Publishing using a launch company

[Justin Gesso]

Do they charge a flat rate, or a percentage, or both?

For me, it was a flat fee. I do not believe they do a % option, but it may be worth asking for authors who are interested in that route.

 

[germandude]

You focus on noise over signal. How good is your book? It's about success I presume, in which case you are one of those fake gurus MJ is talking in the book.

 

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[Justin Gesso]

You focus on noise over signal. How good is your book? It's about success I presume, in which case you are one of those fake gurus MJ is talking in the book.

Can you clarify the noise over signal? Seems like a fairly blanket statement. Regarding the book, yes...I believe it's high quality as do the initial readers. I put a lot of effort in and am proud of it. I do genuinely live what it describes and don't claim to be a guru...I'm always learning too. I've accomplished something a lot of people would like to, and it would be awesome if people were inspired and helped by it. I think it's natural to want to write a book at this point.

 

[Justin Gesso]

@Justin Gesso Thank you for sharing your results!

I'm really surprised at a few things Epic Launch missed for being a company that specializes in ebook launches and hope the following comments help you and others reading.

1) The Publishing Date and New Releases badge. The book shouldn't have been published 1 month prior to release. Maybe a week before, at max, so your advanced reviewers can post their honest reviews. Because it's been past 30 days, you won't rank on the top right where there are "Hot New Releases." Keeping in mind that more sales means higher sales rank and more organic visibility, that's a LOT of lost sales and email captures.

2) At 7.95, your book will vanish off the front page without paid traffic. Then it'll lower to 1 sale every other day (200k+ ranking). Your current number of reviews won't organically sustain a $8 book, especially with the competition you have in your categories. I'm assuming you've increased the book price so your FB Ads and Amazon Ads have a positive ROI. If that's the case and the strategy works, continue with it. If the paid traffic still produces a negative ROI, you need to think about the purpose of your book. If it's a lead gen to signup for your email list so you can sell a higher value product or service, then you should keep it at 99c or 2.99 for a much longer time and ride off the front page traffic. Then supplement that with paid ads depending on the purpose behind this launch. Although 2.99 will subsidize your ads and you still won't breakeven, you'll get a lot more sales, more email signups and make your real sales on the backend with your products or services.

3) Audiobook? For non-fiction, this typically adds another 30-50% of sales.

4) Bestseller status: I've personally never liked how authors claim to be international bestsellers by ranking on top of sub-subcategories and selling <1000 paid copies...but to each his own.

5) Going forward (assuming you have an upsell product or service). I would determine the price point so your lead gen has maximum downloads and stays visible on the front page. Do your media tour and have them link back to your site for some backlinks and to establish more authority. Continue FB ads to your book if it's an effective lead gen or maybe straight to your product or service if the kindle demographic doesn't match your target audience. Explore other marketing like email ads (e.g. bookbub). Ensure you have a FB pixel to fire on certain pages for retargeting efforts on the upsell. That's all I can think of for now. Good luck!

Awesome feedback. Exactly the sort of discussion I was hoping to generate.

I will pass this info along to the Epic guys to get their take.

I do plan to do an audio book, but did not launch with one. Good to know on the sales percentages.

As for the price, that's very timely. I will certainly monitor and bring it back down to $2.99 if I start losing traction.

Great post...thanks.

 

[Justin Gesso]

@Omni I took your advice and dropped the price to 2.99. The sales volume shot way up. As I let this rebuild reviews, it's pretty clear I'll need to keep the price down.

Based on your comment, it sounds like you have a price/review ratio or some sort of sliding scale in mind. Would you share more detail (numbers and targets) on how you'd grow a book at this stage?

Thanks again.