The Relaunch Blueprint: Four Ways to Revive Book Sales

Most authors treat launch day like a verdict: the book goes live, sales come in (or don’t), and suddenly it feels like the market has spoken. Quiet numbers can trigger a brutal spiral — exhaustion, disappointment, and the sinking feeling that maybe the opportunity already passed. We disagree completely.

In this episode, Penny Sansevieri and Amy Cornell break down a four-part relaunch strategy designed to help authors stop chasing a single "big moment" and start building ongoing visibility. Because the truth is that successful books rarely explode from one launch. They gain traction through repeated opportunities, smarter timing, and consistent refinement.

We walk through the first phase: the Visibility Launch — where your goal is not perfection or massive sales, but data. You’ll learn why early readers, initial messaging, and small audience response become the foundation for everything that follows. Then we move into the Proof Launch, showing how reviews become more than social proof. They become market intelligence. Reader language often reveals stronger hooks, better positioning, and selling points authors miss entirely.

Next comes the Opportunity Launch, one of our favorite strategies. Instead of creating attention from scratch, attach your book to moments already happening: holidays, cultural conversations, seasonal trends, awareness months, news cycles, and built-in buying behavior. Borrow momentum instead of manufacturing it.

Then we get into Market Expansion, where smart authors create multiple "new release" moments by staggering formats and audience entry points. Audiobooks, hardcover editions, large print, translations, workbooks, companion guides, and special editions can each create fresh visibility and reach readers who missed you the first time.

We also unpack why Amazon rewards ongoing engagement. Updated descriptions. Improved A+ content. Fresh reviews. Better positioning. Small changes made consistently often outperform giant one-time marketing pushes.

If your launch felt disappointing, this episode is your reset button. Because one quiet launch day does not mean your book failed. It may simply mean you're still in chapter one of the marketing plan.

Subscribe for more practical book marketing strategies, share this episode with an author who needs a second chance mindset, and leave a review so more writers can find the show.

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Transcript

Welcome And How To Text Us

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast. This is Penny Stansberry and Amy Cornell. And this is a really fun. I I love the twist on the book watch because Dave and I were talking about this the other day, and I think that so often authors treat their book watch as a one-hap event. Um and we're gonna kinda turn that we're gonna turn that off the set. So get ready. Uh pick lots of cookies. Text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. Send it to your show ideas, questions, show feedback, all the things. We love our little podcast group. We hear from them all the time. So thank you for that.

Why Books Need Multiple Launches

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Um so one of so this is really kind of an interesting concept because successful books aren't just launched once, they're launched repeatedly. And we're gonna break down what that is in this show. So talking a little bit about um not necessarily, so we're not talking about re-releasing the same where you have to revamp the cover and we just put the book back on Amazon for the first time. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is with the same book, giving a reason to launch it again and again and again. And we're gonna give you some ideas. Um, Amy, when when we first, when we talked about book launches, what do you think the what do you think the number one thing is that authors get wrong with when they launch their book? And I think we just put you on the spot. So I'm really happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

No, it's okay because we're actually kind of working with a current client through this. It's their first book, and so we're kind of processing this together, you know? Because it is, it's a it's a mental shift. But I think a lot of authors have been trained to treat the launch as some sort of finish line where it's it's your make or break moment. That's it, you know. And if it doesn't go well or doesn't go exactly how you planned, or if everything doesn't happen at once, then you've wasted all that time, money, and energy, and it's a wash, which is honestly just the opposite of what we really would like authors to how to view releasing and maintaining a book. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Exactly. Because sometimes, I mean, look, launch day, I when I teach this class, I have this this slide deck, and I give, you know, here is what you expect from launch day. And it's, you know, it's the American Isle where, um, or I forget now is America's Got Talent, I think it is, where the golden tickets drop and the buzzer goes off and everything's really excited. But this is what launch day actually looked like, and it's like this cat standing in a in a room by itself holding a black balloon, it's really depressing. Because a lot of times our launch days don't really live up to our expectations. And that's actually okay. Because what I want you to start thinking, and look, if you're if you have multiple books out and you have a huge newsletter list, your launch days probably look like the America's got talent golden days thing, right? For the majority of us, though, that's not the case. So think about your launch

