Shawn and I started the podcast together because he needed help with the platform for his book. I spent a decent amount of time helping Steve and Shawn with behind-the-scenes stuff for Black Irish. All while never expecting anything in return. It’s true what Zig Ziglar said so many times… “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

Barbara Corcoran – The Celebrity

Barbara Corcoran is easily the most independently famous person I got to blurb my book. She has been an investor on the popular show Shark Tank for nine seasons, is a well known real estate investor, and the author of several books.

I first was connected with Barbara by a referral from a previous client. I began working with her before she was on Shark Tank and, actually, met her for the first time the day she flew back to New York City after auditioning for the show for the first time.

I worked with Barbara and her team on several website projects before parting ways amicably. She has always stood out as one of my favorite clients. She was so caring and straight-forward with me. Plus, when my wife and I were visiting New York one time, she had us over to her apartment and bought us broadway tickets.

So when I thought about the people I knew who I would feel honored to have blurb my book, I, of course, thought of Barbara. The problem was, I hadn’t talked to here in seven years. And in that seven years, she had gone from famous to famous and I was just a website guy she had worked with a long time ago.

I wrote and rewrote the email to her assistant several times trying to think of the best way to ask for the blurb. Finally, thinking about how much I appreciated how straight forward she always was about everything, I decided to do the same.

I wrote her an email with the subject line “A favor” and simply told her how much I appreciated and respected her and asked if she would blurb my book. That was it. Her assistant said to send it over, and a few weeks later she sent me this:

“What I love about this book is that Tim tells the truth. He not only shares his wins as he pursued his dream, but also his devastating failures. Everybody faces challenges when starting something new and this book is the secret sauce in overcoming them.”

— Barbara Corcoran, founder of The Corcoran Group, author, and Shark Tank investor

Lesson: Don’t be afraid to ask. There is every reason for Barbara to say no to blurbing my book and I fully expected her to. And yet, she said yes. I am constantly amazed by how much people really do want to help other people, and appreciate dropping the pretense and just asking.

Daniel Pink – The Client

Daniel Pink is my longest standing client. He was one of the first authors to hire me and we worked together for many years.

Honestly, this was the easiest ask for me. I have known Dan for a decade and felt comfortable enough to ask him as a friend. Of course, if he had said no it would have been fine, but I was pretty sure he would say yes.

I wanted Dan to blurb my book for an obvious reason. He’s a very well known and successful writer in the self-help, business book space. I know there are a lot of people that respect him and know his name, and his blurb may put them over the edge to give my book a try.

But I had a personal reason too.

Running Down a Dream is about the struggles I went through to build the creative life I wanted. I share a lot of dark stories.

Dan knew me for most of this time. Of course, he wasn’t privy to all of my personal struggles, but he gave me a lot of support and advice when I was a young entrepreneur drowning in doubt and insecurity. Having Dan blurb this book felt special because he was the only one out of the five that had worked with me and known me the longest.

Here’s what Dan said about the book:

”I’ve known Tim for a decade, but I had no idea what a skilled storyteller he was. In Running Down a Dream, he shatters the mold of a typical self-help book by offering a fresh perspective — and an array of life-changing advice — on creativity, success, and happiness.”

— Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive

Lesson: Keep the blurbs personal. Don’t try to get the biggest, a-list names to give you blurbs. Focus on people you respect and are meaningful to you. I think this, more than any other, was why I got five out of five yes’s.

How to Get Blurbs: The Takeaways

1. Start now building relationships with people. Of course, I’ve built relationships with far more than these five people. Cast a wide net. Connect with people who share your interests. Stay connected over a long period of time and always focus on being helpful first.
2. Be direct. Don’t beat around the bush, send long, wordy emails, or give a dozen reasons why they should blurb your book. Just send a simple email telling them why their work is meaningful to you and why you think your book is a good fit for them. And then just ask.
3. Make it mean something. Pick people that are meaningful to you and your work. Don’t just pick a-listers.
4. Don’t have expectations. Assume everyone you ask will probably say no for very good reasons. It’s not a slight against you. You are not allowed to take it personally.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask. The worst someone can do is say no or not respond. No big deal. Make the ask and trust them to make the best decision for themselves.

Getting great blurbs for your book can help you catch the attention of new readers, but it can often be hard to know how and where to start. Follow the lessons in this article to get you started.

Here are five things you need to know before launching your book.

1,900,000+

The number of books published every year. This number keeps going up.

Book Sales are Declining

Each year since 2007, the total number of books sold keeps going down.

< 250

The number of copies most books sell in their first year. Most sell less than 2000 copies in the lifetime of the book.

62 of 1,000

The number of books that will sell more than 5000 copies.

< 1%

The odds of your book being stocked in a bookstore.

There are two things I’ve learned along the way:

1. Anyone can run a successful book launch.
2. A successful book launch always starts with a good plan.

What makes a good book launch plan?

In this article, I’m going to layout the basic things every author needs to do for their launch and walk you through the exact framework I use with my clients to launch their bestselling books.

Let’s start here:

Book Launch Mindsets

There are three different mindsets that an author brings to every launch. If you start from the wrong mindset, I can give you all the tactics in the world, but they’ll fall flat.

