That's totally fine if your goal is making any of those bestseller lists, but I'd also encourage you to have additional goals that will help you ensure the longevity of your book's sales. So, yes, for me, having my book be an Amazon bestseller was a fun surprise, but I definitely sleep easier at night knowing I'm not hanging my hat on that orange flag as a way to get my book in the hands of readers. Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming, so each week, I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So, whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started.

In today's episode, I'm sharing 10 surprising lessons from launching my book last month, and a lot of these are things I expected or knew were probably going to happen, but for some reason, they still surprised me, and some of these lessons are more practical or tactical and others are more emotional or having to do with mindset. So there's a fun blend of different types of lessons, and my hope in sharing these lessons is that you can avoid some of the mistakes I made and or you can capitalize on some of the things that I did in my book launch that worked well and things like that. So I hope you enjoy the episode and, without further ado, let's dive right into 10 surprising lessons from my first book launch. And the number one thing that surprised me was how hard it was to ask for favors, and by favors I mean things like reading my new book before it was published, or asking someone to introduce me to somebody they knew like an influencer or another author, and then asking those influencers and authors if I could send them a free copy of my book. And also asking for reviews during launch week, sharing about my book's release on social media, and so much more.

Now, yes, I knew I was going to have to do this and I was totally ready to ask for some favors, but what surprised me was how hard it was Not only to ask for the favor, but to follow up with people who either didn't respond the first time I asked or who said they'd do something and then got busy or just forgot to do it. As you can probably imagine, I was super busy with all of the moving pieces during the book launch. So it was hard for that reason just juggling all of the moving parts. But it was also hard because I started to feel like a pest, you know, bugging people over and over and over, and I know that's a mindset thing. I had to give myself a pep talk and just kind of bite the bullet about following up with people again and again. But what also helped me was knowing there was a date where I would stop bothering people, just because the launch was essentially over. So, yes, all of that was expected and even though I was prepared to ask for favors and follow up with people, it was harder than I expected because it was uncomfortable. Now, do I regret asking for any of those favors? No, definitely not. Do I regret any of the hard work? Nope, I don't regret that either. I just was a little more uncomfortable than I expected to be. So that's the first thing I learned is that asking for favors and then having to follow up with those favors makes me really uncomfortable.

On a similar note, the second thing that surprised me about my book launch was how hard it was to get people to leave a review on Amazon. So I had a goal of getting at least 100 reviews during launch week, but I only ended up getting around 50. Now don't get me wrong 50 reviews is still fantastic, but based on the amount of people I gave free copies to, I did expect that number to be higher. And if you've never launched a book before, the reason this is important is mainly for social proof. When potential book buyers find my book on Amazon, the amount of reviews and the quality of those reviews can sway them into purchasing or make them leave the page without purchasing. Reviews also help the algorithm, because the more people who buy the book leave reviews and interact with my book's page on Amazon, the more the algorithm will push it out and put my book in front of people who might like it. So, all of that to say, reviews are really, really important and I did not hit my goal in terms of how many reviews I wanted in that first week or so.

Now I can't share that lesson without doing a little shameless ask. So if you've read my book, the Story Grid Masterwork Analysis Guide to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and if you haven't left a review on Amazon yet, would you please be so kind as to leave one? Maybe with our collective effort, we can hit my goal of 100 reviews by the end of the month. We'll see. I'll leave a link in the show notes that goes right to the review page. If you would be so kind as to leave an honest review, and thank you in advance for anyone who does. I so so appreciate it.

Now, the third thing I learned from launching my book wasn't necessarily a surprise, but it was something I experienced for the first time myself. So I've said this on the podcast before that no matter how you publish, you will have to be responsible for your own marketing. So that part wasn't necessarily a surprise to me, but I wanted to talk about it anyway because it might come as a surprise to you. As you may or may not know, storygrid is the publisher of my book and they did offer some support when it came to marketing. They let Abigail and I record a few videos for their YouTube channel. They sent out a few emails to their list about the book, and I know Tim, the CEO of StoryGrid, talked about the book to people in their workshops and things like that whenever it organically came up. So in terms of what I expected from them as my publisher, that was about right on track.

But here's what you might not know about my launch looking from the outside in I did not hire a PR firm, so I was the one responsible for reaching out to influencers, communicating with them, pitching myself to podcasts or YouTube channels, asking for blurbs and reviews and things like that. I was also the mastermind behind all of the marketing. So I planned the bonuses that went along with my book launch. I wrote all the promo emails and planned out my social media content for the month, which includes creating the graphics and the videos and the copy and things like that. So literally all of the heavy lifting was on me and in many cases when you launch your own book, it will be on you as well. So I like to be very transparent about this because, yes, I did have a publisher on my team with this book, but the responsibility for all the marketing and the promotional efforts were all on me and, honestly, I love that stuff. So for me it was super fun. But I know a lot of authors kind of dread that part of the process, and if I could give you any words of wisdom, it would be to embrace it and figure out what kind of marketing will work for you. I did a lot of different things in this promotion. So I hosted a free training to talk about writing fantasy, and then I promoted the book at the end, I did giveaways and offered different kinds of bonuses throughout the pre-order phase and things like that. You don't have to do all of that, but for me it was fun and it worked.

