I'm Carissa Andrews, international best selling indie author and CEO of Author Revolution. With more than 15 books published, it's safe to say I have made a ton of mistakes in my endeavor to become a full time author. The most important thing that I've learned in the past decade is that indie authors need to protect their creativity and their serenity. Being an author is a long game. And that's why I'm on a mission to teach other indies just like you how to publish books because the sustainable rapid release method, I created the author revolution podcast to give you insights and actionable step by step strategies to help you do just that. If you're an ambitious author, or one of the making, who's looking to create a long term author, career and a life you love, you found your tribe, my friend, let's get your author revolution underway. Welcome back to the podcast. Well, I don't know about you, but my six week writing sprint went well out the window with the men's this year has certainly been a best laid plans sort of arrangement. I've talked about burnout in the past. And it's something I seriously want to help you avoid if I can, because it's not fun. But the good news is I am finally coming down to the end of this sucker who has to week I finally wrote five chapters, and this week is gearing up to be more of the same, which is perfect because I only have six chapters left. My goal then is to finally finish this first draft of amends by Wednesday, April 19. So I could take that next week and a half to go through it again, make my changes and tweaks and then send it off to beta readers and my editor. Then once I have it back, I'll be switching gears into mapping out a couple of new projects. I'll talk more about those maybe in a new episode coming soon. And outline Immortals which is the third book in Diana's series. I'm super excited about that book, because I'm able to bring some of the cast from the windhaven witches series over into Diana's world. And it will almost be an interesting challenge because Diana's books are way more lighthearted and funnier, where the windhaven books have a darker fantasy band. So we'll see how those mesh together. Either way, there's some fresh energy coming my way. And I think it's going to do my writing some good. Now, this week, I want to talk about rapid release launch strategies, because I want to get you to be told myself, thinking about your upcoming goals for the second half of the year, five months are nearly done. And before you know it, it'll be six. So if you've been following the podcast for a while, you know already that in six months time, you could hypothetically have two books written and maybe even published during that timeframe. Well, if you use the rapid release roadmap formula, that is, yes, if you want to write faster and publish like a madman with his ass on fire, you're always welcome to do so. But I can honestly tell you from experience, reading a book a month or even six weeks apart all the time, for example, can be a very decent short term strategy, meaning for a year or less, but it is not a long game plan, my friend. That's why I did a lot of testing on myself, and a bunch of research around what other authors have done in order to maintain their careers with sustainable releases. Now here's the thing guys, rapid releasing will help us build the backlist that we need in order to hit market saturation. And obviously test our voice, our genre, etc. And obviously published faster. But we need to remember that our books are also evergreen, you can always go back and leverage your books in new and exciting ways. promo stacking, for example, is a great way to get new eyes on old books, especially with free books these series promo we talked about that with David Cochran and I shared my experiences in Episode 74 as I compared it to my first ever bookbub results. Now a lot of indie authors get hung up on releases thinking that they're the be all end all. But I want to make sure we discuss this elephant where we go talking about my recommended launch strategies. launches really are only one tiny piece of the overall marketing puzzle. So even if your launch flops, and they might in the beginning, just know that there's tons of room for improvement on those same books later on down the line. Okay, okay, I'm off my soapbox now. So what are my recommended rapid release lock strategies? Well, there are two of them. So let's go over the pros and cons of both. Now first off, for those of you who might be new to the podcast, I want to let you know that one of the things I like to teach is the idea of writing four books a year and whenever possible in the same series in order to maximize Your time and efforts. Not only will readers appreciate that, but you'll make your job a heck of a lot easier as well. I have found four books a year to be a very doable thing for most indie authors, when they have the tools they need anything more than that can often lead to overwhelm and that burnout they were talking about, which is not fun. Obviously, when you're not operating from that place of burnout, writing four books a year is a speed that keeps you focused and engaged with your series. And it doesn't give you too much time in between, where you forget what the heck you're writing about in those previous books, which is obviously ideal. Now, the writing part itself can actually work out to be much the same for both launch strategies. But it's the actual publication and launch that changes. So let's talk about those launch strategies. The first one is one that I like to call