7 Book Launch Lessons Every Indie Author Should Learn

I’m currently in the middle of my soft launch—meaning my books are live, but only my launch team knows they exist. For two weeks, they’re the ones purchasing, reviewing, and helping build momentum before I announce the books publicly.

My soft launch was very strategic and thought-out, but you know what they say about the best laid plans . . .

Some of the lessons below are things I knew going into the launch and handled well. Others are things I learned because I was in the middle of it—refreshing dashboards, second-guessing decisions, and reminding myself (repeatedly) to take my own advice.

If you’re planning a book launch—or someday will—consider this your friendly field report from someone actively living it.

These lessons aren’t in any particular order.

I tell my clients this all the time.

Don’t rush editing just to meet an arbitrary deadline. Don’t force a timeline that your book isn’t ready for. Give yourself margin.

And then …  I turned around and did exactly what I warn against.

I had a launch date in mind that was far too soon after finishing the manuscript. I wanted to ride the momentum of November writing month and still catch that New Year’s goals energy. So I went for February. In theory, it made sense.

After getting some timeframes from my interior designer, I pushed back the launch by 10 days.

But guess what? My book still wasn’t proofread in time.

Instead of pushing the launch again, I made a decision I thought was low-risk: I published a temporary version during my soft launch, assuming only my launch team would be buying during that window. I told them upfront the book was still being proofread and that I’d send the updated version shortly.

No big deal, right?

Except people outside my launch team bought it.

And for a book about self-editing, that’s … not a great look.

I’d already pushed the soft launch back by ten days and felt silly doing it again, so I stuck to the date. But this was a clear reminder that rushing, even when you’re experienced, creates unnecessary stress and complications.

Lesson learned (again): Timelines need to be realistic and don’t matter as much as a quality product.

This is one thing I’m genuinely glad I did right.

Instead of asking everyone to post reviews all at once, I collected reviews ahead of time using a Google Form. That gave me a live spreadsheet of who had submitted, who hadn’t, and where they agreed to post.

This decision paid off in several ways:

• I could send personal reminders to people who hadn’t submitted yet (which works far better than generic nudges).
• I could stagger reviews throughout the soft launch instead of getting a brief spike and then nothing.
• I could maintain steady momentum, which is far more valuable to Amazon’s algorithm than a single burst.

I divided submitted reviews into batches and emailed each group when it was their turn to post. I sent out a new batch every two days. I used Yet Another Mail Merge connected to my Google Sheet that had all the submitted reviews, so each email automatically populated the reviewer’s name, platform(s) they agreed to post on, and review text.

For me, it was literally select the current batch number to hide all other rows, then send the templated email. For them, it was literally copy and paste.

Easy peasy.

Meanwhile, throughout the launch, I continued gently reminding launch team members who hadn’t submitted reviews yet that they still could.

This was a surprise lesson. One that drove me up a wall. If you’re not so type A like me, it mught not bother you as much, but the fickle nature of Amazon drove me nuts.

For one, I assumed that if launch team members bought the book (it’s $0.99), they’d automatically receive the verified purchaser badge on their review.

Nope.

After some digging, I learned that reviewers had a better chance of getting the badge if they waited at least a day after purchase before posting their review. So I updated my email templates with clearer instructions.

It still wasn’t foolproof, but it significantly improved the odds. Then I realized they need to open the ebook and swipe through a few pages, so I adjusted the instructions again.

Verified purchaser reviews give more visibility and trust. Some say this doesn’t matter as much, but it’s still a nice to have. If you’re running a launch team, this small timing tweak can make a real difference.

But the biggest way Amazon tested my patience is there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to when a review is published. Some posted immediately, some took hours, some took days, some are still pending.

Really it shouldn’t matter. As long as all the reviews, or a good chunk of them, are posted before I announce the books are available to the public, then that’s what matters.

I know this, but I still was refreshing the page every hour or so and freaking out when no new reviews were displayed.

I worried reviews had been rejected and would never post, and I wouldn’t hit my goal of number of reviews posted despite having enough submitted ahead of time.

