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Is There Really a Best Time to Publish a Book? · If I'm Being Honest: Straight Talk About Book Publishing & Promotion

• 0:10
  Joel: This is If I'm being honest, straight talk about book publishing and promotion.
• 0:14
  Joel: I'm your host, Joel Pitney.
• 0:16
  Sayde: And I'm Sayde Walker.
• 0:17
  Joel: Today we are going to be talking about a very interesting topic, which is when should you launch your book?
• 0:24
  Sayde: Mm-hmm.
• 0:25
  Sayde: Yeah.
• 0:26
  Sayde: And, you know, we we were talking about this, we've been talking about this a lot this week.
• 0:30
  Sayde: Uh, we've been talking with authors about this and just kind of this idea that, you know, there's the perfect time to launch your book.
• 0:37
  Sayde: We've done a whole podcast episode on that.
• 0:39
  Sayde: But particularly as we're approaching the holidays, there it there can be kind of a a rush or some incentive to get your book out before the holidays to launch right now so that you can start promoting for Christmas shoppers or whatever you know, holiday you celebrate in December.
• 0:57
  Sayde: Um, and we just thought it might be a good idea to offer some words of wisdom and caution uh around planning your launch based on a specific time of year.
• 1:11
  Joel: That's right.
• 1:12
  Joel: So anybody, I'm sure that anybody, most people on this podcast have probably Googled this.
• 1:17
  Joel: If you've ever published a book or thinking about doing it, you've Googled it, you've used Chat GBT or Claude or some form of AI to figure out, well, what is the optimum time for a book in my genre to be launched, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:29
  Joel: And there's a lot of valuable information out there.
• 1:32
  Joel: Um, Google AI, they're gonna be able to draw on all kinds of articles and videos published by experts in the industry, et cetera, about the best time to launch certain genres.
• 1:43
  Joel: And I don't want to contradict any of that information because I think a lot of that, a lot of that information is correct to a degree.
• 1:51
  Joel: There are great times to publish your novel, you know, getting people ready for that summer, that summer beach read.
• 1:58
  Joel: Or uh if you've got a personal development book, maybe January is a great time to launch because people are thinking about their New Year's resolutions.
• 2:06
  Joel: Or if it's a business book, maybe uh when people are getting back into the swing of things in September after they've come home from their holidays, they wanna, they're kind of like, all right, let's get serious about things.
• 2:16
  Joel: I wanna it fall's a great time to have a good book.
• 2:19
  Joel: Publishing industry is full of trends.
• 2:21
  Joel: If you look at the big publishers, they like to publish books at certain times based on all this, right?
• 2:26
  Joel: There's nothing wrong with all that.
• 2:28
  Joel: But as Sayde said, um there's a wrong way to think about it.
• 2:34
  Joel: And the way that we think about this is you don't want to prematurely launch a book based on when the industry says is it's the best time to launch it.
• 2:47
  Sayde: Right.
• 2:47
  Joel: The best time to launch your book is when you are ready.
• 2:50
  Sayde: Yes.
• 2:51
  Sayde: Yeah, and and even if your book has some seasonality to it, like Joel was mentioning, maybe it's a self-help book and that could be you could do some really great marketing around that messaging come January when people are thinking about their New Year's resolutions.
• 3:06
  Sayde: That's great.
• 3:08
  Sayde: But if you are currently writing that self-help book right now, or you're in the process of publishing it, you're in production somewhere, thinking at the end of October or the beginning of November, depending on when you're listening to this episode, oh, I want to have my book out and ready and marketable by January, is going to be incredibly tricky.
• 3:31
  Sayde: Unless you're willing to think about January 2028.
• 3:34
  Sayde: Right.
• 3:35
  Sayde: And so some of these things, when they do have that seasonality to them, you are not missing the boat if you're missing the very next opportunity for that Christmas season or that New Year's season or that beach summer read.
• 3:49
  Sayde: You might realistically be wanting to think about the following year so that you can make sure you have all of your pieces in place and all of your ducks are in a row so that you're ready to take advantage of that, of that seasonality.
• 4:04
  Sayde: So don't rush the publishing process, don't run rush the launch process to meet the next the next season.
• 4:12
  Sayde: Get yourself ready.
• 4:14
  Sayde: Have your game plan, have your publishing files uploaded in the in the system, book order some books so you have books with you.
