How to (re) launch a book?

[Joshua]

I was just hearing about how its never too late to relaunch one of your books - meaning that a book launch isn't a one-time, initial thing, but something you can do whenever you want - or even should do every six to twelve months or so. I'd never thought of that before. I'm thinking of doing this for a Kindle title that's about a year old and was trying to come up with a strategy. My last "launch" consisted of just letting people know on social media, but that was about it. I'd prefer to not spend much money ... but this time around understand it might be necessary to at least spend some. For those of you who have successful book launches (or re-launches), what did you find helpful?

[Christina]

I technically relaunched my first series this summer. By that, I went through an intensive edit on every book, reformatted them so that they were all uniform on Kindle, updated the covers, and published them as paperbacks.

As far as advertising, I didn't do much. I just put out a few notices on social media and an author friend did an interview (her idea) on her blog. I released a couple of cut scenes and an exclusive short story to my blog, but very few people have ever looked at that.

I guess technically I 'relaunched' again today when I put the entire trilogy into a complete collection, but again, besides some social media shouting, I didn't do much to advertise it.

[Joshua]

Thanks, Christina. Did you find that your relaunching of your first series was effective? Congrats on your latest relaunch, by the way.

[Christina]

Hard to say for sure. I participated in a group promotion right after and managed to snag about 600 downloads of the first book, which has spilled over into sales and KU downloads, so I'd like to think the new cover was more eye catching, but as part of a free giveaway, that likely had a huge hand in it.

I've seen a couple of authors who go through and update their cover every so often to make it 'fresh.' That might be all you need, really. :)

[Joshua]

Yeah, I'm in the midst of updating the cover and may add a few new illustrations. I will probably also lower the price to 99 cents as well to see if that helps. I ended up not signing up for KDP select again since I didn't really find it helped very much. I did some promotions, including a free giveaway, and though a number of people downloaded it, it didn't really translate into much on the end. In fact, I think I ended getting a grand total of 1 review, a one star on Amazon from someone who said the book was too complicated and she didn't finish it - lol. So I'm going to look at some other platforms, like experimenting with Smashwords as well. Have any of you had success with paid advertising?

[Christina]

I don't do any paid advertising. Can't afford to and the way I see it, those who do only see a temporary boost. I can get the same the temporary lift by gambling with my free days.

[Nate]

I highly recommend KDP select, especially since July when they started paying us per page read in Kindle Unlimited. I actually make more from borrows than I do from sales now at the current rates.
KDP also lets you keep your 70 percent royalty rate during promotions like the Kindle Countdown deal so while you are giving away your book at a promo price like $0.99 you are making most of that as opposed to $0.30 or so like normal. When you schedule your promotion, sign up for some email blasts on sites like Bookbear or Booksends and make sure it's getting promoted at least every day of the sale by a different promoter (or multiple). You will spend a little money but many of these email blasts are only $5-$25. Not excessive. I have had good success this way so far and planning another round with my next session of KDP select. Only downside of that is you can only do it every 90 days. But that is probably best. Keeps the deal seeming "fresh".

[Joshua]

Thanks for your tips, all. I will check out Bookbear and Booksends. I had looked at one like that before - I think it was Bookbub? - but the rates were really high, so I bowed out.

The most I have spent so far has been with Facebook for a month with a budget of $100 (about $3.50) per day. Didn't always get quite to that each day (each click on the ad comes out of your budget), and though it generated consist exposure to my website, it didn't generate any sales. It was just one experiment, but I'm gathering from it that people go on social media to be, you know, social, and not to click on ads and buy stuff. Can't say I blame them!

But ... have any of you had a different experience with social media ads?

[Nate]

Make sure you use specific targeting on your ads. You can target fans of other authors etc. Facebook is tricky to get right. If you want a ton of other info on what other people have tried, browse around the writers cafe on Kboards. I also highly recommend the podcast RockingSelfPublishing.com. I've learned a ton from other authors on there.

[Andrew]

I changed the title of my book and it started to sell. What's in a name? Apparently quite a lot! Good Luck.