This year marks the end of an era.
The Book Launch Blueprint is entering its seventh and final year. Since we began offering it in 2018, it has been one of our most popular courses.
What is the book launch blueprint, and why is this such a big deal?
Let’s begin with a story.
One summer day, a grasshopper danced and played while on the other side of the ground, a colony of ants was hard at work, storing food for the winter. The grasshopper invited the ants to play, but the ants replied, “We don’t have time to dance and play. We need to prepare for the winter, and so should you.”
“Stop worrying so much! There’s plenty of food and time to prepare for winter. Let’s enjoy life,” the grasshopper responded.
The ants just ignored him and got back to storing up food.
That year, winter came sooner than expected, and soon, all the food above ground was gone. The grasshopper found himself without anything to eat, so he went to the ants’ house begging for food.
“I’m sorry we can’t help you,” said the ants. “We don’t have enough food to feed a creature as large as you. If we tried, we wouldn’t have enough food for ourselves.”
“I should have followed the ants’ example in the summer. I would be so happy now,” the grasshopper thought sadly as he starved to death.
The moral of this fable is to prepare now for future challenges.
Preparation is also the key to a good book launch. It’s not as much about knowing what to do as it is about preparing ahead of time. Both are important, but preparation is key.
Why do I need a book launch?
Launching a book is one strategy that works well for indie and traditional authors. It also works well for fiction and nonfiction authors. If you were to chart those four groups on a graph, very few tactics would work for all four quadrants.
The months before and after your book release will determine how well your book will sell and whether news about your new book will spread by word-of-mouth marketing.
If you saw a book on Amazon with only seven ratings and four stars, would you want to buy it? Most readers would be scared off by the low number of ratings. The four-star rating isn’t the problem; the low number of reviews is.
When your book is new, readers don’t judge it by the number of reviews because it’s new. But after your launch window ends, readers judge a book by its number of reviews. Few reviews mean readers will be nervous to buy the book, especially if they aren’t familiar with the author.
If your book has a lot of ratings and reviews, readers will be more likely to take a risk on your book, even if they’re not familiar with you as an author.
During that first month after your release date, when you have a “New Release” badge on Amazon, readers don’t expect it to have a lot of reviews. Those first 30 days are your golden moment to get as many reviews as possible.
What if you’re traditionally published, and want to sell in brick-and-mortar stores?
Bookstores typically only stock new books for 30 to 60 days. If the stock doesn’t sell out in the first 30 days, they will return the unsold books and never order your books again. That’s the brutal business of brick-and-mortar bookstores.
A thousand new books are launched every day, and those books are competing for one or two spots on the bookshelves of a brick-and-mortar store. If you plan to sell through physical stores, a book launch is imperative to helping you sell that initial inventory.
If you sell out quickly, they’ll order more books. They might even place your book face-out to help people discover it at the bookstore.
For 30 days, you can maximize that momentum and help it grow.
However, if the stocked books don’t sell in those 30 days, your books will be returned to the publisher.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Writing a book is likely one of the hardest things you’ve ever done, and after years of work, you have only one month to convince bookstores to keep your book in stock.
If you don’t, your books will stack up in a warehouse, unsold and unread.
If they linger in the warehouse too long, they get pulped. That means your books are destroyed, dissolved into pulp, and turned into other books. It’s one of the dirty secrets of traditional publishing that no one wants to hear.
Imagine the pain of putting your life into a book only for it to be unread.
Maybe that has already happened to your first book. If very few people read your first book, the problem probably wasn’t with the book; it was the lack of a good launch.
If no one reads your book, they don’t know if it was well-written.
Word might have spread if more people had read your book when it first came out. Ultimately, word-of-mouth marketing sells books. But how can readers talk about your book if they’ve never heard of it?
Platform vs. Launch
We talk a lot about platform and launching on the Novel Marketing podcast, so let’s define some terms.
Platform is how famous you are. How many readers know who you are, like you, and trust you with their money? Your launch is how you spread the word about your new book in those first days after release.
A big platform allows you to have a big launch. Think of a rocket launch. A big rocket needs a big platform to launch successfully, but a big platform doesn’t guarantee success. Government-funded rockets have blown up on the launch pad, while high schoolers have been able to launch an iPhone into space from a field near their school. Good and big aren’t necessarily the same thing.
