Releasing Two Books on the Same Day

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

What made me decide to launch two titles on the same day? Besides a touch of insanity?  I thought I might be able to pick up some exposure and sales for the first book in a new series if I released it at the same time as book 14 in an established series (Myrtle Clover).  I was a little leery of releasing an unknown book out of the blue after writing established series for so long (the last time I launched a new series was circa 2012…it’s been a while).

The easiest part was writing two books at once. The hardest was definitely revising two books at once and then releasing them.  My family has never complained about my writing getting in the way of our family time…until I decided on the dual release.  They were not fans! At one point in the process, I was working 12 hour days 7 days a week on revision and setting up pre-orders.

This is apparently an unpopular approach with writers, as well, since I was unable to find any tips online.  :)  There were tips on releasing an entire series at once, but not books in different series.

Pros of releasing two books at once:

You can  efficiently get two books launched with the same amount of promo effort as one.  I made one graphic promoting both pre-orders for Facebook and one to announce the releases on Instagram.  I pointed readers to a ‘coming soon’ page on my website that had information and buy-links for both books. I mentioned both books’ info in my reader newsletter.

If you release a new series alongside an older series, you can get some excellent exposure for the new series.  I wasn’t sure how to garner attention for the new series at first. When I allowed it to tag along on the older series’ release, sales spiked.  After all, there were readers looking out for the release in the older series. Some of them picked up both books.

I found that my sales for the new series rivaled the sales (sometimes even beat) the sales of book 14 in the other series.  Once the new series gained some traction,  it sometimes  beat out sales of the older series. Maybe because it’s easier to commit to a book one than a book 14 in a series?

Cons of releasing two books at once:

The set-up for the launches is intensive.  I go ‘wide’ with my books, so I had 5 or more dashboards up. I wanted both books to have a pre-order period, so I loaded them up about a month in advance. I ran into a couple of glitches at Amazon for both titles and keeping up with the glitches (while still wrangling the other business I was keeping up with…a couple of translation releases) was a challenge.

It’s easy to get confused.  Tip: make yourself a checklist.  During the pre-order period, I had a series of last-minute edits to come in (in stages) as well as ARC reader feedback.  Sometimes I couldn’t remember if I’d uploaded a revised manuscript to all the different portals or had been interrupted in the middle before I could.  Using  a checklist helped me to keep on top of it.

Last minute changes will be stressful.  See above.  :)  I made more last-minute  changes to the manuscripts than I usually do and it was a challenge to update documents for two books.

Next time:

I promised my family there wouldn’t be a next time. But…the fact of the matter is that it was a lucrative approach for me.  Since the new series is still so new, I might once again try a dual release.

But next time, I’ll be sure to extend the pre-order period.  I could have used more time, for sure. And I might alternate days for working on a project (upload everything for series A on one day and series B for another).  I’d thought it’d be easier to upload everything for both series when I had all my dashboards open.  Instead, I think it messed me up a few times.

Has anyone else been crazy enough to launch two books at once?  Do you have any tips?

Photo on Visual Hunt