Soft Book Launches

Purpose:??The purpose of a soft launch is to provide a time when beta-readers, ARC reviewers, friends, family members, and other members of your launch team can get a discounted copy of your eBook before the formal launch.??Your goal is to boost your initial sales ranking and to get early reviews.

Why Do a Soft Launch:

–??????Amazon’s algorithms determine how and when your book will show up in search results and in ad sections.??The algorithms are proprietary in nature and no one outside Amazon has specific knowledge of how they function.??However, sales ranking and reviews/ratings are generally believed to play prominent roles in the algorithmic calculations.

–??????Sales rankings are mostly driven by the number of sales in a single day and by sustained sales over time.??A large cluster of sales near the launch date will help to boost sales rankings.

–??????Reviews carry more weight if they are from “Verified Purchases.”??Only reviews from “Verified Purchases” will propagate to foreign Amazon markets across the globe.??Also reviews from “Verified Purchases” will appear above those from non-verified sources, even if those other reviews have more “helpful” ratings.??Any reviews by your beta-readers or ARC readers will carry more weight if they purchase a copy of the eBook from Amazon during the soft launch.??Note that KU subscribers who open the eBook under their KU agreement will also count as “Verified Purchasers.”

–??????A soft launch can help to create marketing buzz to support your hard launch.??You will have more people involved in your book launch, and they can share the news with family, friends, and social media contacts on launch day.

Considerations for Doing a Soft Launch

–??????Be sure to warn your beta-readers and launch team members not to post comments on their social media pages or to email friends about the soft launch discounts.??The book does not formally launch until the hard launch date.

–??????It is best to keep the soft launch period short—usually a few days to a week.??You want your soft launch sales to be as clustered as possible.??Ideally, you would want they all to occur on the same day, but that is not practical, so you can support a period of a few days up to one week.

–??????If possible, your beta-readers and launch team members should post reviews during the soft launch window so that they are approved and posted to your product page on hard launch day.

–??????Amazon tries to block reviews from family members and close friends.??That said, these reviews often make it through Amazon’s screening process and get approved.??It is always worth trying for family members and close friends to post reviews.??They do not need to be long in order to be effective.??It is also better if they refer to you in more generic terms, like “the author,” or by using your last name instead of just your first name, so you don’t seem too familiar to them.

Where to Find Launch Team Members

–??????Your beta-readers and ARC reviewers are the ideal candidates for your launch team.??They have already read your draft manuscript and provided comments.

–??????You can also select a small group of people from your email distributing list.??If this is not your first book, then soft launch special pricing is a nice reward for some of your superfans.??They get your latest book early and at a discounted price.?

Process

–??????Identify your launch team members two weeks before your hard launch date.??Send a couple of emails to your launch team to create a sense of anticipation and build marketing buzz.

–??????On the soft launch date, set the price of your eBook to $0.99.??You can also lower the price of your paperback if your retail price is significantly above the minimum retail price allowed by KDP, based on your printing costs.

–??????On your soft launch date, ask your launch team members if they would do you a favor and buy a copy of the eBook for $0.99 or the discounted paperback in order to help boost your sales rankings.??Make sure they know this is special pre-launch pricing for select people and that the price will be raised to the normal retail price on the formal launch date.

–??????Send your beta readers an email with the answers they provided to your beta-read questions and ask if they would be willing to post a review on Amazon using insights from their own comments.??This lowers the barrier to providing a review and makes it more likely that they will do it.??Be sure to provide a direct link to the review section for your book on Amazon.

–??????Send an email to other launch team members and ask them to post a review.??In this email, give them some sample ideas they can include in their reviews.??You can prompt them with suggestions like these:

• What other authors did this book remind you of?
• What other books are similar to this one???(e.g., if you liked “Hunger Games” you will love this new novel.)
• How did they feel when they finished the book?
• What character did could they best relate to?
• What kind of reader might like this book?

–??????On the formal launch day, raise the price to the regular retail price.??Remember that this action could take up to 24 hours to process, though it generally happens within a few hours.

–??????Invite your launch team members to your launch party (virtually or in-person) and thank them formally in front of your other guests.

–??????Create social media posts for your book launch and ask your launch team members to “like” and forward the posts.

About the Author:??Bryan E. Canter is a publishing consultant with My Word Publishing.??He also manages audiobook production projects through ACX for his clients.??As an author, he has independently published his own historical fiction novels and worked through ACX to develop them into audiobooks.??If you have a manuscript you would like to publish or a book you would like to hear come alive in audio, contact Bryan for a free consultation:??https://www.mywordpublishing.com/our-team/bryan-canter/