In fact, a good launch helps a bad book fail faster. Spreading the word about a book people don’t like won’t help the book sell. A good launch is no substitute for good writing. Nothing in the Novel Marketing method will make up for a bad book. You’ve got to write a good book.
I would argue that part of the Novel Marketing method includes writing the kind of book your readers already want to read. Your readers ultimately determine whether your book is good.
Book Launch Secrets
Secret #1: Some Authors Don’t Need a Book Launch
Some authors use other methods besides a book launch.
Profitable Advertising
Instead of doing a book launch, you could spend $10,000 or more on advertising. This method tends to work best for indie authors who are already making money by advertising profitably.
What do you mean by advertising profitably?
If you can spend $10,000 on advertising and make $12,000 in profit, you can pay yourself back for the $10,000 you spent and put $2,000 more in your pocket.
Profitable advertising takes time and practice. It may require you to test multiple book cover designs to determine which works. Your book’s cover image can make or break your ads.
The profitable advertising method doesn’t work for first-time authors or authors who haven’t yet learned how to earn money with advertising. It doesn’t really help you during that launch window. It works best when you spend a little money every day for weeks or months.
But if you have unlocked the advertising method and can profit from book sales, you don’t have to worry about a launch because you know your books will continue to sell. Advertisements will continue to bring you readers.
To learn more about advertising, check out the following episodes:
- Facebook Advertising for Authors
- Amazon Advertising
- How to Advertise Your Book on Podcasts
- How to Rank in Amazon Search Results
- How to Create Powerful Ads for Authors Who Hate Math! with Chris Fox
- How to Use BookBub to Sell More Books with David Gaughran
- Amazon Book Ads – Everything You Need to Know with Brian Berni
In my course Obscure No More, we have an entire module on advertising that I’m currently expanding.
Rapid Release
To rapid release, you must be able to rapid write. You must also have a loyal following of thousands of existing readers who’ve read and loved your previous books.
I have not seen rapid release work for brand new authors. In fact, I have seen successful rapid-releasing authors try to rapid release under a new pen name, and it does not work.
If you don’t have a large email list of thousands of happy readers, the rapid release method won’t work. If that is the case for you, I recommend The Tortoise Release Method.
Get Lucky
Some authors just get lucky. Maybe a famous person discovered their book and then recommended it in a public forum, and the book started selling like crazy. That is a wonderful serendipity, but it’s not reproducible.
Lucky authors give terrible advice. It’s like getting advice from a lottery winner about which numbers to pick. Luck isn’t a reproducible method, so don’t take advice from lucky writers.
Instead, take advice from a terribly unlucky writer who was still successful because of their grit and determination. The unlucky author will have methods you can put into practice.
Most authors need a book launch. Launches are one of the most reliable and least controversial book promotion strategies. Traditional publishers often spend every penny of the marketing budget inside that launch window.
Launches work because they use marketing fundamentals to create reproducible results every single time.
Launches work because they use marketing fundamentals to create reproducible results every single time.
Thomas Umstattd, Jr.
But again, a launch can’t fix a bad book. A book launch only works for books that readers already like.
Secret #2: A Good Launch Requires Time and Preparation
A good launch takes time to prepare.
If you’re traditionally published, you have no choice but to wait six to 18 months between turning in your completed manuscript and your release day. Yet many traditional authors sit on their hands during those six months, hoping their publisher will plan their launch. That is a terrible, terrible mistake. You want to make the most of the wait!
If you want a parade, you have to get all the floats lined up ahead of time. If you don’t, your book will get lost in the traffic.
Traditional authors are forced to wait and, therefore, have time to prepare a launch, yet many authors don’t put that time to good use. In fact, some spend that time complaining that their publisher is not launching their book sooner.
Indie authors often make the opposite mistake. Many first-time indies launch the book as soon as it’s finished. They upload their completed manuscript into Vellum, create an EPUB file, and upload it to Amazon.
That’s like giving birth to a premature baby. Just because the baby is viable doesn’t mean it’s the best time for it to be born. The same is true for your book-baby.
Give your book time to have a healthy birth. That may mean waiting several months to publish while you prepare for your launch, even though your book is 100% ready to upload.
