Book Launch Month vs. Book Launch Week or Day

It seems to be common practice to pick a book launch day or launch week to concentrate all of your activities around the release of a book.

Indeed, this was a philosophy I subscribed to for the launch of my first few books and many of the book launches I helped plan.

I heard Tim Grahl say in a webinar that the main reason to concentrate on a book launch week is that a high volume of sales in one week gives you the chance to hit a bestseller’s list (New York Times, Wall Street Journal). Likewise, concentrating your efforts during one week will boost the Amazon ranking of your book, too, which may lead to some additional sales.

Until I write a book with the potential to hit one of these lists, however, I think concentrating efforts on an entire month and then consistently promoting the book for the months to come is a better way to go.

Here are a few reasons from experience why thinking in terms of a “book launch month” is better than a “launch week” or “launch day”:

• Burn Out: It is easy to get burnt out early when you concentrate all of your content and interviews and events around a book into one week.
• Amazon Stock: My launch weeks have gone so well multiple times that Amazon went out of stock for the book at the beginning of the week. Then they would purchase too many books and be sitting on a large stock for the next few weeks.
• Interview Overwhelm: I’ve seen other authors launch books with multiple podcast interviews of influencers with similar audiences. No one wants to listen to the same or a similar interview on five or six different shows on the same week. The stories get repetitive.
• List Launch: Give the people on your email list some time to purchase the book. When a launch spans multiple weeks rather than a very small period of time, you ensure that people do not miss the emails about the launch bonus incentives.