launch strategy – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 83: Using the Slow Burn Launch Strategy to Stick on Amazon and the Pitfalls of Genre Hopping

May 31, 2016 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

The guys chatted about their recent experiences with book launches and also how their genre hopping adventures are going. In addition, they discussed the slow-burn launch strategy that a lot of indie authors have been using to great success.

Here are a few more details of what they covered:

How does their launch strategy differ now than from when they were first starting out?
Using three books to launch into a new genre or a new pen name, or at least committing to writing and publishing three before giving up.
The challenges of genre hopping (even within the umbrella of science fiction and fantasy) and whether or not it’s going to be a career killer.
How they’ve gone about finding beta readers to use before sending a manuscript off to an editor for a final pass.
Critique groups Lindsay has used for science fiction/fantasy: The SFF Online Writing Workshop and Critters.org.
How KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited are playing into most successful book launches now.
When pre-orders make sense and if one should consider selling at a lower price during the pre-order.
How just launching your book and sending out an announcement to your newsletter subscribers probably won’t be enough to make your book “stick” on Amazon.
Segmenting and staggering your newsletter so it goes out to different groups of subscribers over multiple days to fight against the “Bookbub Effect.”
Booking “new release” ad slots on sponsorship sites and how many of them are offering that now.
Kboards thread referenced in the show: Slow burn launch for stickiness by Aimee Easterling [includes links to many of the siates that will book new releases]
Another one: A mini-guide to launch promo services by Nicholas Erik