That’s difficult advice for excited indies to hear. They’re yearning to launch the book now, but waiting could make all the difference.
If you’re working on your first book, this may be the most important tip of this entire article: Give yourself time to prepare for your launch.
Launching a book is like storing up food for the winter. It takes preparation. You can’t just dance and play your way to publishing success. The key to success is to think like an ant and prepare now for your launch date tomorrow. Don’t be like the grasshopper.
You’ll need the time to
- Grow an email list.
- Build anticipation for your book.
- Schedule media interviews.
- Practice nailing those interviews.
- Assemble a launch team.
- Request reviews.
- Plan a launch party.
- Updating your website.
- Schedule promotions.
- Plan webinars.
Book launches work, but you must give yourself the time to do it correctly. Authors who find the book launch stressful are almost always stressed because they don’t give themselves enough time to do the work.
A good book launch is like triggering an avalanche. The more noise you make, the more likely you are to get that avalanche started. That means having lots of people making noise together. If you’re the only one shouting, you’re much less likely to trigger that word-of-mouth avalanche.
Secret #3: An Effective Book Launch is Weird
The key to a good book launch is to avoid your weaknesses, play to your strengths, and be true to your unique brand. If your launch isn’t a little weird, you’re doing it wrong. If you simply copy another author’s launch, yours will be weird in all the wrong ways.
How do you launch a book?
We’ve been improving this course since it’s inception in 2018.
Books by students who take the Book Launch Blueprint often become the number-one new release in their category on Amazon. In fact, on Valentine’s Day this year, one of our authors emailed me saying her book was a number-one new release on Amazon.
Readers don’t care how many reviews a book has if it’s a number-one new release. We aim to help you create a launch plan that will help you get that number-one new release badge.
Not every book is eligible to hit a bestseller list. Many bestseller lists have various biases built in. Different lists may exclude you because they dislike your politics, publishing company, or publishing method. But almost everyone can qualify for a number-one new release badge on Amazon.
Course Summary
Each module of the four-week course is based on a weekly theme.
- Week 1: Ready
- Week 2: Set
- Week 3: Go
- Week 4: Run
Each morning, you’ll receive a video that presents the day’s material. In the afternoons, you can attend our interactive office hours to get your questions answered.
You’ll get a video and homework assignment every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Office hours will be held each day at various times to accommodate students in other time zones. During office hours, either Jim or I will answer your specific questions. You may type your questions in the chat or come on screen and ask them live.
Wednesdays will be your catch-up day, and Jim and I will host office hours together. You’ll have no new assignments or videos on Wednesdays.
You may also notice that the sessions below are offered in couplets. The first session in the couplet offers big-picture instruction on a topic, while the second session digs into specific applications.
Week 1: Ready
Monday: Session #1 How to Sell Yourself
If you feel guilty promoting your book, your book launch will fail. All the book promotion techniques in the world won’t help you if, deep down, you feel like a bad person for promoting your book. You must believe your book will improve your readers’ lives through entertainment, education, or escape. Everything else in your book launch plan depends on your mindset about promotion.
You must believe that by telling someone about your book, you’re benefiting them. If you feel they’re doing you a favor by buying your book, your launch will not go well. The more you believe in your book, the easier it will be to promote.
Pro Tip: Invest in improving your craft and learning how to write the kind of book readers already want to read. If you’re confident the reader will love your book, you’ll have a much easier time promoting and selling it.
Tuesday: Session #2 Branding
On Tuesday, we talk about branding. This session has the most homework, especially if you haven’t done branding work already. If you’re going through Obscure No More, this branding session will be easier because you’ve already done some of the hard thinking. It’s hard in the sense that you’re asking deep questions about yourself.
I teach a four-step process for discovering your brand.
Step 1: Look in the Mirror
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who am I?
- How am I weird?
- What are my strengths?
- What are my weaknesses?
- What are my unfair advantages?
Step 2: Look at Your Readers
- What do they want?
- What most appeals to them about my writing?
Step 3: Listen to Your Readers
- What do my readers say about my book?
- What words and phrases do they use to describe my writing?
Step 4: Look in Your Reader’s Mirror
What does my book allow my readers to say about themselves?
