The publishing industry gets rocked by a blockbuster title, and for years after that, publishers and authors play “follow the leader.” It’s smart — millions of books are sold and billions of dollars are amassed annually by chasing trends in publishing.
A pre-sale period gives you an opportunity to build a foundation for your book’s success. Without spending the time and energy to make sure that foundation is ready, your book sales will suffer.
You’ve written your book and completed the hard work of producing it. Now, it’s time to release it to the world. In other words, it’s time for a book launch party.
Building an author platform takes time, and you won’t get far if you wait for some magical moment. But you have the freedom to focus on the activities you like, so don’t make your life difficult by forcing something that’s not really you.
To move forward with your bookselling, you may need to go back to the basics of marketing and create a plan that defines your mission, objectives, strategies, and tactics.
For everything you're told you have to do as an independent author publishing and promoting a book, I'd argue there are only two absolute, universal musts: you must get a professional edit and you must have your own author website.
"I'm not a brand, I'm an author!" True, but the purpose of branding is the same whether you’re selling books or bran flakes: to let customers know what they’re going to get before they buy.
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