Welcome to the 61st episode of The Author Hangout, a podcast designed to help authors, especially self-published and indie authors, with marketing their books and improving their author platform. Authors struggle with various aspects of marketing and we are here to help!
“Think of your favorite author. It’s almost a no-brainer for you to buy.”– Nick Cole
Secret Launches & ARCs
In this episode, bestselling author Nick Cole shares some great tips about how he does a book launch, as well as some tips for using advance readers to get reviews for your book.
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Intro
This is a special episode… bestselling author Nick Cole shares some great insights to how he does book launches and also talks about advance reader copies of your book as well. We go off-script, but there are some new thoughts on this that we haven’t heard anyone else talking about.
We’ll share some of the clips below, but you need to hear the podcast for all of the goodies!
The Problem
Nick sets the tone for the whole interview:
I was beginning to observe people and how they were releasing their books. What I’ve noticed in the industry right now, in the Indie side, I’m a traditionally published author. I’m noticing there’s a fatigue level. There’s an oversharing because of social media. I saw people oversharing. They would go…and this is going to be focused on ARCs, but I saw people literally dropping their entire mailing list of free ARC or selling merchandise. Talking to them about, here’s the cover, here’s a sample chapter and blah, blah, blah. What I was thinking to myself is, we now have a generation of people… there’s this “instant gratification” culture now and we rail about it but maybe as marketers and people who are selling things, we might actually want to embrace the “instant gratification” because that’s what’s working in this culture.
Creating No-Brainer Buying Situations
Nick shares how to make your followers and fans want to buy your book instantly:
“A lot of people talk about it but I think your best bet that you can do as a writer is to cultivate a reader base and then try to put a little showmanship into it and create a mini-happening instead of having them look at their calendar on Monday and say, “Oh, Facebook is reminding me I have to go to this person’s launch party.” You’re turning it into a job for them instead of “Oh wow! What a bonus!” Right now, think of the favorite author that you’re reading, and just think… if you went on Facebook right now and they were, “Surprise! We have this out for you and it’s $.99.” It’s almost a no-brainer for you to buy. You know what I mean? You’ll be like, “I do love this person’s work, and I’m going to go for it.””
This is a great way to look at it!
On Using Secrecy at Launch
This is why Nick chooses secrecy over building hype:
“I see these people immediately go out and start talking about this book they’re working on. “I just got a new cover for my book.” And they’re so proud of it. Don’t do that because that emotionalism is like a little jar with only so much in it and every time you do something, you take that emotionalism out. Save it for the day when they’ll buy it and they’ll go onto social media and say, “I just bought Nick Cole’s new book and it’s exciting!” Now you’re just going to sail in some social media love.”
Final Parting Words
Some final words from Nick about book launches and book marketing in general:
“Finally, to give everybody a big break so that it’s not so overwhelming, in the end, there’s only so much you can do to launch a book and it’s just got to swim. There are many great books that never swam. It just depends where the culture is at the time, what’s going on. In my life I just think, whatever God wants it to be, that’s what it’s going to be. I don’t get too upset whether it resonates or it doesn’t resonate because you don’t know. No one knows.”
Great stuff, Nick!
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Other Episodes
Get caught up on the other episodes of The Author Hangout that you may have missed:
- Ep 145: “Million Dollar Book Business”
- Ep 144: “Network Net Worth”
- Ep 143: “Learning to Hack Learning”
- Ep 142: “Making Of The Perfect Optin”
- Ep 141: “Coaching Breeds Author Success”
- Ep 140: “Gumroad for Authors”
- Ep 139: “Above The Noise”
- Ep 138: “Goal Setting Check-in”
- Ep 137: “Relying On Others”
- Ep 136: “Honest Conversations on Book Marketing”
- Ep 135: “Recognition of Hard Work”
- Ep 134: “Improving Kindle Book Rankings”
- Ep 133: “Making Money Fast?”
- Ep 132: “Book Marketing & Book Launches”
- Ep 131: “Authors Answers: How To Get Book Reviews”
- Ep 130: “Author Answers: Author Street Teams”
- Ep 129: “Author Answers: Using KDP Select or Not”
- Ep 128: “Traffic, Subscribers, and Sales”
- Ep 127: “Book Marketing Tips from Experts (Part 7)”
- Ep 126: “Media Interviews & Book Marketing”
- Ep 125: “Book Marketing Tips from Experts (Part 6)”
- Ep 124: “Goal Setting for Authors”
- Ep 123: “Author Answers: Social Media Engagement”
- Ep 122: “Speaking, Podcasts & Mailing Lists”
- Ep 121: “Authors Answers: DIY Blog Tours”
- Ep 120: “Book Launches & Pay-Per-Click Advertising”
- Ep 119: “Author Answers: Choosing Comparison Titles”
- Ep 118: “Writing as a Career & Audiobooks”
- Ep 117: “Self-Publishing & Book Launches”
- Ep 116: “Podcasting for Book Marketing”
- Ep 115: “Author Answers: Best Marketing Activities”
- Ep 114: “Book Launches & Video Marketing”
- Ep 113: “Writing Faster, Marketing Smarter”
- Ep 112: “Book Marketing Momentum”
- Ep 111: “Building Book Launch Teams”
- Ep 110: “Book Launches and Distribution”
- Ep 109: “Email Lists & Facebook Live”
- Ep 108: “Facebook Ads for Book Marketing”
- Ep 107: “NaNoWriMo, Writing, and Marketing”
- Ep 106: “Book Marketing Success & Failure”
- Ep 105: “Telling Stories & Reaching Readers”
- Ep 104: “Connect With Other Authors”
- Ep 103: “Maximizing Your Book Marketing”
- Ep 102: “Audiobooks and Book Marketing”
- Ep 101: “Author Email Marketing Automation”
- Ep 100: “Looking Back, Looking Forward”
- Ep 099: “Maximizing Book Promotions”
- Ep 098: “Meta Data Is Your Brand”
- Ep 097: “Kindle in Motion & More”
- Ep 086 – How To Create an Irresistible Opt-In Incentive