the more than four. Now you'll know why once we get a little bit further on, but basically, you're breaking your year into quarters, and then planning, writing and publishing a book per quarter. Now, as soon as your books finished its editorial process, it goes straight into production, and then onto publication. So that means you have to stick to your six week writing sprints, unlike me, the allotted time for plotting the editing, time frame layouts, etc. so that you can then make sure that your books go out as planned throughout the year. Now, if you're bold, you can go ahead and put the books up for pre order so that you can alert your readers of your intentions. And they can jump on the preorder bandwagon and hopefully get your books before everybody else like the second it comes out, right. The pros here are that you don't have to sit on your books once they're finished. Instead, once they're done, they go out the door and they can start earning money right away. That kind of seems like a no brainer, right. But there are a few other reasons why this particular launch strategy is good. For starters, it's great if you're not sure if the series that you're working on is going to do well or not. Publishing as you finish allows your audience at the time to settle with it. And for the market itself to tell you whether or not they want your series. So let's face it not all of our spectacular book ideas do well once they're out in the wild, even if we think they should go figure. Now this strategy also gives you time to celebrate the publishing process without getting too overwhelmed by all the moving pieces. If you're the kind of author who's prone to anxiety or gets overwhelmed easily, this is probably the best option between the two that I recommend. One of the cons though, with this is that if your series is going to do well, and takes off, your readers might actually want the books faster than you can produce them. Which as far as cons go, let's face it is not all that bad. In my experience, if you set your reader expectations early on, readers are pretty good about being patient, even if they don't really want to be. And quite honestly, if they like your work, you can even adjust reader expectations later on if you need to. And that goes both ways. Now I have written books far apart, I've rapid release them a month apart and even a quarter apart. And thankfully, for the most part, all my readers are still following me regardless, so I wouldn't let any of that be a super big deterrent at all. However, another con that we need to remember is that 30 days after your book goes live, your new release drops off the new release charts. So unless that book is kicking butt in the main bestseller charts by that point, you could drop off entirely making your new release harder to be seen organically, especially if you don't have another book up in the series for pre order, and also hitting those new release charts. Now on the flip side, let's talk about the other release strategy. You could decide to write the books during your quarterly six week sprints. But choose to watch them all after you have probably three or so totally wrapped up. This is what I did with the wind haven witches last year, I started reading secret legacy in January 2020. So legacy in March haunted legacy in June and cursed legacy in August. And granted that was a little faster than that book per quarter thing. But I knew I wanted to launch secret legacy in September. And I wanted to get far enough ahead of myself. So I wasn't worried about that last book, but the time it was gonna launch in December. Now this method is called the four all around and it's because you're writing four books and launching them roughly four weeks apart or monthly. Hopefully that makes more sense as to why the other ones called more than four because obviously you're doing it more than four weeks apart. And that can kind of expand and contract however it is you are actually launching. Now all of the legwork, or at least the vast majority of it is done before book one ever launches with this type of method. In essence, you're holding on to two or three, maybe all four books so that you can launch them back to back. Yes, even if you're only rapid releasing four books, you can still do it a month apart. I wouldn't recommend doing it faster though, because you lose time on the new release bestseller charts. And the whole reason for this rapid release thing in my humble opinion is to maximize your exposure for the series during the duration of the series lon At any given time, you could have a minimum of one hand, maybe all four books on the new release charts. And here's the kicker, if you put them all up for pre order and push hard, while they're in that pre order phase, you could even find your books and the new release charts for the entire duration of that pre order timeframe. Yes, even if you have them up a year in advance for pre order. This is one of the areas where having everything in place early on can really benefit you in terms of organic exposure. Now, the downside here is that you have to do that work upfront, and then wait, there's a better part of a year when you're going to be sitting on your books, or they're either on your hard drive or in Amazon KDP dashboard, while they wait for their launch date. And during that time, they're not making any money. Obviously, that's a bummer. So the gamble here is that by holding off your launches, your exposure and the targets will be worth it by releasing the titles back to back. Now sometimes this works, and sometimes