Today’s guest post is from a past client of mine, Allison Rose. She’s sharing her book launch strategy for her most recent novel, Outcast, which got over 500 downloads in her launch week.
To entice readers and get my books into as many hands as possible, my books are free for two days when they release.
For the release of my second book, I knew I wanted to surpass the free downloads of my first book, but I never expected to get over 500 downloads.
Outcast is a prequel story to my YA fantasy novel The Nameless that had already been released months earlier.
Background Info:
For Outcast’s release, I knew I wanted to go big and to make sure readers knew why this prequel story was so important to the series.
The focus was on my main character, Kelty, who is an outcast of Faerie. This prequel shows how she came to be cast out, and I chose to make it a standalone because I didn’t feel like a summary in The Nameless would do it justice.
The Strategy:
I did give out early copies of Outcast to a small street team so that I would have a few reviews on Amazon and Goodreads around release time or earlier. This got me two five-star reviews to use in my promotional content.
Instagram is my chosen social media platform, given that my audience is YA. I did a series of posts in the week leading up to the release date (with some personal posts mixed in so it wasn’t all about my book):
Instagram Content Schedule:
- Official release post a week beforehand letting readers know that I was going to share sneak peeks and other tidbits about it over the next week.
- Teaser quote.
- Introduction of myself and my writing, saying that tomorrow I would explain why I write about faeries.
- Teaser quote.
- Why I write about faeries, ending with tomorrow I will tell you about my faeries.
- Intro to my faeries, ending with tomorrow I will tell you about why I wrote Outcast.
- Teaser quote.
- Why I wrote Outcast, ending with soon I’ll share an early review.
- BookBub review of Outcast.
- Picture of my dog relaxing while I prep for release day.
- Official release day post letting everyone know Outcast is free on Amazon for two days and The Nameless is marked down to $0.99 for those two days as well. (This post was boosted at a total of $3.)
- Thank-you post when Outcast hit #1 in several categories in the Kindle free store.
Paid Promos:
- Over the two free days, I ran a Facebook/Instagram ad for Outcast.
- On the second day, I ran a BookDoggy ad for Outcast.
- On both days, I ran one promo on Book Cave for The Nameless at $0.99.
My Secret Weapons:
- Copy for the blurb and ads written with help from Pagan (she’s great at it!).
- Great cover mockups from DIY Book Design.
- Focusing more on why I wrote this story and what readers will get out of it, rather than the sale.
The Numbers (of free downloads for Outcast):
Day 1 (Sunday)- 110
Day 2 (Monday)- 446
And there you have it!
If you love fantasy and faeries, don’t forget to check out Allison and her books below.
Kelty now lives as an outcast faerie in the human world. But before she was cast out, an encounter with a deceiving faerie resulted in a devastating trick—one that changed Kelty’s life forever in this enthralling untold story.
Driven by a lifelong passion for words and reading fantasy novels, Allison Rose writes YA fantasy stories featuring faeries, magic, and strong heroines. She has a BA in psychology and is fascinated by how other people think, but her love for reading and writing is greater. When Allison isn’t writing, she is proofreading the works of others. Allison lives with her fiancé, collie mix, bunny, and chinchilla in the place of wild weather also known as Buffalo, New York.
Connect With Allison:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/allison.rose.author
Website: www.allisonroseauthor.com