Now, the fourth thing I learned during this book launch was something that I already knew again, but I feel like I proved it to myself during this launch and that is that having an engaged email list can make or break your book launch. So I just talked about how I had to do all of this heavy lifting when it came to marketing my book right. All of those things wouldn't have mattered if I didn't have an email list Because, as you might have noticed, I didn't say anything about running ads. I didn't have an email list Because, as you might have noticed, I didn't say anything about running ads. I didn't need to run ads because my email list is engaged and I communicate with them often, whether that's to announce a new podcast episode is live, or to invite them to a free training or whatever it is. So, yes, I did show up on social media during my book launch, abigail and I did go on Storygrid's YouTube channel and things like that. But I can tell you without a doubt that I would not have hit my launch goals had it not been for my email list. So, rather than go into more about why list building is so important, I'm going to direct you to episode number 107. That's called Email List Building Essentials for Authors. If you want to learn more and get started with your own list building efforts. It's so, so important way more important than social media and essential even, if you like using social media. So, yeah, highly recommend going to check out that episode if you want to learn more about building your own email list.

Now, the fifth thing I learned in this book launch that kind of surprised me is that I ended up taking the goal of becoming a bestseller off of my list. So, going into my book launch, I had this question in the back of my head. That was something like do you care about being an Amazon bestseller? Because if you do, you know there are certain things you need to do to make that happen. And if you want that little orange flag, then you better make sure you're doing those things right. And eventually I just decided that you know what I don't really care about becoming an Amazon bestseller. If it happens, that's great, but at the end of the day, the only thing it really gives me is bragging rights and, plus, I already had a lot of strategies in place to help me sell books and get the ball rolling in terms of visibility on Amazon. So for me, I made the choice of going into the launch, really focusing on those foundational marketing things like having ARC readers asking for early reviews, sharing my book as much as possible, both with my email list and on social media and influencers and stuff like that. And you know what happened my book became an Amazon bestseller anyway.

So I'm telling you this not to brag or anything. I'm telling you because I think sometimes writers focus on being an Amazon bestseller or getting on the New York Times bestseller list and then that kind of starts to take over everything else. It's kind of like their field of vision narrows so much they can't see anything else. Now, with that being said, I do think it's fine and respectable if becoming an Amazon bestseller or a New York Times bestselling author is part of your goal for your book and for your book launch, but I would also like to encourage you to focus more on foundational marketing principles like building a solid email list, getting ARC readers and influencers to talk about your book, and things like that. Because here's the thing being an Amazon bestseller or New York Times bestseller it might help you sell more books, but it also might not, so I don't know. I guess my advice is that it's totally fine if your goal is making any of those bestseller lists, but I'd also encourage you to have additional goals that will help you ensure the longevity of your book's sales. So, yes, for me, having my book be an Amazon bestseller was a fun surprise, but I definitely sleep easier at night knowing I'm not hanging my hat on that orange flag as a way to get my book in the hands of readers. So just something to think about, okay.

So the next thing I found interesting during my book launch was how hard it felt to actually sell my book, and I don't mean my ability to market it and talk about it, more like getting people to actually push the buy button. Now, of course, one's ability to sell a book depends on a lot of things, right? It depends on the size of someone's email list, how much time and effort they put into marketing, the quality of the actual book itself, where it fits in the market and how saturated the market is, and things like that. But when you think about it, buying a book isn't really going to be on many people's lists of priorities. It's really easy to say something like oh my gosh, you wrote a book, how exciting, I can't wait to read it. And then you kind of go about your day and forget about actually buying it, or at least buying it right away, even if you have the best intentions, right.

So this kind of ties back to what I said earlier about how I ended up feeling like a pest throughout my book launch, because I went really hard with my marketing efforts. I emailed my list multiple times a week for about four to five weeks, which is a lot. I was on social media all the time talking about my book and things like that. But here's the thing. There's this marketing statistic that everyone quotes that says something like it takes about eight touch points with somebody to convert a lead into a sale. So what this means is that for every eight emails I send to one person, I might get one sale out of those eight emails. And so, as you can imagine, you do have to talk about your book a lot if you want to actually sell your book. So, yeah, at times it's going to feel a little bit pushy and, if you're like me, you might feel like a pest as you promote your book.

But here's the other thing I actually hit my sales goal. So, yes, I sent a lot of emails, I showed up a lot on social media in the month of July and into August, I did podcast interviews and YouTube videos, and all of that because I knew it was going to take about eight touch points to convert one person into a sale. So, yes, even though I said it felt like it was really hard to actually get someone to buy your book, it is also very possible to sell them. You just really need to stay on top of it and remember that little stat about taking eight touch points to actually convert someone into a sale. Okay, so the next thing I learned in this book launch is that you'll be equally surprised by who shows up for you as by who doesn't show up for you and, to be honest, I was more surprised by who didn't show up for me during my book launch and I know this sounds sad and negative, but just stay with me for a second.

