If you’re a writer, the phrase “Amazon algorithm” has an almost spell-like quality. How the algorithm works is a deeply guarded secret. So there’s a lot of guessing in the writing world about how it works. How often do you need to publish and how much do you need to sell to keep your book at the top of the search page when someone types in the phrase: amateur detective mystery?
Which is how I got the bright idea of launching the three Big Murder Mystery books one per month, in a row. It’s called “rapid release,” and it’s supposed to help boost your sales by keeping your book at the top of the search page. At least, in theory. So why not give it a try?
Ha.
I thought I had everything queued up and organized well in advance. A book a month should be no biggie.
But of course, things went wrong. The book covers gave readers the wrong impression of what was inside and had to be changed. Chapters had to be rewritten. The test group for my game at the back of the books couldn’t meet as soon or often as I wanted. And basically it all ended up as one mad scramble to get everything out on time.
And did launching a book a month help me with the algorithm? Who the *&^% knows? Not me, that’s for sure. I swore I’d never do it again. A book every two months was a-okay by me.
Except then I got this great idea about how to publish a book a month in 2023…
I may attempt publishing a book a month again, but if I do, I’m hiring help on the marketing side. Because letting people know about my books is something that fell through the cracks in my dash to publish. And that did probably didn’t help my sales.
When have you pushed yourself past the line? What did you learn? And was it worth it?