• 4:22
  Sayde: Like get all of your all of your pieces ready and then start thinking about okay, how and when and and where do I market this book.
• 4:31
  Joel: Right.
• 4:32
  Joel: So it's the the rhythms of your own marketing plan in your own life are gonna be far greater determinants of your book success than the rhythms of the market.
• 4:43
  Joel: Yes.
• 4:44
  Joel: We're not, this is not uh, you know, everybody's walked into a Barnes and Noble or their local bookstore at certain times of year and they'll see the new book that everybody's publishing or the new books that people are put publishing, right?
• 4:55
  Joel: And there's a s and you can see a seasonality there, but your book is not gonna be like that.
• 5:00
  Joel: I'm sorry.
• 5:01
  Joel: The vast majority of authors, your book is not gonna be the one that all the bookstores are putting up on their shelves at the right time of year because it's time to, you know, sell those summer novels or you know, the kind of get-in-shape books that come after the holidays.
• 5:15
  Joel: That's not gonna be your book.
• 5:16
  Joel: Your book, you're gonna be selling your book to the market.
• 5:19
  Joel: You're gonna be going out after you after the market.
• 5:22
  Joel: They're not gonna be coming to you.
• 5:24
  Joel: And so the reason that we emphasize figuring out your own stuff yourself is because you're the one who's gonna be pushing it.
• 5:33
  Joel: So you've got to figure out what seasons are gonna work for you, for your own personal life.
• 5:37
  Joel: When do you happen to have time?
• 5:40
  Sayde: Right, right.
• 5:41
  Sayde: You're taking that family trip to Greece and you're gonna be, you know, out of commission for four weeks or whatever, that's fabulous.
• 5:50
  Sayde: That's not gonna be a great time to launch a book.
• 5:52
  Sayde: Even if it's like, oh man, I'm I'm bummed that I'm going to be missing the new year, new holiday, or that summer read or fall, you know, is a is a really optimal time for a lot of books.
• 6:04
  Sayde: Um, if it doesn't work for you personally, then it's not the right time.
• 6:09
  Sayde: So that's you like you have to take into account your strengths, your weaknesses, your availability, and make that the priority, not whatever the internet is telling you.
• 6:18
  Sayde: Because, you know, if you were to Google when's the best time to launch a book, there are answers out there for every genre and subgenre and every every situation that you could be in.
• 6:29
  Sayde: The answer is likely not going to be, oh, whenever is best for you.
• 6:32
  Sayde: But that's kind of the point that we want to drive home is actually it's whenever is best for you.
• 6:38
  Joel: Right.
• 6:38
  Joel: And there's a tactical side to this too, right?
• 6:40
  Joel: So there's the personal side, like when are you going to be available?
• 6:43
  Joel: But there's also the tactical side.
• 6:44
  Joel: So for instance, let's say that that uh you've got a nonfiction book, and a big part of your marketing is gonna be leveraging partnerships with people in your field, going out after podcast hosts and influencers and and organizations, et cetera, et cetera.
• 6:59
  Joel: And a lot of your, a lot of the success of your marketing campaign is gonna be is gonna rest on mobilizing strategic partnerships.
• 7:08
  Joel: So you want to make sure that those partnerships are gonna be available.
• 7:14
  Joel: When is it easy to get a hold of people?
• 7:16
  Joel: Well, not the summer and not the holidays, right?
• 7:19
  Joel: Because people tend to be out of the office, people tend to not be thinking about things, right?
• 7:23
  Joel: So it's maybe you don't want to launch your book then.
• 7:26
  Joel: Maybe you want to find the time when when strategic partners that you will use to leverage the promotion in your book are gonna be easier to get a hold of and have more bandwidth in their schedules.
• 7:35
  Sayde: Yeah.
• 7:35
  Joel: Right.
• 7:36
  Joel: So you really want to be thinking about that.
• 7:38
  Joel: That's about personally, it's also strategic.
• 7:40
  Sayde: I also can't stress enough how much stress it will alleviate from your life if you are if you are not rushing the the process.
• 7:50
  Sayde: And even if you know you you hired a company like ours back in the spring or early beginning of the year, and your book, you know, is now live on Amazon and it's in the Ingram Spark system, and people can purchase it, and you're really eager to like spread the word, tell people, go talk to bookstores, all of the things.
