What I learned from my FAILED book launches ?
In my 20s I wrote and published 18 novels under 2 pen names. Some were bestsellers. Several were total flops that broke my heart.
Here are some painful rookie lessons I learned firsthand.
? Just because I think it’s the best book evaaaaa doesn’t mean the market will feel the same way.
? No marketing/ ads = no scaling. (Silly me thought my book was so brilliant it would sell itself)
? Running $$$ ads for a product no one wants = flushing money down the toilet
? No fans/network = no sales (if you launch first with no audience/recognition/self-marketing, there’s a 95% chance you’ll fail.
? No one owes you their hard-earned money (especially in a saturated niche)
? No one’s going to steal your work or pirate it (I was TERRIFIED about this. But seriously, unless you’re already famous and even then, no one will straight up rip off your work and put in all the time, money and energy to market it.)
? Cover designs and product descriptions matter. A LOT. Pay for a good designer/copywriters or get really good at doing those 2 things. (You have 2 seconds to grab shoppers’ attention with these 2 things.)
? If you put yourself out there you will get haters, spammers and really harsh negative reviews. Your family will criticize and doubt you. Every day is an emotional rollercoaster and not everyone is cut out for the limelight.
? It’s stupid easy to burn out and it takes an insane amount of planning, money, self-discipline and grit to succeed.
Crazy thing is, I more or less “knew” most of these things right from the start, but as a newbie at the time, I thought I was special and the rules didn’t apply to me ?