What’s the best time to publish your book?

By
Steven Spatz
-
18
8705
best time to publish

Excerpted from BookBaby’s latest guide, 5 Steps To Self Publishing, Part IV of our series addresses why NOW is the best time to publish.

What’s the best time to publish your book?

Now!

Here’s a little-known fact for new, aspiring, self-published authors: The holiday season may not be the best time to publish.

Think about it: Established authors target holiday sales’ periods because it’s a safe, easy gift choice for a lot of folks. The same can’t be said for most self-published authors. These relatively unknown authors’ books need to stand out and attract the interest of potential readers. This kind of discovery and browsing usually doesn’t take place in the hectic holiday time frame. As a result, they’re often disappointed with holiday sales efforts.

So when is “prime time” for new authors to release their book? Just about any other time than the holidays, starting with the beginning of the year. People are going to have more time to spend reading during the cold winter months, and it’s a fact that book sales soar during January and February. Thousands of new eReaders and gift cards given during the holidays need content; there’s no reason why it can’t be your book!

Many authors think the entire first half of the year is a perfect time to launch and promote self-published books because of another major book-buying season that happens during that time. Do you know what the biggest selling season is for books? Fair warning: It’s probably not what you’re thinking.

Most people will say: Christmas. Sure, the holiday season is important for every retailer, including book merchants. But they would be wrong.

The summer time reading season is the top selling season for books

There are over $3.4 billion in sales over the long hot summer, according to industry sources, compared to about $2.9 billion spent for holiday gift giving.

But in reality, there’s really never a bad time to release a book. One idea may be for you to follow the patterns set by the book publishing trade. Traditional publishing houses have a rough calendar by genre for their release dates:

January–April

  • Romance
  • Self-help
  • Business
  • Cooking
  • Design

May–August

  • Adventure
  • Fantasy
  • Travel

September–November

  • Academic
  • Horror
  • Paranormal

December–January

  • Children
  • Cookery
  • Illustrated
  • Quiz and Novelty books

The bottom line is, don’t worry so much about “when” you publish. In fact, the worst thing self-published authors can do is not publish their book because of some perceived timing advantage. It is often said that self-publishing is a marathon and not a sprint, and authors shouldn’t worry so much about the placement of the starting line. Just publish it!

10 ways to make the most of your eCommerce book page

Selling direct to your readers will maximize your profits and readership.

Just like a realtor trying to attract house buyers, you need to consider the “curb appeal” of your direct-to-reader selling pages. Your efforts will be far easier than remodeling a bathroom or applying new paint. In fact, setting up a sales page can take just a few hours of work. It’s an investment in time that will surely pay off.

Here are many simple ways to boost your potential book sales.

1. Link to your sales page. Every time you mention your eBook or Print On Demand title online (in your email newsletter, on your website or blog, via social media), make sure you include your website address and a link to your sales page.

2. Tell your readers you’ll make more money. Be direct and tell your readers why it’s important to buy your books from your own pages. Don’t worry: your readers don’t mind learning this. In fact, when you share such details, readers will be even more engaged with your work. If people love your writing, they’ll want to help support you by purchasing your book from whatever outlet benefits you the most.

3. Same low prices! To support the above point, it’s also worth mentioning to your fans that they’ll pay the same price whether they buy your book from a store like Amazon or from your own page, so they might as well buy from the outlet that most benefits you.

4. Give your readers format options. If possible, you should offer your eBook in as many formats as you can. That includes print, eBook files (.mobi for Kindle, ePub for all other readers), or a simple PDF file.

5. Link to other retail sites. If someone already has an account with Amazon, they may prefer to just buy your book from there instead of going through a brand-new check-out process. If that’s the case, you don’t want your page to be a dead end.

6. Make sure your book cover is a sales magnet. Your site should feature an oversized image of your book cover. Of course, if your book cover is going to be big, it had better be great. Otherwise your visitors will assume that the writing matches the poor quality of the cover design.

7. Write a catchy book overview and description. Here’s your chance to grab a reader’s attention, but you only have a few sentences to win them over. Invest the time to make it persuasive so your readers are drawn in from the very first word! Feel free to pepper your book description with positive quotes from reviews if you have any.

8. Use your author biography to intrigue your readers. It’s time to tell the world about you! What is it about your own life experiences that will make your book worth reading?

