I found this FASCINATING. I was expecting Book 3 to cannibalize Book 4 again, the same way Book 1 had cannibalized Book 2 in May. But that didn’t really happen. I’m not entirely sure why. My launch strategy for them was the same. I happen to love Book 2’s cover, so I wasn’t sure if that was it. The title? What didn’t people like about it?

  Or perhaps, since the series was new, people were only buying Book 1 in May to test the waters. After all, Elana hadn’t ever published an adult romance before. The Brainy Billionaire was her first. Prior to this time, remember, she’d been publishing YA dystopian, science fiction, fantasy, and some YA contemporary romance novels in verse.

  These billionaires were a brand-new foray.

  I honestly think that had something to do with why Book 1 outsold Book 2 so much in May. Because when we look at June’s numbers for Book 1 and 2, we see:

  Brainy made: $1895.50.

  Brawny made: $1430.98.

  Now, I always expect Book 1 to outsell the rest of the series. It’s the one you discount, you run free days on, all of that. It’s how you bring people to your body of work. So it has to be good. Well-edited. Packaged well. And strategically marketed.

  The series in June earned: $8925.34 with 4 books out.

  This summer was the summer I went whole-hog with Amazon Marketing Services ads, now just called Amazon Advertising. It had been around for a while, but I’d spent a year making ads, freaking out when I didn’t understand how they worked, and turning them off.

  I grew some nerves of steel, and I figured out the advertising platform. I learned how to calculate read-through, something I had been doing for a while anyway, but I hadn’t really attributed any of that to advertising yet. I kept the ads going. I experimented until I found keywords that worked for me.

  This summer was also when I returned to Facebook ads with great vigor, spurred on by my AMS advertising success. The process was much slower, and I started with Liz Isaacson books, so there’s no data to report in this case study about those.

  In June, to make my nearly $9000, I spent $1000 on Amazon Ads on this series. I was thrilled with that result, but things are about to change….

  July 2018: Books 5 and 6, The Billionaire’s Bodyguard and The Billionaire’s Boyfriend release on July 4.

  I did a 35-day preorder on these 2 books at the full price of $2.99. So they were both available to purchase at full price when Book 3 and Book 4 launched in June.

  After that, I dropped the price to 99¢ for the official launch, but I’d decided to do it for a much shorter timeframe. Only 5 days instead of 2 weeks. I made Book 1 free, and the other 3 books in the series 99¢ to generate more interest in these new books, in case I’d missed some readers over the past two months.

  I did not see the great success I’d seen in previous launch strategies using this same method in other series. Why?

  My belief: People had already gotten Books 1 – 4 on a pretty screaming deal. 99¢ is nothing to sneeze at.

  So the books weren’t a “deal.” They were just more 99¢ noise to the pile. The free book got some attention, and I think overall, this strategy helped launch Books 5 and 6, but the income wasn’t anything like I’d seen in other series where I reduce the price of previous books to celebrate the launch of later books.

  The 99¢ launch removed that option for me. Readers interested in discounted books had likely already gotten the first four books during the launch weeks I had them at that low price.

  You basically have three pricing tiers.

  Full price

  99¢ sale price

  Free

  There’s nowhere to go after that.

  But let’s see what the books did for the month:

  Book 5: The Billionaire’s Bodyguard made: $2969.93, with 267 full-price preorders, 260 sales at 99¢, pagereads, and 136 sales once it was back to $2.99

  Book 6: The Billionaire’s Boyfriend made: $2654.04, with 161 full-price preorders, 251 sales at 99¢, pagereads, and 126 sales once it was back to $2.99.

  Book 1 was free, and I gave away 12,522 copies. Then it made: $1861.14 after it went back to full price.

  Book 2 made: $1413.25

  Book 3 made: $1723.85

  Book 4 made: $1804.51

  Now, I definitely think having the two books up for preorder at the same time cost me some preorder sales on Book 6. But overall, it was right there with Book 5 for the month. Also interesting to me, because Book 2 is STILL the lowest earner out of them all.

  And the funny thing? It stays that way indefinitely.

  Even until today.

  I’m not sure why. I honestly don’t know. I think the cover is to-brand and to-market. I think the blurb is great. I love the story. I’m not sure why people are skipping that one and moving down the series. It’s something I’m still working on figuring out. Isn’t Indie publishing fun?!

  Anyway, in July, with the 6 books out now, the series made: $12,426.72. I spent $952 in Amazon Ads to do it.

  I was ecstatic. Remember how everyone is on their own journey? And there’s always going to be someone higher than you and someone lower than you.

  You might be looking at these numbers going, Dude, I make that with one book every month. Or you might be looking at the data going, Holy cow, I’d die to make that much with 6 books.

  It’s all about perspective.

  For me, at this time, that much money from 6 books, from a brand-new, re-branded name?

  It was a huge success…that nearly killed me. LOL! But launching two books on the same day was not an easy feat, and I’m not sure I’d do it again.

  But it was such a success, based on the hot genre, that I decided to write two more books in the series that will come later. Both came out in November. Still beach romances, when November isn’t really a beachy month for most of the United States….

