Managing Your Presales, Crowdfunding, and Book Launch

Marketing 8 min read

Self-publishing your book is a huge milestone, but the process doesn’t end when you click publish. For new and novice authors, planning and managing a book launch is an absolute necessity.

It’s a hard truth, but no one will buy your book unless you tell them they should.

As a self-published author, you have to know you’re targeting a specific audience of fans or peers who will be interested in your work. That number of potential readers might be small.

This isn’t a problem itself. The most recent and seemingly reliable source I’ve found claims self-published books sell around 250 copies on average in the book’s lifetime. That’s not bad!

You don’t need Stephen King levels of fandom to be a successful author.

But you do need to make those people who will be interested in buying your book aware of the book. Publishing is a saturated market—the number of books published per year has increased tenfold since 2010.

To sell your book, you need to get some attention. A huge part of that attention comes from your book launch.

Why Planning Your Book Launch is Crucial

A book launch is more than just an announcement. I’ve read far too many posts on r/selfpublish lamenting the lack of sales while the author had no book promotion plan. This is important.

If you just tell the world, “Hey, I published a book; come check it out,” no one will listen. You’ll sell a dozen copies to friends and family.

Planning is the key to a successful book release. This is true for any product or service. No one effectively sells anything without a plan in place.

Without a clear plan, it’s easy to miss out on marketing opportunities or fail to connect with your target audience.

Lucky for you, our own PR Manager Sarah created a terrific timeline for planning your book launch. Here’s an abbreviated version of it:

12 Months Until Launch:

Define your marketing plan and budget.
Create an author website or landing page for the book launch.
Design or commission an amazing cover.
Set a (tentative) launch date.
Get active on your preferred social media platforms.

6 Months Until Launch:

Kick off marketing efforts (like emails, blogs, videos, social posts, etc.).
Send advance reader copies to friends, peers, and reviewers.
Create a product page or crowdfunding campaign to begin presales.

3 Months Until Launch:

Second big marketing push to promote your presales.
Share plans for in-person events or book signings.
Follow up with media contacts, readers/reviewers, and logistics for launch day.

1 Week Until Launch:

Last big marketing push on your platforms.
Promote your book launch events.

This list is terrific. Use it. Adapt it to fit your needs. Probably take a moment to read the complete list too; Sarah provides a lot of extra detail.

I want to stay focused here on the actual launch. But before we move on to managing the launch of your book, I need to touch on three specific aspects of the planning phase that will be the most important to you when it comes time to get your new book into the hands of your readers.

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Sell books on your Wix, Shopify, or WooCommerce website with Lulu Direct.
Or use our Order Import tool for your next book launch.

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Identify Your Target Audience

Before writing your book, know who you’re writing for.

Your audience will be your guide for everything from your marketing plan to your book cover design. Successful book launches reach the right potential buyers.

Here’s my quick three-step guide to defining your audience:

Go to a bookstore, find a popular book in your genre, and follow that author. You’ll learn how their followers interact, what kind of content they like, and how the author engages. Then do this for three or four more authors.
Create one or two reader personas. I don’t care if you hate AI; creating reader personas is one of the best ways authors can use this new technology.
Use the personas you created and the research you did to create some boilerplate marketing copy you can use while crafting your marketing assets.

Design a Book Cover That Sells

Do not settle for a mediocre cover. Period.

Even if you’ve got followers on social media or an email audience, a bad book cover can prevent a sale. It can completely tank an entire book launch.

Remember, for potential readers, that book cover is often the first thing they will see. Your book cover needs to be visually compelling and genre-appropriate. It needs to spark interest and make it clear what you’re writing about.

Presales or Crowdfunding Campaigns

It has never been easier to sell your book before you publish your book. In fact, there are now two terrific options to build presales before your release day.

Crowdfunding your book with platforms like Kickstarter lets you set a goal, market to your audience, and manage your book launch with ease. Because Kickstarter lets you export a list of your backers, fulfilling those presale book orders is simple with Lulu’s Order Import tool.
Selling directly from your own website lets you collect funds from your readers during a presale. You’ll have the benefit of being able to offer teasers and other content once they’re on your mailing list too. And just like using Kickstarter, fulfillment is easy once you’re ready to launch your book.

How to Use Lulu’s Order Import Tool for Fulfilling Presales and Crowdfunding

Running a presale or crowdfunding campaign is daunting enough. Once your book launches, you have to fulfill all those orders. And quickly. Your fans want your book badly enough to pay for it before they can even read it—they’re going to expect to receive it promptly after your launch day.

This is where Lulu’s Order Import tool comes into play.

What is the Order Import Tool? Lulu’s Order Import Tool allows authors to easily manage and fulfill bulk book orders, particularly from presales or crowdfunding campaigns. This tool is designed to streamline the order fulfillment process by allowing you to import customer information and orders from another website (like Kickstarter or your ecommerce platform) directly into Lulu’s system.

Step-by-Step Guide to Importing Your Orders:

Publish Your Book: If you don’t already, create a free Lulu account. Then create a new project and publish your book(s).
Export Your Orders: If you’ve run a presale or crowdfunding campaign on platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, start by exporting your customer and order information into a CSV file.
Prepare Your CSV: We provide a simple template that closely matches the one you’ll get from your crowdfunding or ecommerce platform. Review and revise your CSV to be sure all the necessary information is included.
Upload the CSV to Lulu: Access the Order Import tool and upload your CSV.
Review and Confirm Orders: Check the orders, verify the shipping details, and confirm the number of books to be printed and shipped.
Track and Ship: Lulu handles the printing and shipping process, so all you need to do is monitor the progress and communicate with your customers.

Managing Post-Launch: Keeping the Momentum Going

“The days of big book launches are over.”

I heard Joe Pulizzi say this recently. And of course, my first thought was, “cool, guess I can scrap that blog post I was working on…”

But he went on to talk about staggering launches, letting people buy when they want to, and focusing on quality over quantity. What I want to focus on is the idea that your book launch, whether you’re a first-time author or a professional author, is just a small moment in your book’s lifespan.

That means that, while having a specific date is of course necessary, your book launch is really nothing more than a date.

You’ll have to spread the word before the book is available, meaning marketing campaigns to target existing fans and potential customers. I just covered the importance of preselling.

But if you’re hoping people will mark their calendars and pay attention to the day you launch your book, you’re probably going to be disappointed. A book launch party can be fun, but even that is small scale.

Book sales are about momentum and consistency. You might sell a lot of books in that first month after you launch, but over the following years, with a bit of marketing and promotion, you can keep selling copies for years to come.

Treat your book launch as an important milestone, but don’t stop talking about your book on social media channels or in your email newsletters after the launch.

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Best Practices for a Successful Book Launch

Publishing a book is a big deal. Having an awesome presale period and launch are key to getting copies of that new book into the hands of eager readers.

Here are some quick, actionable tips to help ensure your book launch goes smoothly:

Start Early: The sooner you start planning, the more time you’ll have to build presales before your launch.
Focus on Your Audience: Tailor your marketing efforts to speak to the readers most likely to want your book.
Drive Presales: Run a crowdfunding campaign or use an ecommerce platform to sell your book.
Take Advantage of Lulu’s Tools: Use the Order Import tool to streamline presales and fulfillment.

Don’t get overwhelmed. Launching a book is a lot of work. But if you plan ahead and manage your time (and expectations), you can earn sales and new readers. Plus, with each new book you publish, the marketing, presale, and launch get easier!