Every author brings one of these mindsets to a book launch:

1. Launch and Hope: These are the authors who believe the myth that they can’t do anything for their book. They just publish it and say “if it finds an audience, it was meant to be.” There’s very little forethought. All of their energy is spent writing and publishing the book, and they just release it and hope that it finds an audience.
2. Launch and Pay: These are the authors that throw money at their book in hopes it will make a difference. They hire a big, expensive publicist. They buy a bunch of advertising. They spend a ton of money on a slick website. They may even buy copies of their own book to try to hit one of the bestseller lists. If you’ve got deep pockets and don’t feel like doing it yourself, this may work, though most of your money will be wasted.
3. Launch and Know: These are the authors that approach the release of their book with a plan in place. Instead of stressing and hoping and spending, they are focused on implementing a step-by-step plan for how they are going to release their book.

My goal for you is to be in group number three.

I’ve seen self-published fiction authors with no platform, no blog, no social media presence, no email list, and no big-name-influencer friends launch their book and sell 10,000 copies in the first year.

I’ve also seen authors with established platforms, the backing of a big publisher, and a big-name publicist launch their book and struggle to sell the first few hundred copies.

If you look under the hood on these launches, you’ll see the difference between the two was the first had a plan and the second did not.

Book Launch Terms and Definitions

So often, when we talk about book marketing and book launches, we are using the same vocabulary but mean very different things.

I don’t want us to have this problem, so let’s define a few words that often get thrown around and make sure we’re on the same page.

“Author Platform”

This is a big one. People are always saying every author needs a platform. If you pitch your book to a publisher, one of their first questions is going to be “what is your platform?”

However, if you ask different people in publishing what an author platform is you’ll get different answers. Some will say “the author’s website” or “the author’s social media following” or “their 50 speaking gigs a year” or “they have a popular radio show.”

Here’s what an author platform really is…

If a publisher asks “what’s your platform?”, that’s just code for “how are you going to get people to buy your book?”

Whether you have a popular TV show or you travel to speak all year or you have a popular blog or, hell, if you have a tried-and-true way of standing in the middle of Times Square in New York City and hand-selling your book… however it is that you are planning to sell your book, that plan is your author platform.

“Book Launch”

Here’s another seemingly simple phrase that can mean lots of different things.

What is a book launch?

Is it the moment you upload your file to Amazon’s KDP, and it’s for sale?

Is it when your book is first available for pre-order?

Is it the day it’s published?

I’ve been on a team of 15 people all working to “launch” a book months before it was even available.

It's pretty simple though…

If you upload your book to Amazon but then never tell anyone, you haven’t launched a book. However, if you start trying to get people to pre-order your book a month before it comes out, you’re running a book launch.

“Fans”

Whether it’s your mom or your cubicle mate or someone on your email list or someone following you on Twitter… if that person will go to a bookstore and purchase a copy of your book, they are a fan.

“Influencers”

So many times when I say “influencer outreach,” people will say “Oh, you mean guest posting on blogs” or “asking for blurbs.” And while, yes, that’s a tactic for influencer outreach, it’s not all of it.

Whether the person runs a blog or hosts a radio show or has a huge email list or speaks around the country or hosts a book club with a hundred members… a person that influences the buying decisions of other groups of people is an influencer.

“Plan”

Here’s the Merriam-Webster definition: “a method for achieving an end.”

That’s pretty good, but vague.

Here’s another: “a detailed formulation of a program of action.”

That’s much closer to what I mean.

In my experience, having a good plan does two things for you:

1. It explains what you need to do in a step-by-step fashion, so it reduces ambiguity and therefore stress. You always know what you need to do next.
2. It informs on what tools you need to get the job done. Too many authors start by saying something like “how do I use Twitter to launch my book?” But Twitter is just a tool. You start with the plan, and the plan tells you whether you need the tool or not and if you do, how to use it.

Ok, now that we are all on the same page… let’s jump into the real reason you’re reading this article.

The Book Launch Framework

The framework I’m about to share with you is the exact process I use to launch books to the top of New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other bestseller lists.

It’s also the framework I use when launching first-time books for authors with no platform that are just trying to get their first few hundred sales.

What I’m trying to say is… the framework scales.

You can use this framework no matter what level you are at as an author.

The Book Launch Framework is made up of three parts:

1. Sell to Fans
2. Invite Fans to Share
3. Engage Influencers

I look at each of these like math problems that need to be solved.

If you solve each of these during your launch, you will have a successful launch.

Let’s go through each of them:

1. Sell to Fans

How can you sell as many books as possible to people you are directly connected to?

Fans are people who are on your email list, read your blog, follow you on social media, etc. Maybe they’ve read one of your previous books. Maybe they’re an avid reader of your blog. No matter how they came into your platform, they are the readers with which you have a direct connection.

The first part of the framework is to come up with a plan to sell as many books as possible to your fans.

This, of course, can look lots of different ways. Here are two ideas to get you started:

Do a giveaway: If they buy your book by a certain date, can you give away something for free? Maybe it’s one of your previous books. Maybe it’s additional videos and downloads. Focus on giving away valuable content to anyone that buys the book. Here's a page I helped set up for one of my clients.

Email campaign: Send a series of emails promoting the new book. Don’t just invite people to buy, give away new content and information in each email. Share excerpts of the book, make videos, etc. Send a lot of emails. I recommend somewhere between five to ten emails sent over a two to three week period.

The goals of the “Sell to Fans” part of the book launch framework are to a) make sure everyone knows you have a new book available and b) make it really hard for them to say “no” to buying it.

2. Invite Fans to Share

How can you make it really easy and fun for your fans to share the book?

People always share things they love, but they also don’t have a lot of time. Your goal is to make a very short, clear path for people to get involved with the book launch and share it with their network.