9. Use accurate metadata to aid search. What’s metadata? It’s the basic information about your book that’s used in online searches. Your metadata will include things like genre, subgenre, ISBN, publication date, language, and page count. Make sure this data is accurate and you may just boost your traffic from people searching on Google.

10. Encourage your readers to use the social sharing function. Most selling pages will include simple social media icons for sharing. That makes it easy to show the page address on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and many more. Be sure to ask your fans to help you spread the word.

This post was excerpted and adapted from 5 Steps To Self Publishing: All the essential information you need to go from manuscript to marketplace. Download your free copy today.

Find your way to self- publishing success in just 5 easy steps with this 62-page book. Yours absolutely free.

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Steven Spatz
Steven Spatz is a writer, marketer, and the President of BookBaby, the nation’s leading self publishing services company. Spatz’s professional writing career began at age 13, paid by the word to bang out little league baseball game stories on an ancient manual typewriter for southern Oregon weekly newspapers. His journalism career continued after graduation from the University of Oregon at several daily newspapers in Oregon. When his family took over a direct marketing food business, Spatz redirected his writing and design skills into producing catalogs. The Pinnacle Orchards catalog was named "Best Food Catalog," received dozens of other national awards, and the business grew into one of the nation’s largest gourmet fruit gift businesses. After the company was sold, Spatz continued his direct marketing career with Fortune 500 companies including Mattel and Hasbro. He joined AVL Digital in 2004 to lead the direct-to-consumer marketing teams for music industry-leading brands Disc Makers, Oasis, and CD Baby. After serving as Chief Marketing Officer, Spatz was tapped to lead the company’s new publishing division in late 2014. In 2019, the AVL Digital Management team purchased the New Jersey brands, including BookBaby. The company is headquartered in Pennsauken, NJ (just outside Philadelphia, PA) and meets the printed book and eBook needs of thousands of self-publishing authors around the globe. Spatz lives in Glenside, PA with his two children, a demented cat, and some well-used bicycles. Steven loves to hear from authors, editors, and publishers in the BookBaby community with tales of publishing trials and triumphs. To tell him your story, write to steven@bookbaby.com.

18 COMMENTS

  2. Well, I’d have to disagree (if I may). In the UK January – end of February sales are in the doldrums. Authors can use Mothers’ Day (March) and April to promote their sales. I launched Scotch on the Rocks in July 2015 and it reached #1 in its genre within a week. Having said that, I have to admit that kindle unlimited/Prime/Book Bub etc are having an impact on downloads and with every year it becomes harder and harder for authors (not just indies) to make an impact. Too many books; kindles full to bursting point with unread novels – time for a shake up IMHO. Thanks for the blog post.

    • I have to disagree too. I’m in the US and many authors have showed very little to no sales in January and February, as well as August. They’ve showed the best sales during the holiday season, followed by the spring-summer period. However, these are self-published authors stating this.

    • I’m afraid I have to agree with you, Lizzie, about Kindle and all the other e-book media. Initially I achieved a lot of sales with Kindle but they have dwindled. I now intend to publish in print, as we all used to, and treat downloadable formats as just a nice little sideline.

  3. I, too, found the “fact” that book sales soar in Jan/Feb a curious one, as it is contrary to my own experience and other data that I’ve seen. Would love to see Mr. Spatz’s data for this “fact.”

    Do agree, however, that for most books (with a few exceptions) the traditional publishing house calendar is not especially applicable.

  5. Nice article Stephen, but I do have a question about something you mentioned. You said to make the book available in as many formats as possible – including pdfs. I understand everything but the PDF part. It seems that if your book is available anywhere in a PDF format, then it would so simple to pirate the book. There is no way to protect copies from being made and freely distributed. I have a friend who told me their sales plummeted as soon as they made a PDF version available. I am wondering if your experience is otherwise. Thanks in advance for your answer.

  6. My question is, if you are publishing a crime novel or a drama, thriller, and suspense; when would be the right time for those? According to your list those genres are not included. Does that mean that every time is right for those or that it is always the wrong time?

  8. My deadline to publish my erotic thriller is first week in December.. That deadline is based on writing 500 words a day to complete first draft. the right time to publish any genre iis when it’s finished.
    Steve.

  15. Timing is an important aspect of writing as it plays a vital role in the consistency of a writer.
    your blog made things look easier and understandable.
    thanks a lot and keep writing more, it will guide me more.

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