In addition to my branding method, you’ll get James L. Rubart’s branding method. He’s a bestselling Christy Hall of Fame author. He’s also the co-teacher in this course.
Wednesday: Catch Up & Combined Office Hours
Throughout the course, Wednesday will be a day to catch up on homework or videos. During our regular daily office hours, we limit questions to the day’s topic. But on Wednesdays, you can ask any launch-related question.
Thursday: Session #3 From Tech Timid to Tech Savvy: How to Master Any Technology
Children are often better than adults at using technology because they have the courage to push the button to find out what it does.
If you are afraid to push the button, you’ll have nothing but tech problems your whole life. The only way to get good with technology is to find the courage to push the button to find out what it does.
I’ve been giving versions of this talk for 10 or 15 years and have received heartfelt feedback from listeners. This session will change the way you launch books and interact with technology.
Pro Tip: Push the button and find out what it does.
Friday: Session #4 How to Maximize the Impact of Your Website
A good launch requires a good website. After we’ve taken the terror out of technology on Thursday, we’ll tackle building your own website or improving the one you have.
Your website is where readers can learn more about you. Journalists, podcasters, and book club organizers will visit your website to check you out. A good website will get you more media interaction. If your website is weak and looks unprofessional, you may lose out on opportunities to be interviewed.
Pro Tip: Your website is not for you. It’s for your readers. In your web copy, use the word “you” more than the word “I.”
Tweaking your website takes time. To get the most out of this session, I recommend working on your website as soon as you sign up for the Book Launch Blueprint. My free course, How to Build an Amazing Author Website, will help you get started. As soon as you sign up, you’ll be automatically enrolled in that free course.
While it is possible to build a website in one day, it’s much more enjoyable if you give yourself several days to do it. Since this session is on a Friday, you have the whole weekend to work on it if you want.
Pro Tip: Your website is not like a printed book that’s finished and never edited again. It’s more like a relationship you’re constantly working to improve. If you ignore it, it will slowly get worse.
Learn to work on your own website so you can keep it up to date with regular, tiny tweaks. Those ongoing changes will keep you from having to do a massive overhaul.
Week 2: Set
Monday: Session #5 How to Build a Rabid Tribe of Fans
You’ll learn how to connect with and motivate your readers to help spread the word about your book. Building a tribe can’t be rushed. It’s a relationship. Even if a relationship begins with love at first sight, it requires time to build trust. Your readers have to trust you before they’ll be willing to help you.
Building a tribe is something you’ll want to start doing right away. If you plan to launch your book next week, you won’t have time to build that trust.
Tuesday: Session #6 How to Create a Launch Team
Building a tribe is the general approach; creating a launch team is how we apply it. Your launch team must be ready to buy your book, review it, and tell their friends about it.
Many authors complain that so few launch team members leave reviews on Amazon. When launch team members fail to leave reviews, it’s usually because the author is running the team wrong.
Most launch teams are run poorly because authors make two mistakes: they give every launch team member a free copy of the book and organize their groups on Facebook.
Facebook sells data to Amazon, specifically a social proximity score associated with each Facebook user. If you have too much social proximity to your readers, Amazon will be more likely to delete the reviews your readers leave.
This session on launch teams is exclusively offered inside the Book Launch Blueprint. For every other session topic in this course, you’ll find at least one free episode on the Novel Marketing Podcast. But my incredibly effective method for running a launch team is only offered in the Book Launch Blueprint course.
No one else teaches this method, so a course taught by someone else will teach you the bad habits that cause reviews to get deleted.
Pro Tip: Take the Book Launch Blueprint to learn my launch team method.
Wednesday: Catch Up & Combined Office Hours
Thursday: Session #8 How to Write Bestselling Marketing Copy
People don’t care about you; they care about themselves. The key to great marketing copy is to write about your book in a way that makes it interesting to someone who doesn’t care whether you lived or died.
Writing marketing copy can be hard, but once you learn to do it, all your marketing efforts will become more effective. You can use these principles in your back cover copy, on your Amazon sales page, and anywhere you write about your book.
Friday: Session #7 How to Use Email to Launch Your Book
In this session, we apply the copywriting lessons to your series of launch emails. You’ll learn what to write and when to send them. We’ll also talk about how you can grow your email list.