Remember it’s really hard to get 10,000 followers on Twitter. But it isn't very hard to ask 10 people with 1000 followers to each share something. This is the goal of part two of the framework.

Here are some ideas:

• Create links that allow people to immediately share on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
• Share fun and creative images based on the ideas in the book. PSAs, infographics, quotes, and cartoons are great examples.
• Start a “street team,” and invite people to be a part of promoting the book.

Provide copy with the links so people can copy and paste directly into emails and social media.

The goals of the “Invite Fans to Share” part of the framework are to a) make it really, really easy for people to share your book with their friends, family, and other connections, and b) automatically ask people to share the book.

3. Engage Influencers

How can you get influencers to help spread the word on their platforms?

If fans are people that will buy your book, influencers are people that will get other people to buy your book. This topic alone could take up a whole week’s worth of workshop training, but in general, now is the time to invite your colleagues with platforms of their own to help promote the book.

Remember the “Empathy and Assumptions” sections of chapter four in Your First 1000 Copies! Look for ways to help other people get what they need. Podcasts need interesting guests… can you be an interesting guest? Blogs need interesting content… can you provide interesting content?

If you do the work to connect with influencers, promote their work and look for ways to help them, this can be the easiest part of the campaign!

The goal of the “Engage Influencers” part of the framework is to get people that influence the buying decisions of groups of people to recommend and promote your book to their groups.

Where do I start?

So this is a tall order.

How do you know which of the pieces of the framework you can actually pull off? And what if you have nothing — no blog, no social media, no email list, no connection to influencers… no platform — what do you do then?

This is where you need to know what type of book launch you are running.

And there are four types of book launches…

The 4 Types of Book Launches

The first thing I do when I’m planning any book launch is to decide what type of book launch I should run. Every launch I run fits into one of these types.

The Bestseller Launch

This is the big one. You are ready for the pull-out-all-the-stops book launch that can sell a lot of copies as soon as it comes out.

The goal of this launch is to get your influencers to share the book with their audiences, while also getting your fans to buy the book and share it with their friends and family.

If you are connected to fans and influencers, this is the launch for you.

The Influencer Launch

This is where a lot of well-known business people or media personalities find themselves. They’ve built up a network of people who are connected to their fan base, but they have yet to directly connect with that fan base themselves.

The Influencer Launch requires a long lead time (three to six months at least) but allows you to spread your message far and wide within your network.

If you’ve built up connections with influencers, but don’t have your own connection with your fans through an email list, blog, or social media, you should run an Influencer Launch.

The List Launch

This is the launch I used for my first book Your First 1000 Copies. I had a small email list of fans I promoted my book to, and I was able to sell more than 1,000 copies of my book to that group in less than two weeks.

If you’ve already built up a direct connection with your fans through social media, a blog, or an email list, the List Launch will help you get a big jump on sales as soon as your book is released.

The Long Game Launch

Out of all four of the launches, the Long Game Launch is my favorite.

The main goal of the Long Game Launch is to build a platform that supports an entire writing career. You want to be a writer, not just someone who wrote a book once.

If you’re just getting started and you already have a book, but you don’t have a platform, then your job is to use your book to build a platform.

As I said above, I sold 1,000 books in the first two weeks after my book came out. I was excited at that early surge in sales.

But then, as happens with most books, I saw my sales start to plummet. A few months went by, and I didn’t sell another 1,000 copies.

Then I decided to change my mindset and focus on a Long Game Launch.

By the one-year anniversary of my book’s publication, I had sold 10,000 copies and built my platform to be bigger than ever.

This is because the Long Game Launch focuses on making your book successful over a longer period of time.

The publishing industry is obsessed with selling a ton of copies of your book the first week it’s out. Not because it’s good for you, but because it’s good for them.

My good friend Josh Kaufman has never hit any of the major bestseller lists for his book The Personal MBA. However, the book has sold more than 300,000 copies since it was published in 2010, and still sells thousands of copies every month.

That is the power of the Long Game Launch.

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UPDATE: Bill O'Reilly found this article and invited me on his show to talk about it. Here's the clip:

By most standards, I’m still new to the publishing industry.

It’s been just 8 years since I worked on my first book launch campaign. But since that time I’ve worked with hundreds of authors in just about every marketing capacity you can imagine. I’ve played the role of publicist, community organizer, web developer, social media expert, and on and on.

In various roles, I’ve bumped into the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists many times.

I’ve helped launch two #1 New York Times bestsellers, and several top five bestsellers. At one point, five of my clients had books on the NYT list at the same time. While I haven’t tracked the Wall Street Journal list as closely, I’ve had quite a few hit that list as well.

I also have my hands in a few launches right now—some now finishing up, and some just getting prepped for later this year—and more and more, I’ve become incredulous at the complete disaster that are the major bestseller lists.

As I’ve prepped to write this article, I’ve had trouble organizing all of my thoughts, data, stories, and sources into one cohesive narrative. So instead, I’ve decided to list point-by-point, in no particular order, the things I’ve either personally witnessed or experienced via one of my clients or colleagues in the publishing industry.

My goal is to shed some light on what really goes on with the two top bestseller lists—the Wall Street Journal and New York Times—and offer some information to authors who are hoping to hit them one day.

Here goes: The Truth Behind the Bestseller List

Bestseller Lists:
Why do they matter?

It’s true, the bestseller lists are becoming obsolete. There are plenty of books that, despite never gracing the pages of the WSJ or NYT, go on to sell thousands of copies, and have a great fan base.

