It’s been almost 2 weeks since I released my very first print book. It’s still weird to walk by a bookshelf and see my face on it.
It’s been an incredible experience and I’m so thankful for it, and for everyone that supported me on this journey.
This morning, I was thinking about all the things that went right with this release, and all the things I would do differently next time.. it was pretty eye-opening, so I thought I’d share, in case you were considering publishing a book of your own, too. 
1. Publishing a book is REALLY easy.
I was terrified that it would be hard, and would require a lot of time, money and effort on my part, to write a book and launch it into the world.
Turns out that none of that is true. It’s actually one of the easiest things I’ve done!
2. It doesn’t need to take a long time to get your book written and into the hands of others.
I’d read countless stories and articles from successful authors who confessed that it took them a year or more to write their book, and often the same amount of time to publish it after it was written.
I am not a patient person, so I REALLY didn’t like the idea of waiting around 2 years or more to write and release a book!
I decided in the middle of 2018 that I would write a book and that I would release it at the beginning of 2019. And here we are. 
When you’re committed to something, and you put forth the effort to make it happen, it will happen.
3. Don’t be such a damn perfectionist.
I had periods while writing my book where I would criticize my work and think it wasn’t good enough, wasn’t informative enough, wasn’t clear enough, wasn’t helpful enough…
I thought I had to write MORE, include more…
I believed that I needed to have the perfect grammar, should avoid swearing, and that I must include X, Y and Z, like _____ (successful author) did.
Being a perfectionist is a surefire way to ensure your book never gets written. Remember, DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT.
4. Form (and utilize) a street team.
I had originally planned to use a ‘street team’ (people who would receive an early release of my book, and who would leave me reviews and help me promote during the launch).
I asked people to be a part of it. They all said yes.
But then… I got impatient. I didn’t want to wait for people to receive and then read and review the book before I launched. Once the book was live on Amazon I wanted to sell it NOW.
(Apparently I could have just sent people a digital copy of my book, which was finished and not on Amazon for over a month, and this would have worked so well. For some reason I thought they needed to have a physical copy of the book, but nope!)
A street team would have helped me to get more reviews, and reach more people. I missed the boat on this one.
5. Have a promotional plan ready for AFTER the launch.
I was so excited that my book was live on Amazon, that I just formulated a plan to promote it while the launch period was in effect (the first week).
At the end of the week, book sales took a big dip. This is to be expected with any book launch (the most sales are always within the first week), but the issue is that I didn’t have a plan to keep sales going.
If I could go back and do it again, I’d have a plan to CONTINUE selling the book heavily AFTER the launch buzz dies down.
(We do have a post-launch plan for the book now, and are working through it, but I wish I’d had this in place from the get-go, as it would have saved us a ton of time, and also resulted in a more consistent flow of sales.)
6. Do a giveaway launch of the book first, to get excitement going like crazy, and people talking about the book everywhere.
The more people are talking about your book, the more books you will sell. I didn’t do much in terms of getting OTHERS to talk about my book.
I, myself, did a lot of talking, but I really wish I had done something to get OTHERS talking.
Sidenote: We will be doing this with the kindle version of the book, as well as the audio book.
7. Create a landing page for the book.
I don’t know why I didn’t think to do this, as I do it all the time with everything else that I launch & sell - but, I didn’t even think about it.
I simply directed people to Amazon.
If I could go back and do it again, I would direct people to a landing page first, so I could collect email addresses, which would then provide me the opportunity to further communicate with those who purchased (or were interested in purchasing) the book, and offer them additional services/programs/
Collecting customer contact information is one of the most important parts of building a successful and profitable business.
Being able to check in with your customers/clients, ask how they liked the product/service, ask for testimonials/reviews, and of course, promote other things you believe will be of value for them, is SO critical. I can’t believe I missed the ball on this one.
8. Pre-launch the book.
Instead of just doing an “it’s here!” launch, where people hear about it and can then immediately go and buy it, I wish someone had told me about the benefits of PRE-LAUNCHING the book.
Pre-launching gets the excitement up, gets people talking about your book, and also, tells Amazon to notify people when the book is officially available for purchase, which makes selling a breeze.
Having an official launch date, instead of just a “surprise, it’s here!” announcement, has always worked better for me, so I’m quite annoyed at myself that I didn’t do that with my book.
9. Triple-check everything. And then have someone else triple-check everything.
I had a typo and a few printing errors in my book. I didn’t notice because I only skim-read it when my book formatter told me it was done.
I was too excited to move on to the next step (book cover and promo!) that I didn’t ensure everything was spelled correctly and that the formatting looked okay.
I also didn’t include ANY calls-to-action throughout the book (which I realized later and fixed at the last second before we officially launched)..
If I had just taken the time to go through the book, the formatting, and the printing (and had someone else do it too, just to be sure I didn’t miss anything), I would have saved myself a lot of stress and embarassment!
…
All in all, I am VERY happy with my book, and I’m incredibly proud of the launch we did, especially since no one on my team had ever done something like this before.
For a newbie author, I think I did alright. Over 500 books sold in less than 1 week is impressive, and I’ll take it!
And we have many other things up our sleeves for the continuation of sharing this book.
Not to mention my second book… omg, I’m addicted!
If you’re considering writing a book of your own, I want to encourage you to jump in. It’s nowhere near as hard, or as complicated, or as scary as you think it is.
Pinky promise.
I’ll be talking more in-depth about the book, and sharing the whole behind-the-scenes of my book launch on the podcast!
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Don’t forget –
You really can be, do and have EVERYTHING you want. Say YES to you and take action now!
xx,
Cassie