• 8:10
  Sayde: Um, that's that's fabulous.
• 8:12
  Sayde: And I and I always love that launch energy, but it can be really stressful as well if you have planned really finite things around this idea that everything is going to be ready at a specific time.
• 8:26
  Sayde: Cause I can guarantee you that it's not all going to be ready at that specific time.
• 8:31
  Sayde: And, you know, it's a question I think that probably every author asks us in the beginning is well, when is the best time to launch this book?
• 8:41
  Sayde: And, you know, we've we've been talking about that and uh giving lots of reasons why, you know, the best time is the the time that's best for you.
• 8:50
  Sayde: And you mentioned the tactical piece, and there's also this technical piece that I really want to drive home, which is uh there are certain times of year, particularly the end of the year, when you are independent publishing, when you are uh using the print-on-demand distribution platforms like Amazon KDP and Ingram Spark, where the systems are going to be incredibly backed up.
• 9:13
  unknown: Yep.
• 9:13
  Sayde: And we talked about this on a recent podcast, where once you upload your book, once you're at the point in your publishing journey where you have uploaded your book into these systems, you are no longer in control, right?
• 9:25
  Sayde: Because you don't own the systems that are publishing the book.
• 9:28
  Sayde: You are at the mercy of their review teams, of whether or not they are uh looking at and handling the files correctly, whether or not they, you know, and they are people on the other side of this and they make mistakes.
• 9:42
  Sayde: And so when mistakes happen, you have to fix them and you have to kind of troubleshoot what's going on with this book.
• 9:48
  Sayde: And I will tell you from experience, pretty much right now, through the end of the year, these systems get really bogged down because everybody's trying to get their book out before the end of the year, before the Christmas season.
• 10:01
  Sayde: Everybody's thinking holiday marketing right now.
• 10:04
  Sayde: And so what might normally take 48 hours to get a book through the system can literally take four weeks.
• 10:13
  Sayde: And we've seen launches go wrong because someone thought, oh, I'm gonna launch January 1st or January 2nd, and we're uploading files in December and they're not, they're not getting approved, they're not passing inspection, we can't get books ordered, everything is stuck in limbo, we can't get a hold of anyone to help us.
• 10:35
  Sayde: And so even though things can can go wrong at any time of the year, you know, and they and they will, uh, the end of the year can be really tricky to get books ordered, to get books live in the system, all of that.
• 10:50
  Sayde: And so, you know, I just want to also emphasize that there's this technical piece.
• 10:55
  Sayde: And so the the more advanced planning you can do, the the further you can push that timeline out around when you are gonna start launching your book, the better.
• 11:05
  Sayde: And so you really have to take off that, again, you know, kind of false narrative that, like, when the book is live in the system, it has to start selling right away in order for it to be successful.
• 11:16
  Sayde: We've done episodes on this.
• 11:18
  Sayde: Um, you have to give yourself a cushion of time to get everything, all of your ducks in a row before you start, before you start launching.
• 11:27
  Sayde: I will step off my soapbox now, but I just wanted to make sure it's a good thing.
• 11:30
  Sayde: This is one of your soapboxes, Sayde.
• 11:32
  Joel: I love it.
• 11:32
  Joel: I love it.
• 11:33
  Joel: No, it's we all have to have these soapboxes.
• 11:35
  Sayde: I think just because of the season that we're entering, it's the holidays and uh people and and maybe it's not even that your book would make a great Christmas gift or a great Hanukkah gift.
• 11:45
  Sayde: It's more that you don't want another year to go by without publishing your book.
• 11:50
  Sayde: And that's, you know, that's admirable.
• 11:52
  Sayde: But be careful while you're planning things because there's there's lots that can go wrong this time of year.
• 12:00
  Joel: Yeah.
• 12:01
  Joel: And so, you know, I I just want to I want to just again emphasize this podcast episode that we're recording right now is less about giving you the exact perfect strategy about when to launch your book and more about giving you the right mindset about that.
• 12:17
  Joel: And that I would say 98% of the when to launch your book equation has to do with when you're ready.
• 12:23
  Joel: And then there's this other 2% that has to do with seasonality.
• 12:26
  Sayde: Yes.
• 12:27
  Joel: Right.
• 12:27
  Joel: And so when you're going out there, and we're not going to really get into all that because you can you can go to plenty of other places to learn about the seat the best season for your book.
