The book launch is one of the most important and least understood phases of your author journey.

Many authors believe that if they simply write a masterpiece, readers will flock to retailers and demand to buy a copy. But every day thousands of books are released. The day your book releases, it will compete with thousands of other books to capture the reader’s attention, not to mention their money.

 If you do not have a strategic book launch plan, your book will get lost in all that noise. 

The hard and painful lessons of book launching often become apparent in the aftermath of a failed book launch. To make matters worse, you only get one chance to launch your book unless you are willing to revise and re-release it. 

But you can avoid those painful lessons by observing from the sidelines what others have learned the hard way on the field. 

If you proactively apply the following lessons, you can avoid the pain of a failed book launch.

Lesson #1 Good Launches Take Time to Prepare

The key to book launch success is preparation. 

The biggest killer of indie book launches is launching too quickly. If you have the patience to let the anticipation build, you will sell a lot more copies.   

You don’t necessarily have to wait two years like traditional authors. But you’ll have an advantage if you plan months in advance to coordinate interviews, emails, and launch team activities to happen during the same window of time. This also makes it more likely get a bestseller (or #1 New Release) badge on Amazon.

It takes time to build your email newsletter list.

Barring a viral response to a post, video, or webinar that captures email addresses, you will need six months to a year to build an email list. It’s like the miracle of compound interest. Time is your friend. The sooner you start, the longer it has to grow.

It takes time to set up media interviews.

Contacting podcasters, radio hosts, and media outlets requires organization and forethought. Although your email may send instantaneously, there may be weeks of waiting for a response. If you’re granted an interview, you may have to a few more weeks for the interview to be conducted and recorded. Weeks or months later, it will finally go live. 

It takes time to assemble a launch team.

The communication and the technical pieces of preparing a place for them to gather—whether it be a Facebook group or another platform—require organization and often, assistance. Readers need adequate time to receive and read your book, and then more time to formulate and post their review. 

Lesson #2 Big Platforms Make for Big Launches

For a rocket to launch, there must be a launchpad. Your platform is that launchpad. 

The bigger your platform, the bigger your launch can be. But we all have to start somewhere. 

You can have a successful launch with a modest platform. In fact, if you launch your book correctly, you will grow your platform in the process and have a larger launching pad for your next book. 

So how do you build your platform? By developing your marketing assets.

* For fiction, this means reading books on craft and then writing your own short stories. If your short stories don’t hold your reader’s attention, it will be impossible to convince them that your novel will.

* For nonfiction,