However, the fact remains that having a New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestseller can greatly enhance your career.

Since the publishing industry still shows great deference to these lists, hitting them significantly impacts the advance on your next book contract.

If you’re a nonfiction author, and particularly if you write business books, it means more speaking gigs, higher consulting rates, higher visibility, and an enhanced reputation.

It also means more sales. If your book is a bestseller, it all of a sudden gets more face time on bookstore shelves and other promotions. It’s a self-feeding system.

It also means more appearances in the media. NYT bestsellers get phone calls and emails from the media.

And let’s face it: it matters because it’s pretty damn cool to be a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

But the bottom line, especially if you have anything to do with the traditional publishing industry, is this:

WSJ or NYT bestseller = More money for authors, publishers, and agents.

What exactly is a bestselling book?

If you ask a typical person this question—someone who has never descended into the muck of the behind-the-scenes reality of the bestseller lists—they’ll of course answer something like, “It’s a book that has sold tens of thousands of copies,” or “It’s the book that has sold the most copies.”

How naive.

Here’s a brief intro to how it really works. Further points will go deeper into some aspects of this.

The Wall Street Journal Bestseller List

WSJ builds their list based on the sales figures they get from Nielson’s BookScan. In general, if you sell the most books in a category as reported by BookScan, you will hit #1 in that category in the Wall Street Journal bestseller list.

Makes sense, right?

Except that BookScan doesn’t track all purchases.

It doesn’t include sales made through some big box stores, such as Walmart and Sam’s Club, which doesn’t affect most of us. However, it also doesn’t include sales from CreateSpace and other self-publishing platforms, which affects thousands of authors.

But overall, it’s the most accurate data source, and reports about 75 to 85% of book sales, depending on who you ask.

More on the WSJ later.

The New York Times Bestseller List

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, as the saying goes.

NYT keeps a tight lid on their process for selecting bestsellers. It is known that they sample their own list of certain booksellers across the country—though which ones is a tightly guarded secret—then look at the data with their wise NYT brains, and decide who they think should be on the list.

It’s said that this is done to keep people from gaming the system, which is partially true.

But it’s also done so that the New York Times can have a say on which books get the extra credibility of being a bestseller.

I’m certainly not the only one who sees potential problems with this system.

Remember: NYT and WSJ list = More money.

So a small group of people look at highly selective data to decide who they deem important enough to be called a “New York Times bestseller”.

At this point, we’ve come pretty far from “the books that sell the most copies.”

We’ve laid some groundwork, so now I can share the really weird stuff.

Who does the NYT love?

A friend of mine has access to the weekly Nielson BookScan numbers—that organization that tracks 75 to 85% of book sales.

Last year, he decided to go back and compare BookScan numbers to the NYT bestseller list, to see if he could find anything interesting.

Since NYT does its own secret reporting and choosing, he wanted to see if he could find any signs of bias.

Here are two conclusions he gathered from his own personal research, comparing real BookScan sales figures to the books deemed by NYT staff to be bestsellers:

1. If you happen to work for the New York Times and have a book out, your book is more likely to stay on the list longer and have a higher ranking than books not written by New York Times employees.
2. If you happen to have written a conservative political leaning book, you’re more likely to be ranked lower and drop off the list faster than those books with a more liberal political slant.

And another point:

Why the separate lists for digital and print copies? 

From an author’s standpoint, this is maddening. I’ve been involved with book launches that have sold more than enough copies to hit the bestseller lists, but because the numbers were split between digital and print, they didn’t make it.

How arcane, and antiquated.

In what world does it make sense that it matters whether I buy the book in paper or in digital format?

I still bought the book. I still thought it was worth the money. But for some reason, the NYT and WSJ lists think paper counts as a sale more than digital.

Arcane and antiquated are the only nice words that can be used here.

Readers aren’t concerned about modality, so why are the bestseller lists?

How to launder your book purchases

Let me change gears here, and give at least one reason that established lists have to make so many weird rules.

The bestseller lists are forced to jump through a lot of hoops, because people are constantly trying to game the system.

If I’m a rich person and I publish a book, what’s to stop me from just buying 20,000 copies of my own book and putting myself on the list?

I think we can all agree, that while we want the bestseller lists to reflect the bestselling books, we don’t want people to be able to buy their way onto the lists either, right?

So the bestseller lists try to put some checks and balances in place, to make sure people can’t do this.

So what happens? Book launderers start popping up. And how does book laundering work?

Let me explain:

Step 1. Find a book laundering firm. There’s a handful of them out there. ResultSource is the most well known.

Step 2. Write them a check to cover their fee. They don’t work for free, after all.

Step 3. Write them another check – for your books. This check is to buy copies of your book. It depends on the campaign, but it’ll always number in the thousands. We’re trying to hit the bestseller lists here, after all.

Step 4. The firm launders the sales. It hires people all over the country to buy books through various retailers one at a time, using different credit cards, shipping addresses, and billing addresses.

This allows the sales to go through and show up as individual sales, instead of bulk purchases. These sales then get reported to Nielson BookScan.

Step 5. Pop the champagne corks. You’re now a bestseller.

If you think I’m making this stuff up, I have three sources that back this up:

1. The Wall Street Journal itself.
2. World Magazine which outlines the specifics of a ResultSource contract.
3. The word of an insider—a friend who used to work for one of these firms, and headed up the book laundering side of the business. The person quit when they became sick of the low ethical and moral aspect of the entire operation. They explained the whole system to me.