Reframe Launch Day As Learning

SPEAKER_00 3:25

day. And if you just launched a book and you're like, oh, this is the episode that I need, welcome. We're so glad that you're here. Think about it as data collection and mark a testing phase, right? So this is a really good opportunity for you to take, you know, to reframe your launch. And as opposed to saying, you know, I didn't get the big party I was expecting. Instead, look at what worked and what didn't work and use that as data, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Right. It's it's not this is where I win or lose, this is where I learn.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Oh my gosh, I love that. We need to put that on something. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I know. At this point, I have like an entire closet of things that I won't put on a t-shirt. So I'm gonna run out of space soon.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

But that's amazing. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

But truly, there's so much to learn because you can't, these are human beings that are buying your book that you are potentially trying to intrigue. And they're very complex, and there's so much that's out of your control. So approaching a launch as this very controllable ecosystem, you're just setting yourself up for frustration.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Exactly. And, you know, I mean, in truth, for the majority of us, the first launch doesn't tell you if your book works, but it does tell you what to fix. Perfect. Which I think, and you know, we've done a ton of shows on this. Why you want to you this is not about failing early, but you want to spend the time smartly um to look and see, okay, this is what worked and this is what didn't. Launching three times, launching four times. We're actually going to talk about you know, different ideas to launch your book four times.

Launch One Visibility Cold Start

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Um so I think the first type of relaunch might be the visibility, you know, the visibility launch, right? Yeah. So um that's the first one. That's the early book distribution. If you have an advanced reader group, that's amazing. Your initial Amazon setup, potentially limited, you know, audience exposure, especially if it's your first book. So that's your first, you know, your first launch is your visibility launch. We've all done it. We've all had a visibility launch, whether it went good or bad. The reality check is that generally with your first launch, you have you have a fairly low review count, usually under 10. Not a lot of social proof. You're still kind of working out your messaging. Yes. And you know, the problem with and the the framework around your original, your your initial launch is that authors expect peak performance from what is essentially a cold start.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Right. It's like not warming up if you're an athlete, right? You're gonna get injured, you're gonna be out of the game for a while.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yeah, very similar. Yeah, exactly.

Launch Two Proof And Reviews

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Amy, launch idea number two, the proof launch.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yes. Okay, so this is where you start gaining credibility and you start actually converting people. Well, this is where this is where you start feeling like you're getting some responses and you're like, okay, all this work has been worth it. And so, so, but listen, this is the second launch. So that's why, you know, stick it through the first one, learn, don't just sit there and pout. The learning part is important, right? Like you can't just sit there and wait for for the second one to come around to start feeling better about yourself. You really do have to learn what's going on in the first one. But during the second launches, when you start seeing more reviews, if you're if you're putting in the work, you know, reviews generate more reviews. That's your social proof. You know, people like what other people like. Yes. So you get more reviews, you are going to start seeing more reviews because you look like more of a sure thing, which means more people are going to be clicking by. You know, you're gonna start getting more people converting. You're gonna start like these the reviews in this stage, too, are really important because a lot of times these early, these early adopters for your book, when they do review, they're giving you pretty candid feedback, you know. So you can learn from that as well. We've done shows specifically on how to make the most of the reviews that you do have. And that was a huge one is how much you can learn from those, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So essentially what you're saying is is that we're you're this is kind of a pivot in everything, all your collateral pieces, the pitching that you're doing, as opposed to saying, this is a new release. You're saying, look at this book, like that leaders are called just as an example, leaders are calling the most practical burnout guide that they've ever that they've read this year. Because that could be a whole new pitch, a whole new way to go after a new market.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

And candidly, so much more powerful than just another book is out. No offense, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

No, you're right. Exactly, because you know, book published every eight seconds. Yeah, that's not new.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

But so yeah, that's another reason. Like, take some of the pressure off this initial launch because a book coming out is really not that big of a deal. But what you get to say about your book as you move into like this second, third, fourth phase makes it such a stronger presentation.

unknown 8:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

And it makes it so much more appealing than just another new book. Because when you're just another new book, you're one in thousands daily, literally, you know. So if you're actually learning and pivoting and refining your language, refining how you're how you're appealing to your markets, that's when you actually start becoming a unique product.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Exactly. Exactly.