• 12:36
  Joel: When you're going out there and you're finding that information, remember it's only 2% of the equation.
• 12:40
  Joel: Right?
• 12:41
  Joel: It is the tail, it is not the dog.
• 12:43
  Joel: So please do not try to wag the dog with the tail.
• 12:46
  Joel: Yes.
• 12:47
  Joel: Um I I so I think that's the key takeaway I think I want people to get from this.
• 12:52
  Joel: And I think also, you know, I can it'd be worth just before we conclude, talking a little bit about the holidays more because Sayde talked about the technical challenge of the holidays and how things get backed up, and that's just real.
• 13:04
  Joel: We've been watching that happen for 10 years.
• 13:06
  Joel: It just happens every year.
• 13:07
  Joel: Um, but the other thing that you should ask yourself if you're thinking, hey, I want to do a holiday release, is your book actually a good holiday gift?
• 13:17
  Joel: Be honest.
• 13:19
  Joel: Could you imagine people buying your book to give to friends or to family or put in a stocking or wrap, right?
• 13:27
  Joel: People love buy, I know people buy books for people during the holidays, certainly.
• 13:31
  Joel: But you need to be honest about that.
• 13:34
  Joel: Is that really gonna be a market for you?
• 13:37
  Joel: And if it is, is do you have a strategy to reach that market, or are you just hoping that by having your book available during the holidays, you'll get some natural bump?
• 13:45
  Sayde: Right.
• 13:46
  Joel: You will not get a natural bump unless you have a concrete strategy for reaching an audience that's looking for a book like yours to give as a gift.
• 13:54
  Sayde: Right.
• 13:55
  Joel: So if you are gonna, if you are gonna wag the dog with the tail of the holidays and you're gonna make a lot of effort to get get that done, make sure you have a strategy in place and make sure you're being honest about whether your book is great gift material in the first place.
• 14:09
  Sayde: Yeah.
• 14:09
  Sayde: I think that's such a great point to land on to, you know, drive all of this home because the holidays are such a busy time for everyone.
• 14:18
  Sayde: And it's also a a hard time to get noticed out in the shopping world, right?
• 14:24
  Sayde: Without lots of, without lots of dollars behind ads and promotions.
• 14:30
  Sayde: And if you are if you are not running ads and you're just, oh, I'm thinking you're I'm gonna put my book up on Amazon and it's gonna make a great Christmas gift, and I'm gonna put great Christmas gift as a keyword.
• 14:42
  Sayde: It's gonna start showing up on people's search engines and they're gonna purchase it.
• 14:45
  Sayde: That strategy is just not going to work.
• 14:48
  Sayde: And so I think that there's a lot of information out there right now.
• 14:51
  Sayde: People are thinking about this, they're going to Google, they're asking questions around how I can market my book during the holidays.
• 14:58
  Sayde: There's lots of great information out there.
• 15:01
  Sayde: Take that information and start thinking about the holidays next year, not this year, and come up with that strategy and come up with that game plan.
• 15:11
  Sayde: And then, you know, you're gonna start implementing implementing it as early as probably July and August next year.
• 15:16
  Sayde: So we're not saying don't think about this, but just be uh have reasonable expectations and and think long term because Christmas that's coming up, Hanukkah that's coming up, all of these great holidays, this they come every year.
• 15:32
  Sayde: So this is not the only opportunity you're gonna have to market your book if it does, in fact, have holiday marketing, um, if it meets, you know, those, those, that criteria for a great holiday book.
• 15:42
  Sayde: And I buy lots of books around the holidays.
• 15:44
  Sayde: That's my favorite, favorite way to support indie authors, favorite way to to uh get people in my life reading great books.
• 15:51
  Sayde: So, you know, definitely people do that.
• 15:53
  Sayde: But you're right, it's it's very competitive out there at this time of year.
• 15:57
  Joel: Yep.
• 15:58
  Joel: Excellent.
• 15:59
  Joel: So I hope everybody enjoyed this episode.
• 16:01
  Joel: Um, I I hope that we didn't disappoint you by not offering you the perfect uh season to launch your book, but I do hope that you'll take our advice to heart because we found it to be really important.
• 16:11
  Joel: So um, if you like this, please like and subscribe on whatever platform you are engaging with this episode on.