What about bulk purchases?

Now we’re getting into a truly gray area.

Up to this point, I think we can all agree on two things:

1. Individual sales should count. If I walk into a bookstore or log on to Amazon.com and purchase a copy of a book, that sale should count on the bestseller lists.
2. Huge bulk purchases from the author shouldn’t count. If you decides to order 10,000 copies of your own book, that shouldn’t automatically put him on the NYT bestseller list.

But what about in between?

What if an online book club wants to purchase 50 copies of your book—one for everyone in their group? Should those count as 50 individual copies, or as one bulk purchase?

What if one of your clients is bringing you in to speak to their entire department of 108 people, and wants to buy a copy for everyone in attendance? Should that count as 108 individual copies, or as one bulk purchase?

What if an association wants to buy a copy of your book for each one of their chapters, which are spread over a couple of hundred cities across the United States? Should those count as a couple hundred individual sales, or as one bulk purchase?

What if someone wants to buy 10 copies of your book to give away as Christmas presents?

What if a company wants to buy 1,000 copies of your book to give away to all their new clients over the next two years?

Do those count as individual copies, or as one bulk purchase?

Here’s where it really starts to get fuzzy. Because in each of these cases, individual people are getting a copy of the book. Sure, they may not read it, but how many books line your own bookshelves that you’ve never gotten around to reading?

Different people will have different opinions on each of these scenarios.

If I’ve worked hard to build a fan base or client base that will purchase multiple copies of my book, shouldn’t I get credit for those?

But if I, as an author, go around and buy copies of my book in multiples of 50 and 100 and then store them in my garage, those probably shouldn’t count.

This is where the bestseller lists run into trouble. It’s extremely hard to police this sort of thing. What would you do?

How to buy your way onto the bestseller list

We’ve already talked about the book laundering scheme, but here’s another way to pull off the bestseller list with sheer brute, monetary force.

I was brought in to play a small role in a book launch a few years ago. Leading up to the launch date, I was on a few conference calls that outlined the author’s strategy for hitting the NYT and WSJ bestseller lists for a book.

Here are a few things the author did to make it happen:

• Hired two high-end book publicists to get him booked on as many television interviews as possible.

• Purchased full page ads in national and local papers across the country.

• Ran advertising in Times Square in New York City.

• Paid the fee for the book’s publisher to have the book placed on the front tables at Barnes & Noble.

• And my favorite: He hired people all over the country to go into their local Barnes & Noble and purchase every copy of the book one-at-a-time, with cash.

Did it work? Yes. The book debuted on the NYT and WSJ bestseller lists.

Of course, the following week the book dropped off the lists, and was never seen again. 95% of the sales happened in the first week.

But the author, for all time, can be referred to as a “New York Times bestselling author.”

WSJ or NYT bestseller = More money.

It’s the good, hardworking authors who get screwed

As I type this, there’s a huge shift happening inside the bestseller lists.

I’ve been on calls with people from two major publishers, and they can’t seem to give me a straight answer on how books are being reported and what is making the lists.

They can’t tell me, because they don’t know.

They don’t know, because the lists keep changing the rules without telling anyone.

Apparently, the WSJ list has tightened its rules on bulk purchases. A recent book supposedly sold enough individual copies to make the list, but then was thrown out, because they also had a lot of bulk copies.

This, of course, makes no sense, but as an author, you’re at their mercy.

One of my clients has worked really hard to establish great relationships with their clients, who are now interested in buying the author’s new book in bulk.

But with the new rules, we’re not sure what to do. Should we go ahead and let them order in bulk, and potentially get the book blacklisted?

This author has done the work ahead of time to make the book successful, with the goal of hitting one of the major lists, and now it could very well be for naught.

When the rules are fuzzy, hidden, and constantly changing, what can you possibly do?

Unkept promises

A while ago, a colleague of mine wanted to run a campaign to his author platform for his new book.

He checked with his publisher to see if they could take the orders through his own website, so he could give special bonuses to early purchasers, and still get them counted as sales through one of the major book chains.

The publisher checked on it and said they could. He asked if they were sure. They said yes.

The author ran his campaign, sold thousands of books, and then turned in all the names and orders to his publisher. They sent the list to the retailer.

The retailer decided they didn’t want to do it. Since the publishers have made the retailers their customers instead of the readers, they didn’t want to push too hard to get the retailer to accept the deal. So they caved, and told the author “sorry,” but there was nothing they could do.

Huge investment of time, money, and effort to become a NYT and WSJ bestselling author. Time, money, and effort that had paid off in enough sales, that got thrown out and never saw the light of day.

Your book isn’t quite good enough

Hugh Howey’s Dust sold more than 50,000 copies in its first week, yet only debuted at #7 on the NYT bestseller list—even though it far, far outsold books that were higher on the list.

Why?

Fantastic question. Apparently, the people making the decisions about which books are selling the most copies (notice the contradiction there?) didn’t think Dust was quite good enough.

This is the problem with having these decisions made by a hidden group of people who are highly selective with their data. Real numbers don’t matter to them.

Your book wasn’t purchased at the cool book stores

Here’s another article for you to take a look at. It’s short but to the point.

The New York Times samples different stores across the country and weighs book sales based on where they are purchased.

What does this mean?

It means that a hardcover copy of your book purchased on Amazon.com is counted differently than the same hardcover book purchased at indie bookstore X.

At this point, do I really have to say how ridiculous this is, and how it punishes authors and readers alike?

What can be done now?

