A Book Launch Horror Story – this is really a no-shit true story about what you should (and, more important, what you should NOT) do when launching a book.
Early in the 2008 Presidential election season, a client wanted to launch a tell-all expose he’d written. It was about one of the more impressive primary candidates for President, which made it topical and national. We decided to lauch it in Washington and New York City, and frankly, my team and I did everything right. However, the client made two simple mistakes – one limiting (but not quite fatal), but one ground-zero-destructive. These two choices ultimately undid all the good we’d delivered. These two simple choices were made AMA – Against Marketing Advice.
We set the book to be launched at the National Press Club in Washington DC – it’s like a frat house for reporters (but without the keggers). The NPC is where reporters and TV news crews hang out between breaking news stories. The club hosts press conferences and helps promote them in-house – the club’s host-service is very cost-effective – they do a great job.
We got 40 reporters and 4 TV crews at the launch press conference for an unknown author’s first book, which is pretty spectacular. We then did a mini-press tour in DC and NYC, and again, we knocked the announcement out of the park. Altogether, we generated favorable press coverage that includes:
- A 30-minute interview on an international cable business network program
- An interview on Sirius Satellite Radio – the host said, four times in one hour: “you MUST buy and read this book!”
- In-depth, favorable articles in the Washington Times and the Washington Examiner
- 500-plus discrete Internet-search news citations, almost all of them favorable
Those were the things we did right. What the client did wrong:
- The book was only available in digital form (this was 2008, when eBooks were hardly as popular as they are now) – he was lazy – basically, he didn’t want to be bothered with selling and fulfilling print book orders, and in doing so he wrote off about 80 percent of the book-buying market
- The book was NOT available on Amazon – he didn’t want to share the royalties with Amazon, and this wiped out far more than 80 percent of the eBook market
The result? My team and I generated more than 500 discrete press coverage events, almost all of them quite favorable – but our know-it-all client sold only 10 books. Ten Freakin’ Books!
Why? First, because his book was only available as an eBook when eBooks were not yet cool. Second, because his book wasn’t available on Amazon. And finally, because a significant majority of people didn’t yet trust (and many still don’t trust) giving their credit cards to unknown one-product websites.
In short, he made every marketing mistake possible, and he made those mistakes in the worst possible way. One was harshly limiting, the second was even more limiting, and the third was absolutely fatal.
Oh, there was one more take-away. The author chose to blame us – or more particularly me – despite the fact that I’d done everything but shout at him about the boneheaded marketing/sales/fulfillment mistakes he was making, and also despite the impressive and positive press coverage we generated. His sales failure lead him to decide to send me two (not one, two) email death threats. Upon legal advice, I was forced to file police reports. By the way, police reports are less exciting than kissing your maiden aunt, and no more effective in stopping a potential murderer. Their only value was, if I actually was murdered, the cops would know where to start looking for my murderer.
Ten years later, I’m still alive, so they were only threats, but at the time they were a bit exciting!
Here are some take-away lessons:
- The National Press Club is a great place to launch national books that have a tie-in with politics, government or issues touched by the government
- A mini-press tour in DC and NYC is a valid, viable and relatively low-cost way of promoting a book launch
- Authors should offer their books for sale in multiple formats – eBook, POD/print, and if possible, Audio (not particularly relevant, but it still fits – also offer branded merchandising so fans can spend more money buying hats and shirts and coffee mugs
- Offer your book on Amazon. Even if it’s available nowhere else, you’ll reach 80 percent of the American book market.
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