Launch Week Recap

A Big Thank You!

Hey everyone, I just wanted to touch base here on this Saturday and say THANK YOU to everyone who helped my book launch be a greater success than I anticipated.

I was immensely encouraged not only by the number of orders but also by the many, many people who helped me promote my book and share it with others. Being a self-published author, I have no marketing team. It’s just the people who support my work and my own efforts.

With that, I was blown away by how this all went down.

Climbing the Charts

To begin, my book managed to climb the “New Releases” rank in my niche pretty quickly. By the end of launch day, I had climbed to the #1 spot there!

In my planning for this launch, I found out that if you can get enough traction on your launch day, this is a possibility. Also, I learned that if you could climb the chart, it would help your marketing immensely. With enough attention, Amazon will help you out by putting your book in front of more people, and then you’re also on the charts if people scroll through them.

These things in mind, I was shocked even further to find that I not only climbed the “New Releases” rank, but even the “Best Sellers” one too!

I ended up being the ninth bestselling book on Amazon in the Christian Wisdom Literature category! That includes just about every commentary on wisdom literature in the Bible and countless other works. At least two of the books still ahead of me were actually pocket versions of the ESV Bible! So, even making the list was pretty amazing to me. The first time we looked, I was around #354, and I thought to myself, “If I could make the top 100, that would be so neat.” Once you’re in the top 100, you make their official list, where you can scroll through and see.

Then I climbed into the teens, and suddenly it seemed possible to be in the top 10! All praise to God and thanks to you guys, I managed to peak at #9 and stayed there for about a day. I even managed to nudge ahead of one of Max Lucado’s books and seeing my name in a list next to his was pretty surreal!

I even managed to get ahead of two commentaries in “New Releases” that were written by guys whose work I have read in the past!

Since the launch, sales have faded a bit (as expected). I’m back around #20 now, but I’m still at the top of “New Releases,” which includes every book in my niche that has been published in the last 60 days!

All of this contributed to Amazon’s “bot” noticing that my book was selling, and ticking off a five percent deal on my book!

It might not seem like much, but it was a sign that Amazon noticed me, and I thought that was pretty cool. It’s another marketing push they use to try to help undecided buyers. In fact, they take a cut from their profit in order to pull this off. My wife had actually told me she’d heard of this sort of thing happening, but it seemed unrealistic to me until I noticed it was discounted!

Concluding Thoughts

All in all, I have been so encouraged by the response. It has been such a blessing to me personally, and now I pray that it is a blessing likewise to you!

I didn’t really have any number goals for my book. I was simply hoping that authorship wouldn’t end up being an expensive hobby.

I am thrilled to share with you that when my first deposit from Amazon comes in, I will have made my money back on this project (minus that which I spent on print copies for me to sell personally; however, we’re actually close to breaking that number too before they even ship to me!)

I’m the pastor of a rural church and simply didn’t want to bankrupt my family pursuing a dream. I recently heard of a woman who spent around $50,000 on her first (and probably only!) book.

We tried to do everything responsibly on a budget, and at this point, it hasn’t cost me anything but my time.

Now, I’m just praying that my work helps someone, which was my greatest goal in writing this book.

If that is you, and you find my book’s material to be a blessing to you, I would greatly appreciate it if you’d leave a review on Amazon when you get an opportunity. It would mean a lot to me. Even more, they tell me it is one of the greatest benefits to staying power on Amazon and putting my book before more people in the future.

If you haven’t already picked up a copy yet, I’d love it if you’d do so if the material sounds like it would be of benefit to you.

All in all, I’m counting my blessings today.

I still can’t believe that I actually finished this project. All glory to God for the work He is doing in me to shape me into the person I am today. It is by grace that I am who I am.

Lord willing, I have many more projects to come.

God bless, and thanks for your support.

—Josiah