When is the best time to publish your book?
Taking your book from a mere thought in your head to a place where you need editing, marketing, and have to sell it is a big step in your entrepreneurial effort.
Your finished product needs the best treatment to make it a marketing success, but it is daunting to figure out just when will be the right time to hit the publish button.
There is no simple answer here, but there are some thoughts about what would be the correct way to approach making your book available to the masses.
There are so many writers publishing books daily, and it’s a hard industry to compete in.
You carefully consider how your book cover looks like, what your book title will be or whether you will use your actual name or a pen name.
Therefore, you shouldn’t just jump in and hit publish on your book. There are ways to launch a book and helpful information to get your timing right.
WORKING WITH A PLAN TO PUBLISH YOUR BOOK
Every self-publisher is different and will have different results. It’s all up to your social media, blogging, and other marketing efforts.
Some people hit it big the first time, but others have to work a few years to get to where they are successful book authors, some never make it at all. Therefore, you need to work towards creating your brand on social media prior to publishing your book.
In the traditional publishing industry, books are ‘timed’ to a certain event or a certain time period. They release many books at a certain time with an actual purpose. When (in South Africa) the Oscar Pistorius murder of Reeva Steenkamp trial was ongoing, they released a lot of books about the murder by publishers, and they made tons of money off it. That’s just one example.
Maybe you don’t want to attach a specific release date to your book, but to get the best impact out of your book, and you are aiming at getting your book in the front of the book store, then you need to know about the monthly schedule bookstores and publishers work with when putting books ‘out there’.
According to selfpublishingreview.com, these American tie-ins by month are the best times to publish your book. (If you live in another country, or are aiming your book at another market, then you can look at your local tie-in opportunities):
Tie-ins by the month
January
Post holiday: Prime-time for diet books, celebrity exercise books, how-to books, including self-education, home repair, adventure travel planning, languages, and self-help books about finding a new relationship, renewing a marriage, or becoming a more effective parent.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day: For inspirational books about African-American history, civil rights, peace and freedom.
February
Valentine’s Day: For loving gifts of books with hidden agendas, including collections of lyric poetry, romance novels, dreamy photos of romantic foreign cities like Paris or Prague.
End of the month: Books related to Major League Baseball’s spring training, with celebratory biographies, compilations of new statistical records, glossy picture books, and metaphorically inclined literary novels, all in place for the sport’s big opening day in April.
March
International Women’s Day: Books on the latest topical or historic issues around women’s health, reproductive rights, freedom from oppression and exploitation in hostile cultures, personal memoir, biography, and quality fiction.
Easter: Books about Christ, biblical exegesis, inspirational, archeological, and illustrated children’s books about the resurrection and other relevant topics.
April
Holocaust Remembrance Day: Books about Jewish calamities and heroism during World War II, personal memoirs, new research about partisans and German rescuers. There are always many new titles for this large book-buying demographic.
May
Cinque de Mayo: Books targeting the rapid growing market for Hispanic-American fiction and nonfiction, history, politics, culture.
Mother’s Day: An occasion perfect for celebrative fiction, memoir, and appreciation to go with that bouquet of roses.
June
Graduations: Gift books for high school and college students. And in these economic hard times, a new category for graduating college students has emerged like Finding a Job When There are No Jobs, Guerilla Marketing for Job Huntersand many others you’ll see on the front tables during June.
July and August
Summer reading: These are the weeks devoted to summer book sales, the season for category fiction like paperback mysteries, romances and science fiction.
September
The anniversary of September 11th: The events of that day have inspired books in many genres, including politics, history, memoir, biography, education and children’s books.
Off to college: Books for college freshmen learning the ropes about class and time management, roommates, and coping with issues like sex and drugs, loneliness and insecurity. Also advice books for parents seeking guidance for their 18-year-old’s first time away from home.
Back to school: Children’s books, also parenting, education, technical, professional, literature and fiction.
October
Halloween: Horror movie tie-in books and new titles in costume, art, graphic novel and other fiction.
November
Thanksgiving: Books for children, cookbooks, history and spirituality are popular markets for this holiday.
December
Holiday books for Christmas, Chanukah, the traditional African-American Kwanzaa feast, and other special year end observances.
Another look at it
January – April: All genres of fiction – Romance most of all, and Self-Help (New Year Resolution books).
May-August: Fantasy, Adventure, Science Fiction, Thriller, and Travel.
September-December: Horror, Paranormal, Literary Fiction, and Children’s Books (for Christmas).
Do some research about your industry and how it ties into normal day living, and you might tie it in with a holiday or a celebration. There are many examples out there that you can work with. Each country has their own holidays and days that they celebrate that are own to them. Make it work for you and your brand.
LOOKING FOR AN EDITOR FOR YOUR BOOK?
You’ve finished your book; now what? I can help. I offer professional editing services that will help you eliminate the errors in your manuscript by getting rid of the grammar, punctuation, developmental, line or style issues. Make the right choice, get a professional editor, I’ll make your manuscript publishing ready.