As authors, what can be done with this?

Yes, WSJ and NYT list = More money.

And it’s hard to ignore that, but we must. The only answer to this debacle is to stop worrying about hitting the major bestseller lists.

At this point, the results are so far outside of an author’s direct control, that it doesn’t make sense to make these lists a goal anymore.

Instead, focus on the reader.

Make your book available at the stores or websites your readers buy books from, in the formats they buy in. Make it easy to buy and easy to read.

Don’t make the lists your customer. Keep the reader your customer—the people you’re really writing books for.

2/21/2017

Tim says: This update is from Celeste Fine of Sterling Lord Literistic agency. This is the letter she’s sending out to her bestselling clients about the recent changes to the New York Times bestseller list. As you can see, what I wrote in the original article above is more relevant than ever.

From Celeste:

Hi all,

Becoming a New York Times Bestseller Is Part of a Strategy, Not an End In Itself

I will be the first person to tell you that you should not go broke trying to hit the New York Times Bestseller List (“The List”).  Why?

• The List is not a straight sales numbers measurement.  It is a secret formula and curation that only the NYT knows.  So you can find yourself outselling your competition and not making The List. 
• The List is a measurement of your comparative success in a single week against books in your same category.  At the beginning of each week, your sales numbers drop back down to zero, and the competition begins all over again.  So you could find yourself hitting The List one week and then selling so few books every other week that hitting The List does little to earn you royalties, improve your next book deal, or build your audience.

That being said, the spirit of The List is to highlight the top books in your category that readers will see in stores, in the media, and in other readers’ hands around the country and becoming part of that elite group of books can bring advantages as part of an overall strategy. 

• It can help promote you to people who buy books and get you more and better placement in stores.
• It can potentially help book more and better publicity and speaking.
• It can help improve the terms of your next book deal.

It is also important to know that the NYT has added a few monthly lists, but the advice in this email focuses on the weekly lists.

Whatever your strategy is when it comes to The List, here is the best information you should know from an insider’s point of view.   While you probably know people who have written New York Times Bestselling books or people who have outsold other authors throughout their careers and have never made The List, I am asking you to forget everything you think you know about becoming New York Times Bestseller, so you can read this information with a fresh perspective.

Changes to the NYT List in 2017

The Nonfiction bestseller lists changed in 2017, so that the General Nonfiction list went from 20 spots to 15 spots and the How to, Advice, Miscellaneous List went from 15 spots to 10 spots.  What this means for you:

• The Lists focus more on perennial bestsellers, who hold their spots week after week. 
• For the How To List 0-2 spots will open up each week.
• For the General Nonfiction List, 2-5 spots will open up each week.
• It now takes about the same number of copies to hit the List, 10K+ copies, but now it takes about 5-10K copies a week to stay on the Lists (it used to be 3-5K copies).
• THE BIG BUT: The NYT seems to be doing more curating than ever, so it is less of a straight sales calculation.  The NYT is weighing heavily whether they project that your sales will be 5-10K copies a week for a few weeks or whether you will maintain these sales for months.

Sales Goals to Hit High on the New York Times Bestseller Lists:

Every week is different, so there is no set number of what it takes to hit The List each week.  Weeks where sales are relatively low for all books are considered soft weeks.  Weeks where the competition is stiff and sales numbers are high across books are considered hard weeks.  But these print sales goals should get you on The List and keep you on the The List for most any week provided you are not curated off The List. 

Book Sales Week 1: 10-15K [if you’re going for #1, >20K]

Book Sales Week 2: 15-20K [if you’re going for #1, >20K]

Book Sales Week 3: 5-10K [you want to stabilize at this level to stay on the list]

Book Sales Week 4: 5-10K

Book Sales Week 5: 5-10K

Book Sales Week 6: 5-10K

Book Sales Week 7: 5-10K

Book Sales Week 8: 5-10K

So How Do You Get Curated On and Curated Off the List

The NYT has an undisclosed group of retailers around the country that report their sales to the NYT.  Every week, these retailers receive a NYT Bestseller Watch List of 50-70 books for each List.  On Sunday, these stores report point of sales numbers for these books from the previous Sunday AM to Saturday close of business.  The NYT then spends Monday and Tuesday curating these books by way of a secret formula, and the resulting List is available around 5 PM on Wednesday to subscribers of TimesDigest. These Lists become available to the public online and in print two weekends later. 

Below you will find educated theories on factors and flags that the NYT considers when curating The List.

