Head starts
How can your book get out ahead of the pack?
Head starts wouldn’t be fair in a horse race, because they would have a huge impact on the outcome. They matter in book publishing for the same reason.
Pre-orders can determine how enthusiastic booksellers (especially online booksellers like Amazon) will be about your book—they promote the things they think they can sell more of. Because preorders actually count as sales in the first week of your book’s release, they also give you a boost towards your book becoming a category bestseller.
Today we’re getting into how to pull that off.
To be a category bestseller generally means that on Amazon your book is at the top of the relevant subject-coded list of books. It’s a relative measure that has a lot to do with what other books are selling at the same time, but that also offers a good indication of your book’s popularity, influence, and success.
To be clear, it’s not like the New York Times bestseller list, in terms of what it means for sales volume, but to be there gives a ton of legitimacy to your book and your message. It means that of all the people buying books on your subject on Amazon, more of them are interested in yours than any other single book. It means you’re going to get more of the algorithm’s help, too. You’ve probably bought something that you learned about through a “customers who buy this also buy that” promotion. Getting on the right side of that can be powerful.
There’s one way that the category bestseller lists might be better than the NYT list.
To get on that list you need to start with deep pockets. It’s not just marketing pizazz—you have to print a ridiculous number of copies to achieve the sales volume (in a finite period) that gets you on the NYT list. But since most books don’t get there, you’re probably left with an embarrassing surplus. At some time in the future the fate of those books is to be remaindered (sold for pennies to a retailer who will in turn sell if for a couple of bucks), or pulped (ground up into a slurry of former-book-goo that can get turned into recycled paper products.
But to get on the category bestseller lists has a lot to do with things that you can do yourself. Not only that, you can do them for free, or pretty close.
The activities that will make sure that your book has the best chance for a great launch are simple and you already have what you need. I’ve already written about the value in building community around your book well before it’s published (read The guy who would only publish bestsellers about Seth Godin’s philosophy if you haven’t already). I’ve published many category bestsellers—I’m sorry to say that I haven’t kept track. If you’re one of my authors who’s had a category bestseller, please drop a comment with the title of your book, and maybe a link for other readers to check out!
I hope you’ve read the post linked above—it makes a good case for taking this approach. I was convinced long ago, but once I was ready to start I realized I didn’t really know what to do. I felt the paralysis that comes from having a ton of options, but little idea of how to prioritize them. So here are some good ideas about how you can put these ideas to work for you. Most of these can apply while your book is a work-in-progress, during pre-orders, or once it’s published. You’re smart enough to modify where necessary.
Email people who you know. Let them know what you’re doing/what you’ve done and ask them for feedback.
Everywhere and anywhere that you communicate, make it clear that you’ve got a new book AND YOU WANT PEOPLE TO BUY IT.
Post about it every day
Put it in your email signature (and send dedicated emails about it)
Always include a link
Tell people why it’s important. To them, to you, to the world. “If this book sells well I can buy a pony” is a totally legitimate thing to tell people if that’s why it’s important to you. I bet you’d get some buyers.
Be strategic. Are there certain people you want to tell first (and let them know you’re telling them first?). Anyone to whom you want to offer a special discount? Promote other people’s books if you love them. They’re almost guaranteed to reciprocate. Where do your target readers congregate—a guest post, interview, or training at a professional association or a website you know they all frequent could be the key to a massive spike in interest.
Drop in. I’ve had authors who made a circuit of local bookstores every week for months after their book came out, offering to sign copies, talking to staff and customers, taking photos with people who bought the book. It worked—they became a favorite of the staff, which meant every single day there were other people selling the book on behalf of the author. I’ve had authors who put the word out that if anyone wants to teach their book in a course they’ll drop in to talk to the class via zoom.
Build momentum—post more as publication day gets close. Remind people that they can order it online, from their local bookstore, request it from their library. Don’t shut up about your book for at least a couple of weeks before publication day. Instead of momentum, maybe think of this as building your book’s gravity. Bigger things have more gravity, attract more things, gain gravity, and so on.
Remember to mix it up in your posts—how about a photo of a page with your favorite passage, an unboxing video of your author copies, a picture of you out to dinner where you celebrated the pub day (or the contract, or… any milestone), post thanking colleagues/readers/reviewers for input (but never a defensive post about how reviewers are wrong…those don’t work out), a story about your writing process or something unexpected that you found during research.
And keep going. You’d be pretty disappointed if your publisher advertised your book on pub day and then never mentioned it again. But lots of authors do that. Keep talking about your book and its ideas, and making creative posts. The selling you do might get less frequent a month or two after your book comes out, but keep talking about the book anyway. Just make sure there’s a link to buy it in your Twitter/Instagram/TikTok/LinkedIn bios and in your email signature.
You’re probably imagining a bunch of things like “why would anyone want to hear about my book” or “what if they think I’m not cool if I promote my book?” or “They’ll get sick of hearing about it every day.” Those thoughts don’t serve you.
The truth is, most of the people you’re going to reach want to support their community, which you’re a part of, because that’s how you reached them. And if you have someone’s email address chances are good they’d be proud to get a personal and direct note from you about why you think they’ll find your book useful. Pre-pub you can ask them for constructive feedback. Post-pub, you can give them a link to buy it (publishers love to give out discount codes for this kind of thing). Nobody’s going to think less of you for promoting a thing you made.
Worst case scenario: they don’t respond, don’t buy it. Which is exactly the same as if you’d never told them. Best case: they buy it, write you a nice note, tell two friends—this is infinitely better than the worst case. So you’re balancing “no change” as the downside against “transformative positive change” as the upside. It’s not often that a decision is that easy.
Stay tuned for a special edition coming soon. I don’t want you to just take my word for all of this. I was fortunate to talk with a friend this week whose recent book has been a category bestseller for three weeks in a very relevant niche. She was very deliberate about how she approached community building during her writing process and how she promoted the book for preorders. Our conversation will be featured in an upcoming post.