Pro Tip: You can get away with a higher-than-normal email sending frequency during your launch. Don’t make the mistake of only sending one or two emails about your new book.
Email converts ten times better than any other launch tool. Speaking to an in-person, live audience is the only technique that potentially has a better conversion rate than email.
Before your launch, try to get at least 500 email subscribers on your list. It isn’t hard if you know what to do. In fact, it’s possible to hit that 500-subscriber mark within a few weeks.
In my course, Author Email Academy, you’ll learn how to get thousands of subscribers in just a few months. There’s no reason to be stuck with a tiny list of less than 500 that doesn’t grow.
If you’re taking my Obscure No More course, you already have access to the Author Email Academy.
When you sign up for the Book Launch Blueprint, you’ll receive an 80% discount on the Author Email Academy and immediate access to the content. I recommend completing the Author Email Academy so you can build your list before the Book Launch Blueprint starts.
The bigger your email list, the stronger your launch.
Week 3: Go
Monday: Session #9 How to Use Goodreads to Find Your Readers and Sell More Books
Goodreads is popular with the kind of people who read 50 or more books in a year. Its readers are willing to take a risk on a new author and a new book. They’re also exactly the kind of readers you want.
Goodreads isn’t a “popular” social network. Instagram has more users but requires constant effort on your part. Most Instagram users don’t read books, and the few who do only read books by famous authors. If you want to connect with people interested in new authors and books, start using Goodreads.
Goodreads is a tool to help readers find new books. By serving their readers, you can grow your readership.
Pro Tip: Start using Goodreads as a reader so you can learn how it works before you start using it as an author.
Tuesday: Session #10 Amazon Optimization for Authors
The percentage of book sales on Amazon varies depending on the author. Authors typically make seven of ten sales on Amazon, with many independent authors experiencing rates as high as nine out of ten. Authors exclusive to Amazon make every sale on Amazon. Your Amazon page must rank well on Amazon’s all-important search engine.
Pro Tip: Research which search phrases you want your book to rank for. Then, optimize your book to rank for those phrases in Amazon’s search engine.
Wednesday: Catch Up & Combined Office Hours
Thursday: Session #11 How to Use Marketing Psychology to Create a Frenzy for Your Book
Understanding marketing psychology will help you motivate readers to buy your book within a certain timeframe, and that surge in sales can help you hit a bestseller list.
For example, if your book sells 50,000 copies in one week, you will be eligible to hit all the bestseller lists, including the New York Times bestseller list, assuming they don’t exclude you for political reasons. If you sold that same 50,000 copies over five years, you would never be eligible for any of the bestseller lists.
If you want to hit a bestseller list, you must motivate readers to buy your book today, not tomorrow.
Once you understand marketing psychology and how it applies to your book launch, you can use social triggers to customize your launch and motivate your readers to buy.
This session facilitates fantastic brainstorming and collaboration in our private community. It’s the session most likely to bring back the alumni because it generates new tactics no one has thought of before.
Friday: Session #12 How to Have a Wildly Successful Launch Day
The big day has arrived! After your book launches, you can officially and forever call yourself a published author! It’s an incredible feeling.
Pro Tip: Host an in-person book launch party for your friends, family, and readers.
A good launch party can pay for itself due to the magic of in-person sales.
You may also consider hosting a launch party online. We’ll coach you on how to do it.
Week 4: Run
Monday: Session #13 How to Create a Media Editorial Calendar
Now that you’re a published author, you’re ready to sell like crazy, but you must be organized. You need a schedule of all your interviews, promotional emails, promotional activities, and tasks.
Creating an editorial calendar will keep you organized and relieve your stress. Once you have a good system for capturing all the tasks and events for your launch, you’ll realize it’s not nearly as overwhelming as you thought.
If you’re traditionally published, the marketing person at your publishing house will want to see your editorial calendar and add to it.
Pro Tip: Get a head start. Pitch TV, radio, and podcasts three to six months in advance (sometimes more) of the date you want them to air. You’ll also want to schedule rest days because that 30-day launch window is an intense time of work.