1. Sales and distribution matters. In addition to total sales, distribution across retailers and regions is considered. The NYT wants to make sure that they are selecting books that demonstrate a breadth of sales across the country and across retailers.  It seems that any single retailer that reports significantly more sales than all other retailers don’t count as much (some say they are thrown out entirely).
2. Popularity matters.  Household name recognition is a factor, which gives celebrities and publicity-driven books an advantage.
3. NYT bestseller alumni and current NYT bestsellers get preference over new authors to The List.  You will often see these books hit and hit higher with fewer sales than new authors or lesser known authors with more sales. 
4. The NYT also seems to weigh in sales stamina.  It seems the more weeks a book does well, the more likely it is to be curated onto The List.
5. NYT relationships are considered.  Buying ad space with the NYT or having a NYT relationship or connection seems to help.
6. Subject preferences.  The NYT seems to be curating off health, diet, and fitness books and curating on personal development and business books. Not sure if this is a sensibility thing or a result of the FDA’s crack down on health promises in books.
7. Bulk orders don’t always count 1-to-1 for sales.  Amazon orders to the same address count as 1 sale, whether you order 1 book or 1000.  Sometimes you will see books hit The List with a dagger that specifies that bookstores received bulk orders. Sometimes these bulk orders can raise red flags about whether an author is gaming the system and get a book curated off of The List.  We have seen this happen several times with HarperCollins and B&N bulk buys.  Books A Million seems to be the best place to purchase bulk orders for events or marketing campaigns at the moment, but the rules of bulk orders are always changing. 
8. No cheating.  The NYT and Bookscan are both flagging and curating off books they think are gaming the system.
9. There are mixed theories about preorders. On the one hand, some folks say preorders don’t count or don’t count as much as sales that happen after the book publishes.  On the other hand, we have heard that the NYT factors in what accounts order and have in stock, which is a result of preorders. How preorders count seems to be a moving target at the moment.
10. The question of e-books.  We have heard that e-books are more heavily weighted, but we haven’t seen that to be the case firsthand.
11. Too salesy? A publisher told us that the NYT curated off one of their authors because they thought their online promotions were too salesy. Who knows if this is true.
12. Amazon ranking. We heard that the NYT watches Amazon ranking to make sure the demand is real, but we haven’t been able to see patterns with this. 

Becoming a New York Times Bestseller is a hard-earned, moving target, and if you find yourself selected for the honor, congratulations!  Make sure your publisher adds the distinction to the jacket for your next print run, add it to your bio, add it to your website and social media, and sing it from the rooftops with friends and family.  And from us to you, wishing you so much luck if this is a goal that is right for you personally and professionally.  We hope these insights are helpful on your journey.

]]> https://booklaunch.com/the-truth-about-the-new-york-times-and-wall-street-journal-bestseller-lists/feed/ 13 https://booklaunch.com/the-1-thing-every-author-must-have-for-a-successful-launch/ https://booklaunch.com/the-1-thing-every-author-must-have-for-a-successful-launch/#respond Mon, 23 Jan 2017 17:19:13 +0000 https://booklaunch.flywheelsites.com/?p=5054 Many authors I’ve worked with succumb to something that eventually kills their book launch. They have a completed manuscript in hand; they have painstakingly chosen a cover; they have spent hours making sure they missed no one in the acknowledgements.

Their launch starts to waiver—they miss deadlines when they need to announce the book. They stop sending emails telling influencers about when their book will be released.

They succumb to doubt, one of the deadliest reasons to self-sabotage a launch.

When we believe that our book, our work of art, isn’t going to be useful to anyone, when we cringe thinking that complete strangers will slap down ten dollars to buy our book, we kill our momentum. We fill ourselves with doubt.

When we doubt our book has value, we have zero motivation to tell the world about it. We feel like we are selling the worst lemon on the car lot and so we don’t want to share it with the world.

The opposite of doubt is clear — belief.

When you believe that your work belongs in the world, when you are confident that this book needs to be in the hands of people, is when you start to get excited and motivated about a launch.

But how do you build more belief?

Take Some Time to Reflect

Whether you believe in prayer, meditation, or even journaling, take some dedicated time and start to believe that your book belongs in the world. Think about the person who discovers your book and laughs or cries, changes and grows, or simply is touched about your book crossing their path.

Take the Time to Celebrate

It has been difficult to write this book. There have been late nights and missed fun events. You have struggled to get the book edited and simply put the words to the page. That in itself is worth celebrating. Take some time and celebrate the wins, the great thing you have done.

Get Some Well Deserved Rest

You simply might not be motivated to launch your book right now because you are exhausted. You've fallen behind on so much outside of your writing project that you need a small break. Take it. Rest up. Start reducing your coffee intake. And take more naps.

When your fuel tank is full, then start your launch.

Once you believe that your book is worthy to be out into the world, once your doubt about your creation has been defeated, you'll be excited about sharing it; you'll be much more motivated to have a great launch.

It’s not only hard to know what you should be doing. It’s also hard to keep up with all the options that are available.

After years of helping authors build their platforms, and then use those platforms to launch top bestsellers, I’ve put together this checklist of proven book marketing methods to help you create your book marketing plan.

Back to Top

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I spent over $200,000 on a book launch in hopes of hitting the New York Times best sellers list and failed. Sometimes, the book launch does not go the way you plan.

Maybe you launched without knowing what you were doing. Maybe you wish you could go back and do it all over again. Maybe you—hypothetically speaking—spent money in all the wrong places only to be disappointed by the results.

What do you do when you fail?

The good news is there's hope. Just because you didn't launch well or wish you could have done better doesn't mean the life of your book is over. In fact, it's probably just beginning, so long as you know what to do next.

Here are three things to do when you have a less than impressive book launch.

1. Remember most people still haven't heard about your book.

If you're like me, by the time your book comes out, you're tired. You've just gone through round after round of brutal edits. You've haggled with your publisher or designer on the “right” book cover. You may have even called in a bunch of favors with friends to help you promote it.

So when the big day comes, you're all tuckered out. What more do you have left to go?

This is the point at which many authors go write the next book. And this is a mistake.

Creatively, it's a good thing to work on your next book. To start the next project and remove your ego from your current book. That's good. If you need to do that, go do it. But do it privately without any fanfare. Because as far as the public is concerned, all that exists right now is this new book. And your job is to hit the pavement and do everything you can to make sure everyone knows about it.

It's easy to forget that after the first week, the first month, or even the first year that most people who need your book still haven't heard about it.

