Advanced Launch Strategies: How to Run a High Budget Book Launch

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Here’s a launch strategy and structure you can use for running a high spend ($10k+ budget in the first 30 days) book launch.

Track: daily for the first 30 days of the launch (template: nicholaserik.com/tracking). This provides you with feedback during the launch and helps you build a personal reference library of case studies.

Test: covers and blurbs to improve conversion and help mitigate the risk of flops (check out the 80/20 Cover & Blurb Testing Masterclass for the testing processes that helped a book hit #1 in the UK Kindle store and a different audio set hit #1 in the Audible UK store). You can also test concepts and titles (check out Advanced Book Marketing Alchemy for these testing processes).

Benchmarks: having benchmarks helps you predict how a book might perform before spending a huge amount of money marketing it. The benchmarks below are good starting points.

Note 1: all benchmarks assume you’re using best practices for ad setup. Check out (Almost) Everything You Need to Know About Facebook Ads for current best practices.

Note 2: these benchmarks apply to books being sold on Amazon. They do not apply to books being sold on a direct store.

Pre-launch: these Facebook Ad Unique Outbound CPCs tiers have been strongly predictive of the book’s performance not only during the launch but also in general. This is after the first $50 spent on the book cover on the book cover background with the book blurb. For genres other than romance, add $0.02 to the tiers (e.g., platinum would be $0.10 – $0.12). Note that these CPCs are only for the first $50 in spend; CPCs increase as you spend due to ad fatigue.

  • Platinum: $0.08 – $0.10
  • Gold: $0.10 – $0.12
  • Silver: $0.12 – $0.14
  • Bronze: $0.14 – $0.16
  • Problematic: $0.20+

After book is live: use these total conversion benchmarks.

Total conversion = sales + borrows / clicks

Facebook: aim to hit 3%+ total conversion at full price, 10%+ at 99c with the book cover on the book cover background with the book blurb. This is for the first $50 spent on this creative; conversion declines as you spend more due to ad fatigue. Note that if you’ve already run this specific ad creative during the pre-order, don’t use this benchmark to help predict performance (since conversion will be lower during the pre-order).

Amazon: aim to hit 10%+ total conversion at full price, 15%+ at 99c. Use a campaign that has 10 – 20 highly relevant author keywords (Ilona Andrews, Lee Child) using broad match or 10 – 20 ASINs using exact match. This is after $100 – $200 in spend. Analyze total conversion for the entire campaign; some targets will have lower or higher conversion rates.

Facebook is easier to use for benchmarks since there are fewer factors that can potentially skew the conversion numbers.

Launch Structure

  • You can adapt the launch structure above to your budget (e.g., $100/day, $500/day etc.).
  • Start with peak ad spend on Day 1. Stack this with your newsletter. This will help maximize both rank and profitability. Commit to this spend for 4 – 7 days to allow enough sales / read data to come in and ad data stabilize.
  • On Day 8, assess performance and begin to taper back the ad spend 10 – 20% every 2 – 3 days if performance (net profit, cost per unit) isn’t hitting your targets. If performance is good at Day 8 and hitting your targets, you can continue spending the same amount indefinitely until performance declines or you need to reduce the budget for cash flow reasons.
    • Net profit: I analyze this across the entire catalog, not just the new book. This is because if you write books in the same genre, the new release will usually lift sales and reads of your backlist. Your net profit target depends on your objective for the launch. If you’re launching Book 1 in a new series, for example, you may be willing to breakeven or go negative for the first 30 days of a launch to sell more copies and build the series’ fanbase. Or you may want to turn an immediate profit; this depends on your risk tolerance and financial situation.
    • Cost per unit: at ad spends of $1k+/day, under $10 for a full price book generally means the ads are performing well. $15 – $20 can be acceptable if net profit looks good. $30+ means the ads are probably not converting well and / or CPCs are too high.
    • Amazon considers a title a new release for 90 days. If the book is performing well and you have the money available to keep advertising it, then you can ride that momentum into Months 2 and 3, continuing to spend a lot.
  • Do not massively increase budget in Week 2 or 3 (e.g., from $2000 to $3000 a day) to chase performance or rank; this is almost always a waste of money. There are rare occasions where scaling a book after Week 1 is effective if the ads are performing extremely well. These scenarios are hard to offer blanket advice or benchmarks for, since these situations tend to be unique.
  • Swaps are optional; these will not be every day. The structure outlined here is just showing that they can fit on any day. If possible, frontload these during the first few days to add firepower to the initial marketing push. But these are fine at any point in the launch. You do not need to use swaps; these are optional.
  • You can make social media posts every day or even multiple times a day, depending on the platform. Or you can make posts less frequently. The structure outlined here is just showing that social posts can be slotted in anywhere as a supplement to your other traffic sources. You do not need to use social media; it is optional.
  • If you’re using promo sites, either frontload these on Day 1 to kick things off with a big push, or backload at the end of the promo (e.g., Day 7 of a Kindle Countdown Deal) to end the discounted period strong. You only use promo sites if the new book, or a book in the series, is discounted. Here’s a curated list of recommended promo sites.
  • The budget split between the Facebook and Amazon Ads outlined here is an example if you’re more comfortable with using Facebook Ads. It’s easier to use Facebook Ads as the cornerstone of the ad spend for a launch because it’s much easier to scale them rapidly. Amazon can take time to scale up and it’s harder to dial in exact daily spends. If you can run both Facebook and Amazon Ads well, allocate more of the budget toward whichever platform is performing best. If you can only run one, then focus there; adding a poor-performing ad platform (due to lack of ads management skill) will not improve performance.
  • You can spend $100k+ on Facebook and $50k+ on Amazon on a single book in a 30 day timeframe in the US.

Additional Resources

Work with Me: Launch Accelerator

If you’re looking to spend $10k+ on a launch and want to level up your ads / launches, I offer a 1-on-1 Launch Accelerator. This is a unique combination of consulting and coaching designed not only to boost your launch’s performance but also your ad skills. It includes:

  • A custom-designed launch strategy based on your book, budget, and objective.
  • 1-on-1 calls where I help you execute the launch strategy. I’ll teach you how to run / level up on the ad platform of your choice during the launch (Facebook or Amazon), using my systems. The launch is a great opportunity to rapidly boost your ad skillset because you have to make a lot of ads / decisions in a short timeframe, and the pressure of the launch creates built-in deadlines / accountability.
  • We can also go into cover, blurb, concept, and / or title testing (if you want).

If you’re interested, reach out at [email protected] with your book, genre, and objective and if it sounds like it might be a good fit for my strategies, we can set up a call to discuss things further.

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