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How to launch your book using book promotion sites and services

Writing and self-publishing a book is a great side hustle and way to make money. But there are over 6,000 books published DAILY. Even if you have fantastic content, how are you supposed to stand out?

In my post How to Write a Book and Make Money – 3 Phase Plan, I talk about the bigger picture of releasing a book including how much money you can make. For this post, I want to focus on “Phase 3,” which is Launch!

The key is to concentrate as much traffic as possible on a 1-3 day launch. You utilize book promotion sites and services to boost your reach and get you in front of as many target readers as possible. These services do cost money, but should deliver a positive return on investment and also make your book successful going forward on its own.

I personally used this approach to go from a relative unknown to a bestselling author. This approach has helped maintain solid rankings and sales, while also delivering a good volume of reviews. I know many other authors who have written outstanding books, but failed to ever get any traction with them. Instead, they fell into the abyss of Amazon. They should’ve launched. Here’s how you can…

To stand out…launch your book and other products

The basic idea is that in order to stand out from the massive abundance of content, which again is…

Every day 2.7 million blog posts are created (HostingFacts.com 2016) and over 6,000 books are published (Wikipedia, 2017) That is a TON of content to compete against.

…you have to concentrate your attack. You can’t release a book and market it over time. Rather, you need to launch. You need to coordinate all available resources to drive massive traffic to your book all over the course of a few days.

This attack should be enough that your book rises on your marketplace’s rankings (Amazon.com) and that marketplace begins delivering you organic sales. Once this happens, and assuming your content is good, you should expect to stay consistently high in the rankings and to generate sales ongoing.

This concept doesn’t just apply to books. It applies to nearly every side hustle and small business (here’s my list of great small business ideas and side hustles). You have to concentrate your attack to stand out.

I discuss this concept of launching in much more detail in my book The Book on Small Business Ideas. (PS- as of this writing, this book’s launch is coming up in a couple of weeks.)

Launch resources available for your marketing push

So your job is to put your book on Amazon.com and then schedule a launch date. On this launch date, you’ll focus all of your marketing power to drive as much traffic as possible. You’ll likely discount your book on the first day of the launch to leverage some of the 6 Persuasive Communication Tips I recommend.

Common tools at your disposal:

  1. Your social media friends and followers
  2. Your email list
  3. Your website
  4. Kindle Countdown deal
  5. Paid ads (on Facebook and such)
  6. Book promotion websites
  7. Book promotion services

As you can see, items 1 through 3 are free, but require you to have a following. If you have a huge following, you can likely launch a book yourself without any outside help. You’ll prepare numerous email, numerous social media posts, and gear your site toward the launch.

Item 4 is part of the KDP Select program.

But these alone may not be enough to push you high enough into the rankings to really launch with a bang that sustains.

How to use book promotion sites and services

To fill the gap, you can leverage book promotion sites and services. You can also augment with Facebook ads, but I’ll leave those out of this discussion.

Each have their own requirements, such as discount level, review count and rating, length, etc…

Book promotion sites are sites that Kindle owners subscribe to in order to receive notification of good deals on books they may be interested in. Bookbub.com is a great example.

Book promotion services are services that share info about your book launch on social media platforms, Facebook reader groups, and more. They are virtual assistants who save you time in announcing your book as broadly as possible.

The book promotion launch plan

On top of your own launch marketing campaign through your channels, you do a Kindle Countdown deal, and layeron book promotion sites and services to ensure your book gets enough traffic to stand out.

And don’t worry if your book launch doesn’t go perfect the first time. You can relaunch your book again in the near future. These services do cost money, but they should provide you with a positive return on investment.

Do be aware that exposing your book to many thousands of people can be a dual-edged sword. I would only do this with a truly high quality book. If your book is sub par, you’re inviting thousands of readers who may leave you negative reviews. But assuming your book is awesome, expect to gain a lot of purchases and positive reviews that will help sustain the ongoing success of your book.

Some tips on being professional and high quality:

  1. How to get a great editor for your self-published book without breaking the bank
  2. How to get great editorial reviews for your book
  3. How to Write a Book and Make Money – 3 Phase Plan

And you also need a great cover so you visually stand out!

List of book promotion sites and services

I have tested many of these launch services and have a few favorites:

Book Promotion Sites

  1. BookBub (book submission link here)
  2. Many Books (book submission link here)
  3. Bargain Booksy (book submission link here)

Book Promotion Services

  1. James Mayfield
  2. BK Knights
  3. BuckBooks

The prices vary wildly on those. Some are $5. Some are several hundred. If you are pursuing book publishing as a business, you will need to do the upfront time investment (writing, editing, etc…) and upfront money investment (launching and marketing) to reach critical mass and create an ongoing income stream.

For a full list of book promotion sites and services, check out Kindlepreneur’s post 127 of the Top Free and Paid Book Promotion Sites. If you subscribe to the blog, you’ll also receive his shortlist of the 10 most effective. Though be aware that many factors will dictate your success with a particular list, so results certainly vary.

What do you think? What services have you used successfully? Let me know in the comments below…

2 thoughts on “How to launch your book using book promotion sites and services

  1. Great article Justin and thanks for the mention. I’d have to say out of all of them landing a BookBub deal in the holy grail, but you need more than a shrubbery to land that baby. 🙂

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