  Let’s look at the numbers for the series as a whole from August to December. I think it’s important to look at data as time goes on. Readers need time to read free books, for one. Giving away 12,000 copies was awesome, but I’m well-aware that some readers will NEVER read the book. It just sits on their Kindle.

  I know some readers take months to get to book they don’t pay for. I’m willing to give them time to get through the books, and I watch the series to see how things are going. Here’s an overview:

  August 2018: $4788.53 – a MUCH lower amount than July. Why, do you think? I have theories, and August is the month you’ll see posts going up on just about every author Facebook group about sales slumping. The billionaires weren’t a focus for me in August—I put my money somewhere else.

  September 2018: $2429.30 – wow! Time to call an SOS, right? Nah. I’ve been around long enough not to freak out with ebbs and flows.

  There’s a new book coming, and again, I’m focused on other things. You’ll get to see what in a case study coming up: the Christmas in Coral Canyon Romance series, which I was releasing starting in August. Money can come from a variety of places, and I think it should ebb and flow. So you don’t need to put all of your eggs in the same basket.

  You’ll go bankrupt, for one.

  And you’ll go batty, for two.

  And who can write under those conditions?

  Remember, marketing could be a full-time job. Don’t let it be. Be an author. Think smarter. Set goals and outline plans to achieve them. Experiment. Start as you mean to go.

  And give yourself—and readers—a break.

  They cannot be hit over the head with the same book month after month. So stop doing that. Cycle through your backlist, consistently and constantly bringing new people in, simply using different entry points to your brand and your catalog. It’s much easier, much saner, and doubly successful, in my experience and opinion.

  Remember how mileage varies per author? Same thing here. These are my opinions, based on my own experiences in the industry for the past 12 years. Through my author coaching, I can’t tell you how many people message me on the verge of tears, because they’re one breath away from burning out.

  They publish 12 books a year. I publish 40, and I’m going strong.

  I don’t focus on EVERYTHING all at once, and I think that’s the main difference between me and other authors.

  Okay, I’m off the soap box. Let’s look at October.

  October 2018: $1529.34. I’m not worried. See above if you are. Let’s gear up for two releases in the same month, AND a big Cyber Monday promo!

  November 2018: The Brave Billionaire had a 73-day preorder at full price and came out on November 2. I did not discount it upon release. I let it come out. I sent it to my newsletter. I did not set up swaps, as by October I was not convinced of their effectiveness. (I’m still not, and do very little swapping.) I did not buy ads. I released the book, sent my newsletter, and set up some AMS ads. That was all.

  Brave made: $1183.52

  Series made: $3612.92

  The Belated Billionaire had a 74-day preorder at full price and came out on November 19. I did the same thing for it that I did for Brave, which is to say, I released it at full price. I sent to my newsletter. I set up an AMS ad, and I enjoyed turkey for Thanksgiving.

  The week following that—Cyber Monday! I set up a huge clean billionaire sale on the 8 books. The other co-author joined in. The whole series – up to 12 books now – was on sale for 99¢ on Kindle Countdown Deals (US and UK only).

  We both sent to our newsletters. I had one swap set up with another author. I bought ads—My Book Cave, Read Cheaply, Love Kissed, and eBook Hounds. Those ads cost $140.

  Belated made: $820.24

  Series made: $3612.92

  Some thoughts on this. You might have noticed that these last two books didn’t make as much as the first six. They were Book 11 and 12 in the series, as there’s a co-author who released 4 books in between.

  Have readers not carried through her books? Unsure.

  Do they just need more time to read her books? Probably.

  I launched these new releases at $2.99, not 99¢. I did what I said NOT to do—I didn’t start as I meant to go.

  I started Elana with live launches at 99¢. But these last two books were preorders at $2.99, with no sale price upon launch.

  I made less money.

  Now, there could be other factors to this, as I was also launching a separate beach romance series, one book every 11 weeks, with long preorders at $3.99, and they do just fine. So what is it?

  Does this specific niche not support full-price books? <
  Couldn’t find them.

  So this is a case of being slightly off the market, and you know what? That’s okay with me.

  Shocking, I know!

  But I simply don’t want to launch every one of my books at 99¢. I think they have more value than that, and I’ll probably have to claw my way up a hill to get the same readers as those 99¢-book authors.

  But how I mean to go is to charge $2.99 or more for my work. So I have to do that, and do it consistently.

  Just food for thought, here in November.

  December 2018: $1946.71. At this point, I decide to lay off the series for a variety of reasons. I feel like I’ve brought in the people I’m going to bring in for now. There are still co-authors releasing books in the series, which should help me. All of my beach romances—Elana’s brand—were falling, falling, falling.

  Seasonal books?

  I wasn’t sure, as Elana is only 8 months old and has never lived through a winter as a beach romance author. But my ads were costing more, and I was seeing less ROI, and I turned them off for now.

  I simply focused somewhere else, where I had better success. This is not failure. This is being a smart marketer and business manager, who looks at data to drive decisions.