What this looked like for me is that several people who promised to share my book or talk about it on social media or do some other favor that either I asked them to do or they volunteered to do, they just didn't do it, and who knows why. That is right. Some people actually told me what happened, so maybe life got busy or someone in the family got COVID, or they just plain forgot. But other people completely ghosted me, which honestly, I found a little strange, because I like to think I'm a pretty easygoing human and I totally understand that life happens and things like that. But you know, just like whenever you get ghosted, it can hurt your feelings a little bit, right, and I kind of hate saying that because my book launch went really well, but I am a human and I have feelings, so I'm going to share it anyway.

Now, on the flip side of that, other people showed up for me in ways that I never expected, so people that I either never asked for anything or never expected anything from. They showed up, and that was really incredible. There were multiple times throughout the book launch that I felt an immense sense of gratitude and love and appreciation from friends, family, past clients and students and even random strangers on the internet. So in the end, it was all fine. Like I said, my book launch went really well, but next time I launch a book I can do a better job mentally and emotionally preparing for some people just not showing up when they said they would or when you expected them to. So just a lesson learned and something I can take into my next book launch.

Now, the other thing I learned while launching my book is something I think I knew about myself, but it definitely got highlighted during the launch, and that is that I don't love when things are out of my control. So part of this is just my personality. Part of it is that I've been running my own business for almost a decade now, so I'm used to having things in my control, as much as things can be in one's control. But because StoryGrid was my publisher, there were a lot of things that I didn't have my hands in, like setting up the book on Amazon or choosing the book cover and things like that. We also had some delays with Amazon, things that were outside both my control and StoryGrid's control. So, for example, on the actual publish day, the paperback was marked as sold out for most of the day, which is totally not ideal, right? We still don't really know what happened and, oddly enough, I've seen this happening to other authors books who are print-on-demand books as well.

Now, what's funny is that in my book launch master plan, I did plan padding into my schedule, so I think I had about two weeks total of padding between some of the key tasks, Like, for example, around the date that I was supposed to get the digital galleys to send to my ARC readers. I gave myself a few days in between when I was supposed to get the digital galleys and when I was supposed to send them out to ARC readers, and what ended up happening overall is that I used up all of that padding time and should have probably built in a lot more white space. This is something I'm going to be much better at with the next book I publish. So please learn from my mistake. Plan in some padding and then maybe even double that time, because you just never know what's going to happen, and if you can relate to what I'm saying about wanting things in your control, I think that's something really important to think about when choosing how you're going to publish your own book someday, or if you're going to work with a publisher. I guess I would just say go into it expecting to let go of control and expecting to go with the flow a little bit more than you normally would.

Okay now, the last lesson I want to share with you is that it's so important to celebrate yourself when you publish a book. This is something I almost didn't do, because I actually really hate being the center of attention, but one of the writers I work with she said to me one day. She said, savannah, you always tell people to celebrate their wins, no matter how big or small, and you're about to publish a book. Like how are you not going to celebrate yourself when you always tell other people to celebrate their wins? And she was 100% right. So, even though sometimes it doesn't feel real that I actually wrote a book, I did write a book and I published that book and now people all over the world are reading that book, like how cool is that?

So, yes, it wasn't super natural for me to celebrate myself, but Nathan and I went out to dinner the night before the publish day. We took the dogs to the beach the next morning and then that night, abigail and I hosted a virtual book launch party, which was actually really fun, and every time I got a text message or a voicemail or a DM on Instagram, I made sure to sit with those messages for a second and internalize the kind words that people were sharing with me, because, like Ferris Bueller says, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it, and I didn't want to speed through my book launch and miss it. So I guess the point here is to make sure you celebrate yourself, because it's important to recognize your hard work and because you deserve to be celebrated. So, with all of that being said, those are the 10 surprising lessons I learned from my book launch.

I won't recap them for you because this was more of a casual conversational episode, but I hope this was helpful for you to kind of hear a behind-the-scenes take on what worked, what didn't work, what I'm glad I did and what I would do differently next time. And if you haven't gotten a copy of my book, the Story Grid Masterwork Analysis Guide to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I will put a link in the show notes for you to grab it on Amazon If you have purchased a copy. Thank you so much. If you'd be so kind as to leave an honest review on Amazon, I would very much appreciate it. So that's it for today's episode.

As always, thank you so much for tuning in and for showing your support. If you want to check out any of the links I mentioned in this episode, you can find them in the show notes listed in the description of each episode, inside your podcast player or at savannahgilbocom forward slash podcast. If you're an Apple user, I'd really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to leave a rating and a review. Your ratings and reviews tell Apple that this is a podcast that's worth listening to and, in turn, your reviews will help this podcast get in front of more fiction writers just like you. And while you're there, go ahead and hit that follow button, because there's going to be another brand new episode next week, full of actionable tips, tools and strategies to help you become a better writer. So I'll see you next week and until then, happy writing.