Launch Three Opportunity And Relevance

SPEAKER_00 9:08

I love that. And then the third launch is the opportunity launch, right? So the the focus of this launch is going to be relevance. So attaching your book to seasonal, right? Which works for pretty much everybody, fiction, nonfiction, uh, cultural, pop culture, and anything that might be going on, you know, in the world. Maybe you wrote a book, maybe you wrote a fiction book about a royal wedding, and now there's a big royal wedding, and that could, you know, so there's anchor moments, news cycles if you've written not if you've written nonfiction, right? Um what we're talking about really is that you're using this essentially as a pivot to say, okay, this is now my third launch, and I am now gonna anchor it to a season, something that's going on. And we actually did a whole show on anchoring your book to things that are already kind of buzzing. So I forget now the name, I forget now the title of the the episode in particular. I should have had that at the ready, but we did a show on um, we did a show on that. So anchoring yourself to topics that are currently buzzworthy. So definitely take take a look at that because that is your opportunity launch. That's an opportunity for you to now um latch on to something that, you know, it's much more easy. It's easier, excuse me. Let me see if I can actually speak English today. It's easier to get people interested in something they are already interested in, which I know is kind of a weird turn of phrase, but it's very, very true. So anchoring your book, use that as the third opportunity launch. Amy, do you want to go over the fourth one? I really love, love, love this one because I love having conversations with authors about launch number four. So I'm gonna have a lot of I'm gonna have a lot of strong feelings.

Launch Four Market Expansion Formats

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Absolutely. This is market expansion. So this is new formats. So we're talking new audiences, new retail visibility, new promotional angles. And this is why when authors ask us, we typically recommend that they don't put every single format of the book out there all at once, simply because usually that's not necessary, you know? But so audiobooks, hardcover, large print, these the more niche market uh formats are all ones that you can save for later, because then you can treat it like a brand new release. So you can appeal to people that are audiobook people, you can appeal to people that are specifically, especially depending on the kind of book you write. But if a hardcover version of your book makes a lot of sense based on, you know, the genre, the topic, and who your buyers are. I mean, that's huge. That's that's giftable, that's very much oh my gosh. I mean, we could go down rabbit holes with this. It, but there are so many tie backs. Now I feel like we have to put it in the show notes. There are so many tiebacks to our anchoring episode that we did, you know, for gift markets and things like that that are so important. And then large print accessibility, libraries love large print books too. So that's a whole other campaign that you can essentially do around a large print release and really put your focus on local, on libraries, library networks. I mean, there's just so much you can do with it. And what I also love about it, which sounds, you know, overly simplistic, but it also lets you breathe a little bit in between doing all the things at once, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Well, yeah. And it also, like we were saying, it also really realigns your perspective on my first, as opposed to saying, like, my first launch wasn't very successful. No, my first launch was just that was my starting point. And now I'm going into all of these things. The other piece, the other reason that I really love um the format, the market expansion is because so many times I talk to authors and they say, I'm launching my book in all of these editions and I'm launching them all at once. And I and I'll ask them, I'll say, Why? You know, start the paperback in the ebook, add the audiobook later. Like as you said, every single time that you put out a new edition of the book, that is a new opportunity to market, to market the book as if it was a brand new book. So you have all of these opportunities. Don't don't, you know, don't fire them out all at once. Sometimes obviously you don't have a choice depending on who you publish with and whatnot, but it's a it's a really, really good opportunity. Um and I think that it is, you know, the truth of the matter is, is that I the the post-launch reality of book launching, you know, of launching your first book is fatigue and disappointment and assuming that the market

Fatigue Timing And Credibility Over Time

SPEAKER_00 13:55

decided. And this is part of the reason we just did a show on book sales. And this is part of the reason why books, you know, why authors see significantly low sales numbers, I think personally, and I think Amy would agree, is because you are you've launched your book, you've sold maybe, you know, 50 copies, and 49 of them were to people that you know that right or your mom bought 49 copies or whatever to give out to her friends at Garden Club or whatever. And you make an you make the assumption that the market decided. Maybe the market didn't decide. Maybe the market just wasn't aware because you, you know, basically it was a cold launch, and um the majority of us, you know, the majority of authors don't have a lot of time or bandwidth potentially to do a huge ramp up. And even if you do, it's still if if this is your first book, especially, it's still somewhat of a cold launch, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Right. And I think a big one too, when we talk about how this is a process and there are only so many controllable factors. Like timing is huge, and we're not saying timing as in you didn't pick the right time. You know, that that's not what it is, but there's just so much that happens over the course of a book's life and your progression as an author that add to your credibility, that add to your platform, that make you a more appealing choice. And we've talked about this a lot recently. We've been trying to remind authors more and more that the biggest hurdle is not the cost of your book or anything like that. It's really convincing people to take a chance on you when they don't know who you are.

