This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's the best way to launch a book in 2025? Or at least at some point in the near future. In this episode, we're gonna talk about some strategies for launching a book in 2025. It could also apply to launching other projects or projects or services, but we'll focus on launching a book. From building a platform to using a multi-phase launch plan.
Today's question comes from Taylor in Seattle, Washington. She is gearing up to launch a book and wants to know the best strategies for making it a success. So things are always changing in this world. People often ask me like, what are the best current strategies? Should I go on a bunch of podcasts?
Do I buy a bunch of social media ads? Do I write guest posts? Am I trying to get traditional PR, like to go on a morning show or something else? And obviously you wanna do everything you can, but your attention is limited and your energy is limited. You can only do so much.
So what actually moves the needle, as they say, in the world of book sales, especially during the week of launch, usually maybe a two to three week period around the launch? Let's talk about it. Detailed question. And my answer based on some experience coming right up. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Taylor from Seattle.
I'm planning to launch my first book in 2025 and I just wanna make sure I do it right. So with a publishing landscape always changing, what's the best way to launch a book these days? I'd love to know about the most effective strategies for like building buzz, driving pre-orders and then, you know, getting the word out. Also, what should I focus on during the launch week itself and how can I keep the momentum going afterward? Do you have any specific tips for using social media, email lists or other marketing tools?
Like that would be really helpful. [Music]
Taylor, I too am launching a book in 2025. So I'm thinking a lot about what is most effective. How can I spend my time in an optimal way? You know, I like to work hard.
I like to do everything I can to support a book. You know, it's rare to have a book out. You work on a book for like a year and then you have this limited window in which to make it a success. So you want to do everything you can. But one thing I've learned over the years is it's not just about working hard.
You know, it's not just like say yes to every opportunity. It's more like be strategic. Like you have to work smart and hard. And so something I've seen is you need to start early. So it's good that we're thinking about this now if this book is coming out later in 2025.
You're gonna want to spend several months ahead of time just thinking through what it's going to look like. Making a list of the people and outlets that you would love to feature the book. Doing what you can to create snippets or sections like excerpts of the book to be featured. That's always a good thing if you can get that on some high traffic blogs or news sites. So part of that is thinking in advance of how can I write this book in a way that that's going to make it easy.
Podcasts definitely can help. But I think something I've seen over the years as well is you really need to choose the right podcasts. You can be on a hundred different podcasts. I've done that multiple times for book launches. And 90 of them will not have any impact or effect at all, but 10 of them will.
So you have to be a little bit selective at this point just because the podcast world is kind of saturated. With podcasts, with excerpts, with any other kind of promotion, whether it is social media ads or something else, you want to leverage pre-orders. You want to do everything you can to get people to pre-order the book. This is why you see every author always encouraging people like, "Hey, please pre-order my book." It's because it's important. It really matters a lot.
Most books, if they're going to be successful in a commercial sense, and there's more ways to be successful, of course, but in a commercial sense, in a really crowded landscape, your book has to work within the first couple of weeks. In fact, the launch week in particular is so important. Everything that has been ordered, like all the copies that have been ordered in the months and weeks leading up to launch week, they all kind of go through the system during launch week. So that's why you can have a really big week. All the book buyers for different bookstores and distributors see those numbers.
And so if you have good numbers and they want to order copies of your book, it becomes kind of a self-reinforcing cycle. On Amazon and other book retailers, there's an algorithm, like a sales algorithm. And so the more that you sell, the better off you do in the algorithm, and then the more that you sell. So it's this virtuous cycle, or at least it's a cycle, whether it's virtuous or not. So pre-orders are really important.
And then just kind of creating this multi-phase launch plan where you're thinking about the pre-orders leading up to the launch week. And then you're thinking about, okay, what comes next? Now that the book is out, most people have not read it. The book is out, but people have not read it. So you want to encourage reviews as people get the book, as they go through it.
More reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, that definitely helps. And then also just think about how you can make this book a success, not just in the launch week, but beyond. Some of the most successful books out there, they actually have not had a huge launch week, but they have just continued to sell. So that's actually much, much better. So what can you do to focus on that?
We could do a whole other episode about it, but I think that's something to think about. Think about how can you make your book a success in the long term, not just in the short term. Taylor, I'm right there with you. Hopefully you and I will both have a good book launch in 2025, and listeners, of course, if you're writing books, I'm cheering you on as well. We've got lots of authors and aspiring authors out there.
So we're all in it together. I'll keep making episodes, of course, new one every day. You can always subscribe, follow wherever you get your podcasts. Let me know what's on your mind. I want to make this as helpful as possible to you.
But for now, that's all. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