Tuesday: Session #14 How to Write Winning Content for Guest Posts and Articles
Having your writing featured on popular blogs and websites can be the key to maintaining the momentum of a successful launch. In this session, you’ll learn how to write good blog posts that readers want to read and guest posts and articles for other popular publications.
Guest blogging can help you connect with new audiences and build relationships with other writers, authors, and bloggers. This tactic favors nonfiction writers, but novelists can also benefit from learning how to write good blog posts.
Pro Tip: Before you pitch an article to a blog, find out if the blog is popular. Does it get a lot of traffic or not? One popular blog will generate more traffic than 100 normal blogs. Invest your time in blogs that have the most readers. In this session, you’ll learn how to find out whether a blog is popular.
Most blogs get very little traffic, so I don’t recommend blog tours as a launch tactic. Blog tour promotion companies usually have very few readers. They rarely have data to demonstrate that they’re selling books. Blog tours tend to be a lot of activity without many sales.
Wednesday: Catch Up & Combined Office Hours
Thursday: Session #15 How to Go on a Media Tour
A media tour can be fun and effective. It’s fun to give interviews on podcasts, radio, and TV, but good media training costs several thousand dollars. If you worked with a PR firm, you’d spend $10,000.
The media training you receive in our course is based on the expensive, high-end training I’ve received. Through this course, I’ve helped many authors plan their own media tours.
We’ll teach you how to pitch podcasts, TV, and radio. We’ll tell you what gear you’ll need, how to nail the interview, how to thrill the audience, and how to get invited back. I’ll also teach you tricks to look thinner and younger on camera.
Pro Tip: Realize that you are not the star of the show. The listener is the star. Focus on thrilling the listener because that makes the host want to invite you back.
You’ll also want to create a media kit and make it available on your website. An online media kit will make it easier to send all your pertinent information to the host you’re pitching and will make booking your media appearance much easier.
Friday: Session #16 How to Grow Momentum During the Next 30 Days
After the final session, we won’t have our regular office hours. We’ll have a party! Consider it a graduation party where you can share your biggest takeaway from the course.
It’s a super encouraging event because many authors undergo a life-changing marketing shift. Before the course, marketing and book launching feels impossible and overwhelming. However, after the course, authors know what to do and how to do it.
In many cases, that previously overwhelming book launch is already underway before the course ends. It’s fun to hear how the course has empowered our students to take control of their launch.
After this session, you’ll receive a link to unlock your Book Launch Blueprint rocket badge on AuthorMedia.social and become an official Book Launch Blueprint graduate!
Benefits of the Book Launch Blueprint
A Customized Plan
After completing the Book Launch Blueprint, you’ll have a customized launch plan for your book that plays to your strengths and genre.
Furthermore, you can reuse this launch plan for your future books. Each time you use your plan, you’ll tweak it based on what worked and what didn’t. Over time, you’ll have a plan tailored to you, your books, and your readers.
A solid launch plan separates successful authors from authors who struggle to find readers for every book because they don’t have a plan and have nothing to work from.
As the old saying goes, “Authors who fail to plan their launch plan to have a failed launch.”
You don’t need the Book Launch Blueprint to succeed, but you do need a plan.
A Cohort of Authors
Why do we use a cohort model? Well, why do armies march? Generals of old learned that troops could move farther, faster, and with less fatigue if they marched together in step. These generals took weapons from a few soldiers and gave them drums instead. That may seem silly, but it made a difference.
We use this lock-step method in the course.
All students do the same session on the same day and publicly share that day’s homework with the group. You don’t have to share your homework, but if you do, you’ll get feedback from your fellow students.
Marching in step makes the course more fun and less tiring. You’re also more likely to complete the course. The cohort model makes a big difference. It’s a lot more work for the instructors, but it’s far more beneficial for the students.
Private Community
If you’re wondering where the cool authors hang out online, AuthorMedia.social is the place. Our authors often join each other’s launch teams, promote each other’s books, and even write books together. We’ve had some amazing relationships launched in the Book Launch Blueprint.
It’s also fun to have a place to celebrate your successful launch with authors who are genuinely happy for you and perhaps helped make you successful.
Inside our private Book Launch Blueprint community, we have separate spaces for fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and speculative writers. While each group has their own space, the spaces are not exclusive. You can visit authors in the other spaces.
