Storiad Author Marketing Guide
A book launch isn't a single day. It's a campaign that runs for months before your release date and keeps going well after it. The authors who avoid launch-day crickets aren't lucky; they started early, lined up reviews, and treated launch week as one push in a longer plan instead of the finish line. Launch day is not judgment day. This guide walks through what to do, and when, from a few months out through the weeks after release.
Every launch decision flows from one fixed point: your release date. Set it, then work backward. A realistic runway for a first book is three to six months, which sounds like a lot until you list everything that has to happen before strangers can buy your book and actually find it.
Pick one goal for the launch while you're at it. Not "sell a lot of copies," which you can't act on, but something you can check: 50 reviews in the first month, 300 copies in the launch window, 200 new email subscribers. The goal tells you which of the steps below deserve your limited time. This launch is one event inside your larger book marketing plan; if you don't have that one-page plan yet, start there, then come back and build the launch on top of it.
This is the stretch that decides how launch day actually goes, and almost none of it is glamorous.
Build an email list if you don't have one. It's the single highest-return channel an author owns: an announcement to your own readers converts far better than a social post that the algorithm may never show. A simple landing page and a free starter (a prequel scene, a sample chapter) is enough to start collecting addresses. Storiad doesn't run your email list; pair a tool like Mailchimp or ConvertKit with a home base you control.
Get your home base ready. Readers and reviewers need somewhere to land that looks like you mean it: an author website, your book's page, and a press kit with your bio, cover, book details, and contact in one place. You can assemble a one-page PDF yourself, or build a reusable press room and author website you'll use for every book. Either way, our guide to the author press kit covers what to include.
Research who you'll ask for coverage. Make a list of reviewers, book bloggers, and podcasters who already reach readers in your genre, plus the comp titles whose reviewers might like your book. You'll pitch them during the runway, not in the chaos of launch week.
Decide on preorders. On Amazon KDP, preorders are ebook-only, and every preorder credits to your release day, which concentrates sales into one ranking spike. The catch is discipline: set a date you can hit, because missing a scheduled KDP release date can cost you the ability to run preorders for a year. Preorders won't fix discoverability on their own, but a four-to-eight-week window gives early fans a place to act and you a cleaner launch-day number.
Before you publish, you'll face one fork that trips up a lot of first-timers: enroll your ebook in KDP Select, or go wide.
KDP Select means your Kindle ebook is exclusive to Amazon for 90 days (it auto-renews). In exchange you earn from Kindle Unlimited page reads and can run free-promo days or Countdown Deals. Wide means you also sell on Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, and through libraries, but you give up Kindle Unlimited income.
There's no universal right answer; it depends on where your genre's readers are. If most bestsellers in your category live in Kindle Unlimited, exclusivity can pay. If your readers buy on Apple or borrow from libraries, going wide reaches them. A common middle path is to launch in Select for the first 90 days to capture the Kindle Unlimited audience, then widen once the exclusive term ends.
A book with a handful of honest reviews on release day outsells a book with none, because reviews are the social proof a stranger uses to decide. The way indie authors get them early is a launch team.
A launch team (often called an ARC team, for advance reader copies) is a group of readers you give the book to before release in exchange for an honest review at launch. Realistic numbers: a team of 20 to 100, of whom maybe 20 to 40 percent actually post, so plan for roughly 10 to 20 reviews from 50 copies. Recruit them from your email list and reader groups, and deliver the files through a service like BookFunnel, StoryOrigin, or BookSirens rather than emailing attachments around.
One rule matters more than the rest: keep it honest. Amazon allows reviews from people who got a free copy as long as the review is voluntary and they disclose it ("I received a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review"). Amazon does not allow reviews from friends, family, or anyone with a financial tie to you, and it removes them when it detects them. Paid reviews, guaranteed-positive reviews, and review swaps are all against the rules. A real review that's lukewarm is worth more than a glowing one that gets deleted.
Don't chase a giant number. Ten to twenty reviews is a realistic launch-day target that gives you social proof; fifty or more helps later when you run ads. A hundred is a goal for down the road, not a bar for your debut.
By now the work is mostly done, and launch week is about concentrating attention. Email your list first, because they're the readers most likely to buy and review on day one. Announce across the channels you actually use, and ask your launch team to post their reviews. If you collected reviews early, release them in batches over the first several days so momentum looks steady rather than spiking once and going silent.
A launch event, virtual or in person, can be worth doing for the connection and local visibility, but treat it as community-building, not your sales engine. The email and the reviews will move more copies than the party. If you want help producing the launch posts, Storiad's social tools generate platform-ready content you can edit and schedule; a scheduler like Buffer plus your own captions does the same job.
This is the phase most authors skip, and it's where the ones who succeed pull ahead. A launch isn't a one-day spike followed by silence; steady sales over the following weeks do more for your book's visibility than a single big day ever will.
So keep going. Continue pitching reviewers and podcasters who didn't bite the first time. Tie promotions to seasons and milestones. Watch a few numbers tied to your goal, and do more of whatever moved copies. For the longer game of staying visible after the launch window closes, how to promote a book covers the ongoing tactics, and how to market a book lays out the always-on system your launch feeds into.
Copy this and fill in dates working backward from your release day.
Give yourself three to six months for a first book. That's the time it takes to build an email list, ready your website and press kit, recruit a launch team, and run a preorder window without scrambling.
For most indie authors, yes. A launch team is the most reliable way to have honest reviews on release day, and a book with early reviews outsells one with none. Aim for a realistic 10 to 20 reviews, not 100.
They can be. On Amazon, preorder sales credit to release day and concentrate your ranking, and they give early fans a place to act. They won't fix discoverability by themselves, and they require hitting your scheduled date, so only commit to a date you can keep.
Ten to twenty is a solid target for social proof. Around fifty makes ads convert better later, and a hundred is a longer-term goal. Don't delay launching to chase a big number.
They're good for connection and local visibility, but they're not the main driver of sales. Your email list and your reviews will do more. Throw one if you'll enjoy it, not because you think it's required.
Strip away the noise and a book launch is a sequence of steps with dates attached: build the runway, line up reviews, push in launch week, keep going after. The plan is the easy part. The hard part is hitting the dates while you're also writing the next book.
.png)
