The Anatomy of a Book Launch 5

Let’s dive into the launch that wasn’t!

So last week I officially launched my latest book, Southern Saudade. I call it my ‘impossible to market’ book, because it’s not really UF enough for most UF readers, it has romance but no ‘happily ever after’ so romance readers don’t want it, and it’s got horror things but isn’t spooky enough for the horror readers. I describe it as a spooky breakup playlist in short story form.

It’s also the best thing I’ve ever written, at least I think.

It’s also the most expensive book I have ever put out.

Yeah, there’s a lot going on there, and most of it doesn't really lend itself to having an incredible launch. But I knew that going in, so I was able to modulate my expectations. I knew long before this came out, when I saw my editing bill, that this was going to be a marathon, not a sprint, to profitability.

So yeah, lets dive in!

My Launch Strategy

Knowing this was going to be a hard sell, in a wonky category, I decided not to stress about it. I figured I would rely mostly on marketing it on my socials, with a couple of posts in places I thought I could potentially get a few looks. So I posted in r/urbanfantasy, r/southerngothic, and a few facebook groups. But mostly I just put it out there on my personal socials. A few bigger authors were kind enough to share it around, but I am not really sure how much that helped this time. Simply put its an odd fit in most spaces, and until I work out exactly how and where I am gonna market it, it’s gonna be a slow burn.

When it came to pricing, this is also my most expensive book, at 4.99. I felt justified given that its roughly 40k words longer than most of my Jubal County Saga novels, so charging an extra dollar seemed like something I could sleep at night charging. That said, I did not run any sales for it. My reasoning was I am planning to try and do some sort of Christmas or perhaps Black Friday sale with the bulk of my books, and I wanted to save my sale days for then.

I did open it up for pre-orders, something I hadn’t done with the last few Marsh novels.

The Numbers

So I am going to track this roughly like I do my Jubal County books, with showing the five day launch window. Now I do that with those books to reflect the days my books are actually on sale for the launch. But with no sale, I am really just showing that so you can see a direct comparison.

• Preorders: $32.24

• Day 1: $15.87

• Day 2: $14.16

• Day 3: $10.47

• Day 4: $10.47

• Day 5: $5.40

• Kindle Page Reads total: 3,541

• Launch Total: $88.61

• Cost: $731.50