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When Is The Best Time To Publish Your Book?

By on March 1, 2017
When Is The Best Time To Publish Your Book - Writers Life.org

Finishing your book is a wonderful feeling, but knowing what to do next with it is often the hardest part! If you are lucky (and talented) enough to find a publisher then they will take care of designing a cover, marketing your book and finding the perfect release date for you. However, if you are on your own you need to do all these things for yourself.

Choosing when to release your book can make all the difference when it comes to how many copies you go on to sell. Did you know, for example, that a lot of major publishing houses actually avoid publishing new titles towards the end of the year? That’s because they know customers will be more likely to search for and purchase Christmas presents, so they focus on gift titles such as cookery books rather than promoting new work.

Determining the best time to publish your book depends on a number of factors, in particular, the kind of book you have written:

Romances, lighthearted novels, and chick lit tend to do well if they are released at the beginning of the summer. Ever heard the phrase ‘light summer reads’? These are the kind of books people pick up at the airport before they head off to relax on a beach for a week or two. If your book fits into that category think about publishing in early May or June, then focus your marketing around that idea.

Gritty crime fiction, historical fiction or longer epic fantasy novels are perfectly released at the beginning of autumn, when the nights get a little cooler, a little darker. This is where the idea of snuggling up with a good book and a glass of wine of an evening starts to feel far more appealing than going outside. Getting stuck into a longer and more challenging novel will be just the ticket!

Written a self-help or self-improvement novel? January is the best time. This is the time of year where people want to start over and make positives changes in their lives. Compelling memoirs can often do better at this time of year as well.

Of course, if you want to get more specific why not think about particular dates that you could centre your marketing plan around?

If you’ve written a horror novel, why not release it on Halloween? An epic love story? Try Valentine's day. There are days to celebrate almost anything from lizards to doughnuts so you’ll easily be able to find something relevant to your book, no matter how niche or obscure.

Be clever and start to connect with these communities well in advance via your social media accounts - let them know when your book is coming out, try to build up some hype.

The great thing about self-publishing is you get to decide when your book should come out, and you can be totally flexible about it too. So before you hit the ‘submit’ button and release your book into the world, do a little research around when the best time might be to do so - it could make all the difference.

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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