unknown 15:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Like that's exactly that's huge. And that's not anything you can control, but you can kind of close the gap on that risk factor involved with them taking a chance on you with doing the right things over time. You know, your platform will mature, your reviews will make a difference, your you the tweaking of your language and your positioning. I mean, and you know, Penny mentioned connecting your book to things happening in the world that people are already paying attention to. So external relevance is huge as well. That may just not be at your fingertips when your book comes out. And you can't control what's going on in the world. But there might be something coming up where you go, oh my gosh, here's a big moment for me, you know. And same thing with seasonal. You know, your book may have been ready to come out and you were ready to go, and then you realize six months down the road, like, oh my gosh, now it's summer reading season, and my book is the perfect. I can do something big around summer reading by the pool on vacation because people are looking for books that time. You know what I mean? Books like yours. So there are so many things that can happen as time goes by that you have to be willing to embrace that you absolutely can't just demand at your launch.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

No, it's really true. And you know, 95% of books are sold word of mouth or through the recommendation ecosystem. You don't get to that word of mouth or recommendation ecosystem on day one. You just you just don't. And that's the thing that can really help to as you start to build over time. The majority of books, honestly. I mean, when we hear about books that just do well out of the gate and everybody has to have them, generally that's you know, not the author's first book. That's not the author's first rodeo. It's rare that books just spike right out of the gate. Right. Um, and that's where revisiting and and you know, reconfiguring how you perceive your launch, success or failure, to be, even if your launch was a success, I think you should still do this. I really think that, and we say this a lot on this on the on this podcast, especially every tool in your toolkit should be used, especially in this kind of an environment. And you don't need a new, so a lot of times, you know, authors will say, so I'll talk to authors on the phone, like, you know, my first book didn't do really well, so I wrote a new book. Because you don't need a new book. And this is not to say that you should just rely on one book to make you successful, right? We always say keep writing, but you know, one hit wonders are extremely rare, but you don't need one book. You just need a new way to talk about the book that you have. So I think that, you know, I hope that this has been. Did I miss any points, Amy, that we wanted to really that we really wanted to really hit on? Did I miss anything?

SPEAKER_01 18:42

No, I think I think I hopefully everybody feels really inspired, honestly. Because yeah, I hope a lot of you that are in the trenches already are going, okay, great. I'm not actually behind. You know, I'm I'm pretty much where I'm supposed to be. And I if you keep listening to shows, then obviously you're doing things smarter, you're doing things more strategically. And it's really about building that credibility. I think that's really a huge thing now, is that you just have to keep going after proving that it's worth taking a shot on your work, you know? Yeah, exactly. And that's something you have to keep trying to earn. It does, you know, it it doesn't until you until you don't have to anymore, and then congrats.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Like right, congrats, we want to know you. But the, you know, and and it's really true. And I am actually gonna link that other show in the show notes because we refer to it now a few times about, you know, um anchoring your book to buzzy things and things that are going on and what and I think it's definitely if you haven't listened to it, it's definitely worth the listen. We'll put it in the show notes. But the truth is your book doesn't need a better launch day, it just needs more chances to be discovered.

Amazon Rewards Ongoing Engagement

SPEAKER_00 19:58

So if you're listening to this and you launched a book and you feel like a big failure, revisit that mindset and look at this a different way. Right, grab from it what you could learn and move on to your next launch day because you have a lot of them yet to come. Maybe go ahead. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

No, and I was gonna say, I don't think we remind authors of this enough either that Amazon rewards you for staying engaged with your books.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yes. Thank you for thank you for bringing that to the table. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yes, the algorithm rewards you for staying engaged in your own success, which is if there were if there was one reason why you can't treat your first launch as your only opportunity, it should be that. Because Amazon will not reward you for showing up once for yourself. You know, you really have to, and that's where even making strategic tweaks to your description throughout the years, to your A plus content, to your author central content, all of these things, Amazon notices when you're doing things with your book. Honestly, one review, one new review a month tells Amazon that people are still interested. I mean, it it's small, but it's that that little bit of a difference that really does matter.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Yeah, that's absolutely true. That is absolutely true. I love this show and I hope that this has inspired you. If you've, you know, launched your book and it was less than what you expected. I hope this has inspired you to kind of go back to the drawing board and revisit that and consider new launches. And we love

Final Takeaways Reviews And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 21:32

to hear from you. So please leave us a review first off, wherever you listen to podcasts. But text the word podcast to 888-402-8940. Let us know what you thought of this episode or any episode. Send us your questions, your show ideas, all the things. And we will see you next week. Bye bye.