  And the data was telling me that perhaps the billionaire market was saturated. At least the people I was reaching had likely already bought the books. And it was time to do something different, at least for a season.

  From May 1 – December 31, these 8 books earned me $40,672.81. That’s more than I make in a year of teaching.

  I was happy with them.

  Something else to note:

  I mentioned this above, but there are 15 books in this series. I’ve written 8 of them. I have two co-authors who write and publish in the series as well. Their releases should theoretically lift mine, though we’re not dependent on each other for that. All the books are stand-alone novels, and we each publish them ourselves, with very little crossover. They’re simply set in the same location.

  That said, I think that by having control of the first 6 books, I have the most power to bring people into the entire series, and I’ve been working hard to do that.

  I can’t focus on every book or even every series each month. It’s too expensive, and I’d never get any writing done.

  I did a sale on these sweet beach billionaires in March, and another one on the boxed set in April, 2019, where it broke into the Top 100 on Amazon. And I’m done with them for a while. I’ve been pushing them and pushing them, and people now need that time we’ve talked about to get through my books, as well as the rest of the series.

  So onward!

  Recap:

  What did you see here that you could try?

  Ask yourself: Have I tried building a readership with live launching books at a very low price point? Why wouldn’t I want to do this for me personally?

  Can you write, edit, package, and release two books at the same time? Yikes! It was intense, I’m not going to lie.

  In your mind, what advantages does this Rapid Release strategy have?

  What did you think of my data on 99¢ releases? Have you found yours to be similar? Different? What do you think the difference is?

  15

  Rapid Releasing Every Month - Case Study 6

  This is the method I’ve settled on. I started doing this in October 2017, and by January 2018, I hit the USA Today bestseller list as a solo author with Book 4. After that, I started a strategy where I release two Liz Isaacson series each year.

  Each series has 6 books in it.

  One series runs from January – June. The next from July – December.

  I’ve executed this strategy, releasing a new book every month in these core series, successfully for about 18 months at the time of writing.

  I release more often than this, to be clear. I’m in collaborative projects and did a bunch of Kindle Worlds type of projects throughout 2017 and 2018. I’ve backed waaaaay off on those, as I find them to be my worst releases. The data tells me so, and since one of my goals is to make money, I’m going to use the strategies and practices that lead me toward that.

  And author collaborations, shared worlds, and the like aren’t really doing that for me. The numbers don’t lie. You might find the complete opposite to be true. That’s okay! We can still be friends. As always in Indie publishing, your mileage may vary. That’s why I’m simply sharing what I’ve done and the fruits from it. Then you get to decide what you want to do with the ideas, strategies, and details provided.

  So let’s look specifically at the Christmas in Coral Canyon Romance series, which, technically, was 6 books over the course of 5 months. I was a month behind because of the USA Today bestselling book in January. So the data might be a bit skewed. I know I can see that, as Book 5 is my lowest earner. It only got a week to shine, and then Book 6 was out.

  But I still think this series release sums up how I’m operating my business at the time of writing.

  In this strategy, we see the Tiered Launch Strategy hard, hard at work. It’s still something I’m doing as 2019 progresses, and I’m seeing really good results with it.

  I have to operate like this, because my Liz Isaacson backlist is over 60 titles at the time of writing. And my Elana Johnson backlist is nearing 20. There simply is no way to advertise every single book that comes out.

  I released 40 books in 2018. I have 50 on my schedule for 2019. Yes, it’s crazy. No, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. But I learned how to do what I’m doing over the course of the past 12 years as I defined and redefined my writing chops, my personal writing philosophies, and found things that work for me, based on real numbers and data.

  Will I be able to continue at this pace in 2020? Who knows? Even next month is up in the air! I’ve been working on implementing systems to sell my books over the course of the past 18 months, so even if I get sick or can’t write for a while, I will still have income.

  Systems are important. But this book isn’t about systems, though everything I’ve outlined in these case studies are wide open windows into my systems. How I write. The schedules I use. The reasons for why I promote what book, and when. That’s all a system.

  Once you know what you can personally do, what you can afford, and what you’re willing to risk, that system can keep you on-track. But you won’t know until you try something. So don’t be afraid to get out there and try!

  Let’s look at Christmas in Coral Canyon. Finally. Jeez.

  August 9, 2018 - Book 1, Her Cowboy Billionaire Best Friend releases. This is a Tier 2 release. It’s Medium. I sent it to my NL. I asked a friend to send to hers. I put up AMS ads on the book. Done.

  NOTE: Almost **all** of my Book 1s are handled this way. Medium release. Announce to NL. They’ve been on preorder for 90 days. Start AMS ads with tested and optimized lists. That’s it. That’s a Medium release in a nutshell.

  The series earned $2781.44 in August. That’s one book.

  September 6, 2018 - Book 2, Her Cowboy Billionaire Boss releases. This is a Tier 1 release. It’s a Hard push, Tier 1 release. I sent to my NL over the course of 5 days—so I segment out to spread sales out instead of getting a spike on release day.

  I set up AMS ads with optimized lists AND start FB ads with a tested and tried audience. These have higher spends than Medium releases.