So if you have a disappointing book launch, the first thing you must do is remember this…

• Nobody is as tired of this book as you are.
• Nobody is as bored with it as you are.
• Nobody thinks it's old like you do.

In fact many of your readers probably have no idea this book even exists. Recently, I learned this when I blogged about my book, The Art of Work, six months after it came out. One reader asked, “you wrote a book?” I couldn't believe it.

But it's true. What is old news to you is not old news to your very busy and often distracted readers.

2. Keep talking about the book.

This sounds super obvious but is actually hard to do. Like I said, we get bored with our latest release, and six months after the launch we mistakenly assume everyone who was going to buy the book already did.

The truth is quite the opposite, however. Most people have been waiting. Maybe they've been busy or don't have the cash to drop $25 on a hardcover right now.

So they wait. And usually forget about the book.

Unless you remind them.

The job of any author is to write good books and try to not get too bored with talking about them. Because as Austin Kleon says, talking about the work is the work. Marketing is part of the job, and if you do it well, you get to write more books.

How do you do this? A few ways:

• Mention your book once a week in your newsletter, blog, and/or podcast. It doesn't always have to be a hard pitch. Just a reminder that this thing you spent a year of your life creating actually does exist. You're just trying to raise awareness and remind people of the book.
• Find new conversations that can happen around the book. This means writing guest posts and articles and appearing on podcasts in niches that you haven't yet explored. Repurpose content from the book and share them in these channels. Again, the goal is awareness.
• Bring up the book in conversation. Please don't be that person who keeps name-dropping your book. But at the same time, don't be afraid to talk about it. The trick to doing this well is to actually use your experience and maybe even the content in the book to try to be helpful. This can happen on stage at a speaking event or over coffee with a friend. Once again, you are trying to make people continually aware.

3. Relaunch the book.

Maybe you had the most horrendous launch ever and want a do-over. Or maybe it was great but you've lost momentum and you're wondering if you can get it back again.

The truth is just because you launch a book once doesn't mean you can't keep relaunching it over and over again.

My book, The Art of Work, sold 15,000 preorders before the book was event released. It did around 20,000 in sales in the first month. These are great numbers. But then over time, sales gradually began to taper off. So in January, we did a special promotion and sold another 5000 copies—eight months after the book came out.

In fact, I'm doing this again, nearly six months after that. I'm discounting the ebook, guest posting on a bunch of friends' sites, and doing some other promotional activities to get the book in front of new people.

How do I know this works? Because some of the best selling books of the past few decades have sold like this. The Five Love Languages, a mainstay of the The New York Times best sellers list, has become a cultural phenomenon and continues to sell more copies each year than the previous year. The author Gary Chapman told me that the book only sold a few thousand copies the first year. And then a few more the next year. And a few more after that. And so on and so on until they were selling millions of copies each year. Why did it sell so well? It was the idea, Dr. Chapman told me. He gave a name to something people were already struggling with. And the idea spread.

Yes, big launches work and gimmicks can help. But the real marketing power of the book is the message itself and how good of a job you do getting that message to spread.

But it's not just enough to have a great idea and not shut up about it. It helps to occasionally have some big splashes. Whether that's an online marketing and PR campaign or some kind of promotion, doing these one-off pushes can help you break into new markets and create momentum that wouldn't otherwise exist.

Redefining a Bestseller

If you do this, if you focus not on just the big launch but on the long tail sales trajectory of your book, you will win.

You may not sell 10,000 copies in a week and hit the NYT bestsellers list only to never be heard from again.

But you will do something better. You will create a real best seller. A book that continues to sell a lot of copies for a long, long time. Which is all the title should have ever meant.

Isn't that what you really want anyway?

If you follow this process and keep talking about your book, getting it in front of new people and even relaunching it on occasion, believing that many people who have yet to hear about it do need this book, then you won't have to worry about spending $200,000 on a book launch.

You will have done something so much better.

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Jeff Goins is the author of four books including the national best seller, The Art of Work, which you can get for $2.99 this week only. Jeff lives just outside Nashville, TN with his family. You can find him on Twitter @jeffgoins and follow his award-winning writing blog.

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Tim says: What do you do if you release a book and it flops? This topic is an important one and I will be addressing more in the future.

By the way, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of The Art of Work. It is one of four books that I recommend constantly. I have three copies at my house right now because I keep them on hand to give away to people as much as possible. I rarely recommend books on my site, but this is one you don't want to miss.

How do you get big name authors, bloggers, and influencers to promote your book?

I'll admit it. This is the hardest part for me too.

But several years ago I landed on something that is easy to do and works every time.

In fact, it was what took me from a behind-the-scenes nobody with a small self-published book, to a recognized expert in my field who was selling hundreds of copies a week.

For the first time ever, I'm going to share this strategy publicly.

This isn't a theoretical framework that might work for you.

It's step-by-step how to find the right influencer, exactly what copy to use in your email, and how to get a “yes”.

You don't have to be a big time author (I wasn't) or an extroverted salesy author (I'm definitely not).

I'm teaching
“How to Get Influencers to Promote Your Book”
in a live, free training this coming
Monday, February 8th.

There are 2 times available:

• 11am Pacific / 2pm Eastern – Click Here to signup for this time.
• 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern – Click Here to signup for this time.

Also, you'll want to make sure to grab your spot (there's only 1000) and show up live, because I'll be doing a giveaway and special offer that's only available during the live presentation.

I'm excited to teach this strategy and help you with the hardest part of a book launch.