Coaching
I often receive requests for one-on-one coaching but no longer take on one-on-one clients. However, you can get coaching from me in the Book Launch Blueprint’s weekly office hours. You can even come on camera to ask your question, and I will answer.
We aim to offer the perfect blend of prerecorded, highly edited videos with live, interactive coaching and training.
How much time have you invested in your book? Most authors measure their time investment in years instead of hours or days. Ask yourself, “What is my time worth?” and “What is my book worth?
Give your book the launch it deserves.
Bonuses
The following courses are valued at $448 but are included in the Book Launch Blueprint for free!
- The Art of Persuasion
- How to Get Booked as a Podcast Guest
- The Ultimate Crowdfunding Course for Authors
Sign up for the Book Launch Blueprint before registration closes, and you will have lifetime access to each of the bonus courses as well as the Book Launch Blueprint.
But registration closes for everyone forever on April 12th, 2024.
Register by April 12th, 2024, and you’ll have lifetime access. If you don’t, you’ll never have another chance to buy the Book Launch Blueprint. This is our last year because James L. Rubart, my co-teacher since the beginning, is retiring.
Book Launch Blueprint FAQs
When does the Book Launch Blueprint start?
2024 Dates:
- Registration Closes: Friday, April 12
- Live Student Orientation: Friday, April 12.
- Course Begins: Monday, April 15
- Course Concludes: Friday, May 10
How much time will it take each day?
We recommend setting aside two hours per day. If you spend two hours each day learning to launch your book, you’ll have that skill for the rest of your life. From now on, every book launch will be better and easier.
You won’t have homework on the weekends or Wednesdays, but on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, we encourage you to reserve two hours for the course.
If you want to go through the course at your own pace, you can, but I don’t recommend it.
Is there lifetime access to the Book Launch Blueprint?
Yes. You’ll also receive lifetime access to the bonus courses.
Is the course for fiction or nonfiction authors?
The Book Launch Blueprint is for both fiction and nonfiction authors. Our private community is split by genre. If you’re writing nonfiction, you can hang out with other nonfiction authors.
Is there a money-back guarantee?
If you go through the course and are unhappy, just email me. I will click a few buttons and refund your money. We’re confident you will find this course transformative in helping you launch your book.
Case Study: C.J. Milacci
C.J. Milacci had a passion for writing young adult books that made young women feel good rather than making them depressed. She spent years working on her craft and working to write the kind of books these young women would love—a book that would give them hope.
She was unpublished and took my course on craft called The Five-Year Plan to Becoming a Bestselling Author. In 2020, she took the Book Launch Blueprint. She attended every live office hours session and completed all the homework. She invested her time, money, and effort into getting the most out of the course.
Additionally, she completed the bonus crowdfunding course that came with the Book Launch Blueprint and decided to crowdfund her novel on Kickstarter.
As a debut author on Kickstarter, C.J. raised over $8,600 for her book Recruit of Talionis. Her crowdfunding campaign gave her the money she needed to pay for editing, cover design, printing, and the launch her book deserved.
She got the money immediately for a book that wasn’t even out yet. A few months later, when she published her book on Amazon, it became a number-one new release in three different categories.
C.J. successfully crowdfunded and launched her book using the methods we teach in this course.
Perhaps the best part of C.J.’s success story is told by readers in the reviews of her book. Young women talk about how the book gave them hope they wouldn’t have had if they hadn’t read it.
CJ’s launch and marketing helped them hear about Recruit of Talionis, and because they knew about the book, they read it and gained hope. CJ honored the hard work of writing a good book by giving it a great launch, and that has made all the difference.
She now has a tribe of readers eagerly anticipating her next book and the beginnings of a career as a professional author.
You could be our next case study. It’s not too late! Sign up for the Book Launch Blueprint today.
Featured Patrons
Jeremiah Friedli, author of Association: A CORE Series Prequel Novella
When 15-year-old Krystin’s uncle is accused of attempted murder, she determines to help him clear his name of something she knows he didn’t do. But soon she realizes she’s not just fighting a false accusation; she’s fighting a conspiracy to take down the social activist her uncle supports. With a relentless police inspector watching her every move, Krystin must choose—avoid the authorities and help her uncle or stay safe and let her family tear apart.
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