Then magically midway, a ton of reviews came through, and I finally relaxed. I wasted way too much time worrying about these things.

This is another one I knew ahead of time, and it’s a good thing I did. I was already stressing enough over delayed reviews, I didn’t need to stress over this too.

Yes, hitting #1 in a category looks exciting, but it’s also incredibly fleeting.

To hit #1 in two of my three categories, I needed at least ten purchases in a single day. So not much. I could have stacked my first batch to make that happen, but I chose not to.

Who cares that more than ten of my launch team members bought the book on the same day?

Real success isn’t being #1 for twenty-four hours. A true bestseller sells consistently over time. So, I guess I could say my book was a bestseller, but it means nothing. I just had enough people on my launch team to get sales during those weeks.

Right now, during my soft launch:

• My Self-Editing Essentials for Fiction book has hit #2 in one category and #3 in another.
• My Self-Editing Essentials for Nonfiction book has hit #3 and #5.

Who cares?

That momentum is temporary. What matters far more is:

• Consistent purchases over time
• Reviews spread across the launch window
• Long-term social proof

So instead of chasing a badge, I staggered reviews to signal to the algorithm that these books have steady interest and are building credibility with real reviews. This will matter a lot more in the long run.

I doubt my book will be a true bestseller, but by not chasing a temporary badge, I have a better chance at it.

Amazon formatting is … an experience.

I resubmitted my book description more times than I care to admit, trying to get spacing between paragraphs and bullet points. Plain text didn’t work. HTML line breaks didn’t work. Nonbreaking spaces didn’t work.

I know html code, but I couldn’t get it to work.

Each failed attempt required waiting for approval just to see that nothing had changed, so that was also a waste of time.

I found Kindlepreneur’s Amazon Book Description Generator and copied the code it produced. It still had some issues with spacing after the list, but it had the spacing correct now before the list. Since I know some html, it was an easy tweak to get it to work.

If you value your time (and sanity), use a tool built for this instead of trial and error.

I guess I can’t really say I learned this yet. I have no idea if my book description will convert, as I haven’t announced the books to the public yet. It’s just my launch team buying, and they would buy no matter how lame my book description is.

And it was that: lame. When I published the book, I had a book description stuffed with keywords. I was so proud of how I had fit so many in there naturally.

But it was … boring. It listed pain points, but it didn’t make you feel them.

This became super clear when I looked at a book that had launched at the same time as mine and covered the same topic. Yep!

Of all the dumb luck. My topic hadn’t been covered in years, and now not just one, but two people launched books that covered the same topic.

I read their book descriptions and panicked a little. Theirs weren’t just informative; they were emotional. They spoke directly to the reader’s frustration, fear, and self-doubt.

So I rewrote my description.
Then rewrote it again.
And again.
And again.

At least seven versions later, it finally clicked.

Compare these two versions:

• “This book will help you have fewer DNF readers.”
• “If your plot sags in the middle, your characters feel flat, or your scenes lose steam, readers won’t stick around. Agents won’t either.”

Same pain point. Very different impact.

People buy based on emotion first. So while keywords matter, they shouldn’t drain the life out of your message.

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<h2> 7. Prepare for your public launch

By the time your soft launch starts, your essentials should already be in place: lead magnets, forms, email sequences, links.

But the soft launch window itself is gold.

Use it to:

• Draft compelling social media content
• Create A+ Amazon content
• Identify reviews that can’t be posted on Amazon and repurpose them as editorial reviews
• Write down lessons learned (hello, future blog posts and social media content)
• Reach out to podcasts, bloggers, book reviewers, etc. to get out there

Launching a book is equal parts strategy and surrender.

You plan carefully. You do your homework. And then you accept that some things (looking at you Amazon included) are outside your control.

Keep your goal in mind: gain momentum and credibility for your book and learn enough along the way to make the next launch even smoother.

And if nothing else? Take comfort in knowing that even editors sometimes have to relearn their own advice.

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I’d love to hear from you. Comment below using any of these prompts to guide you:

• What questions do you have?
• What was the most surprising lesson and why?
• What do you hope for your launch?
• What is one thing you did professionally or personally today that you’re proud of?