not. Luckily, though, as I said earlier, even if it doesn't, you can always come at it a different way later on. Now, another downside with publishing your books a month apart, is that during this launch period, you're gonna feel like a headless chicken. All the launch stuff comes at you fast and furious. And when you have time to relax or you think you do it's Oh, backup with book two, and then Book Three, and then so on. It's like being in labor, I swear to God. And then on top of it, if you're not someone who can focus with all this hullabaloo going on your last book, if it's not finished, could be a little bit weird, because you're gonna be scatterbrained and it might just suffer because of it. Or worst, you'd have to postpone the launch. So pro tip here, if this could be you, I recommend making sure that you have all four books done before you ever launch that first book. And if anxiety is a really big thing for you forget this one altogether. And like I said, go back to that more than four. Okay. Lastly, in all honesty, when you launch your books a month apart, I've also found that you don't really have time to enjoy the process as much as you do when you're launching them a book a quarter. So you barely have enough time to register that the first book is out when you move on to the second book, and you never really feel truly grounded in this process. As each one of the books launch for the series. At least that's how I felt with the wind haven witches, there was just too much commotion going on to really feel excited for the releases, which in my opinion was really a shame. So looking back, I think I would have done things differently with that series launch. But it was definitely a learning lesson and one that I can now share with you. So at this point, I'm sure you know what I personally prefer for myself, which is the more than four method after trying both of these. But I do want to say that I like both for their own reasons. Now, I just personally want to be able to enjoy my writing and publishing process. It's not just about the money for me, I mean, don't get me wrong, being paid for my hard work is definitely nice. And it's on the list to actually do more of, but not at the expense of being disconnected from my success, meaning the book success, meaning the process of it, that just wasn't worth it. For me. That's also why I've opted out of that kind of rapid release method. And like I said, I've moved into the more than four. Now if you feel like you don't mind the frantic pace, or maybe you even feel better with it, well ignore my warnings and run with it. Only you can decide what kind of rapid release strategy is going to work best for you and your current situation. So please don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. However, please, please, please keep in your back pocket or in the back of your mind, a game plan on how you're going to protect your sanity and your downtime during this. Your friends and family need to see you too. And you need more than just writing and publishing in your life if you get what I mean. Now launching a book, whether it's one a quarter or one a month, it all takes planning and preparation. There's a lot of moving parts and you need to be on top of all of them as you get the ball rolling. I definitely wouldn't recommend going in blind and thinking that your first rapid release series is going to be a blockbuster, especially if you've never launched a book properly. Obviously, we go into all of this and more inside of my course rapid release roadmap. But I wanted to lay the foundation here on the podcast so that you have some food for thought as we raced for the second half of the year. Now one thing I will mention is that as Kindle Vela starts to unfold, I've actually started getting some really interesting ideas on how rapid release authors can use this platform to their advantage. While I'm not ready to pull the cord using my current author, brand name, which is my name, I am toying with the idea of developing a pen name to mess around in vello with so stay tuned. If it works out I might just have another rapid release strategy recommendation for you very soon. In the meantime, though, if you have questions about the two methods that I currently recommend, please remember you can always reach out in our author revolution online community on Facebook. Or if you're listening to this podcast on YouTube, drop me a question right here. I love chatting about how all this stuff works, and the best ways to make it work for you. In addition, if you'd like to get the links to any of the past episodes that I mentioned in the beginning of this particular episode, or if you'd like to download today's transcript, you can always head over to authorrevolution.org/80, make sure it's all there and waiting for you. Now, as I said, for rapid releasing can be a huge undertaking if you're not careful, and you're not used to launches in general, but I really want for all of us is to write in a way that's not only fast, but sustainable. You likely got into writing because you had a story you really wanted to share with the world and making money with it was really an afterthought. Don't lose your love of the craft in the midst of all of this publishing stuff. Okay. Well, that's it for this week. I hope you've gained some new insights on how you can come at your launch strategy, whether it's for the second half of this year, or even as you plan out your 2022. Until next week, go forth and start your author revolution. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai