When is the Best Time to Publish Your Book?
/
One of the biggest advantages of self-publishing is that authors don’t have to adhere to the rigid release schedule or publishing timelines that traditional publishers apply to their books.
Even still, many authors enter their FriesenPress production process with a nagging suspicion that they’re missing out — or making a mistake — if they don’t launch their book at the so-called “right time” for the market.
The reality is that bestselling books are launched every week, in every genre. Is shelving your self-help book for 3 months and missing out on sales worth any slight advantages you might experience? Unless you’ve got a huge marketing budget, the answer is almost always no!
Your launch date should be thought of as one touchpoint in your book’s marketing plan. It’s a defining and exciting moment, to be sure, but know that the date you select will not make you or break you. A book marketing plan should aim at building momentum towards launch day — and far beyond it.
So, when’s the best time to launch your book? Here are 5 things to consider when planning the date that’s right for you:
1. When will you have time to market your book?
The single most important factor that should influence when you release your book is when you will have time to devote to marketing your book.
You know your life’s ebbs and flows better than anyone. Try to avoid picking a time when you know you’ll be run off your feet with no time to plan a book launch event, schedule interviews with local media, or encourage your social media followers to buy a copy of your book. Marketing takes time and effort; do yourself and your book justice by choosing a launch date that works for you and your schedule.
And this advice isn’t just applicable to self-published authors, either. The salad days of even midlist authors benefitting from massive book marketing budgets are over. The traditionally published author must now market their own books, too — only, they get little to no say over when their book drops.
2. Why > When
The “when” of your book launch matters far less than your “why.”
Although this sounds like a note from a bad marketing fortune cookie, there’s much truth in it. On a psychological level, the readers you’re trying to reach with your book are going to be compelled by the reason you wrote your book, versus the time of year it was published.
That’s because the why behind your book is a story in itself.
Every author who spends the huge amount of time and effort it takes to write and publish a book has a powerful why. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t make it to the finish line. So, find your “why” and make it the focal point of your marketing and launch efforts. Tell the story of your book’s beginnings, and why you (and no one else) are the perfect person to tell it. Your book launch is the apex of that narrative — the perfect time for your readers to celebrate the why behind your story (and buy your book).
3. When in doubt, weave in what’s in season
If your schedule is fairly open, or you would like to add a different spin on your marketing messaging, the next thing you can do is look ahead on the calendar toward your estimated publication date. Is there a relevant seasonal event or tie-in that relates to the message or themes of your book? Awareness months are often great occasions to mark the release of book titles — especially nonfiction or children’s books.
For fiction, is there a hotly anticipated upcoming media property that you can leverage? For example, the launch date for one of the new Avatar movies might be an opportunity for a science fiction author to base their marketing messaging around.
In a similar vein, think about how you can flip the traditional promotions calendar in an advantageous or clever way. What are ways you can subvert your readers’ expectations by tying your launch to something seasonal? Think about all the fun an author could have marketing a book about a jilted lover’s bloody crime spree…that launches on Valentine’s Day. Their messaging would cut through the usual slate of romance titles coming out at the time, don’t you think?
The important thing is your tie-in needs to have its own story that sticks in your prospective readers’ minds. Don’t be shy about capitalizing on what’s trending; tap into the zeitgeist. If you can tie your why to a seasonal tie-in and launch your book around that time — you’re really cooking!
4. Don’t promote yourself into a corner
Early on in your marketing process, avoid tunnel vision on a singular date. Remember, marketing doesn’t stop with launch day. Be prepared to pivot. Publishing timelines can be fickle; it’s best (and more professional) to speak in general terms (such as “Coming Summer 2023”) until you know with absolute, 100% certainty that your book will be available on your launch date of choice. And a bonus: your book’s official release date then becomes a post-worthy news item you can announce when it’s set in stone!
5. Ensure your book is searchable and available
It’s all well and good for us to tell you that there’s no bad time of the year to release a book… but what if we could show you?
This chart indicates the monthly sales of all FriesenPress authors over the last 3 years. (For the privacy of our authors, we’ve withheld the sales quantities on the y-axis of the graph.) Although sales tend to be stronger in Q1 and Q4, there are no “bust” times when it comes to our authors’ book sales. Self-published books sell fairly evenly throughout the year.
What is important is that your book is searchable (i.e., easy for readers to find) and available to purchase wherever your readers buy books so you aren’t losing out on any sales.
At FriesenPress, we ensure all our titles include full and complete metadata and BISAC codes. This information is crucial in helping search engines (such as those on retailers’ websites) find books on a given topic or subject matter. Similarly, our robust distribution network makes authors’ books available for sale at over 55,000 booksellers — from the megastores like Amazon and Apple Books to independent mom & pops. All your marketing effort and strategy will be for naught if no one can find or purchase your book!
Your book is very likely to be the result of countless hours of passionate, dedicated work. It’d be a shame to pin all your hopes and dreams on one carefully selected day.
Thankfully, you aren’t limited to any one date. Once you launch, you’ll need to keep your promotions rolling. So, plan ahead, get creative, and remember the why behind your story. Those are the elements that will allow you to build the momentum that drives the ongoing success of your book!
