An Introvert's Book Launch

B.R Keid knocks it out of the park

In March of this year, B.R. Keid released his first novel, Intrusion Protocol.

He had no platform, no existing following. He didn’t come up in the fanfic world, and he has a small email list.

So how in the ever-loving hell did his book come out the gate so strong and now, months later, continue to sell on autopilot?

I love to see fantastic books find the success they deserve, so I decided to ask Keid how exactly he launched his book.

Mailing List and Platform

Like me, Brian is an introvert. He lives on a farm, he keeps to himself. He doesn’t make dancing TikToks.

That doesn’t mean his book was destined to dwindle into obscurity. Far from it.

Now I always warn authors that the quality of books doesn’t dictate sales. You and I have both read absolute garbage that sold millions. We’ve also read books that no one else has heard of, even though the writing basically changed our lives. It’s not fair. It’ll never be fair. Quality doesn’t dictate sales.

HOWEVER…

It must be said that Intrusion Protocol is good. Really good. It is also military scifi, which has a rapid and extremely particular fanbase. In light of that Brian used his own experience in the US Marines and studied the genre to ensure his writing would be well liked by his target audience.

But in order to like it, the audience had to find the book first.

Newsletter

The book was launched in April of 2023 and Brian started his mailing list in January 2023. Using newsletter swaps on Bookfunnel, Brian built his list to a respectable ~700 subscribers. This is successful for such a short time period, but that’s still a small number in the grand scheme of things.

His lead magnet was also exceptionally strong. We met when he hired me to edit it and I know I was immediately ravenous to read his book. I’m sure the other people who signed up for his freebie were equally enticed.

In addition to the newsletter swaps, Brian also ran lead gen ads on Facebook directing readers to his lead magnet. The good thing about lead gen ads is that the person doesn’t have to leave Facebook. They entire their email right in the ad. This increased the conversion rate.

Ads made the biggest difference. Anyone who has ever run a newsletter swap knows that it’s slow going and you’re lucky if you get ten new subscrbers in a month. The Facebook ads is what got him to the 700 subscribers he had at the time of launch.

Now we all know freebie seekers can be great for growing a list, but sometimes not great when it comes time for them to buy your book.

When Brian ran his launch sequence when his book came out, he had a 10% conversion rate, which is REALLY good.

The newsletter continues to be a sales generator for him, as he has a welcome automation that sends the free reader magnet, then links to his books on Amazon, and a three-email automation to nurture the list. He recruits ARC readers in the welcome automation, which further invests his list members in being participants vs dead weight.

Social Media

Facebook was his strongest platform. The ads got him not only newsletter subscribers, but also followers for his Facebook author page. The ads underpinned the interest and accelerated sales and interest. He still doesn’t have a huge number of followers, but they are active and invested. No passive viewers here.

He’s present on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) as well, with about 400 followers, but they’re less invested than the ones on Facebook.

There’s this idea you need a massive social following to have a bestseller.

You don’t.

Pre-Release

Before Brian got to the launch, he focused on his writing skill, hiring a coach to get him where he needed to be. What prompted him to hire the coach was hiring an overpriced editor (not me) for book 1, only to be left wanting. The book wasn’t where he wanted it to be, and the editor didn’t help him get it there. Hence the coach.

He had been writing for three years at this point and had friends and work colleagues who were writers themselves and/or prolific readers, so he had a good set of beta readers ready and waiting. He also hired some paid beta readers later down the line.

Finally, he hired me to do a line edit. I was skeptical at first, as most novels need a developmental edit. But he didn’t. His work with the coach and the beta readers had polished his story to a high shine, so the line edit was appropriate, and I got it ready to go out to the world.

All told, with editing, cover art, beta readers, and coaching, Brian’s first book cost him around $5,000.

That’s a lot. But it wasn’t all at once, thank goodness.

He had already decided that he would not be doing a rapid-release model, that his profits would instead come from having an evergreen book of enduring quality.

Book Launch

When it came time for the launch, Brian got in touch with all of his beta readers and reviewers from his mailing list and asked them to leave reviews on Amazon the day the book went live. He had 37 ARC readers from his mailing list. Of the people he had given an ARC copy to, 30% left a review immediately on the release date.

Like many authors, the day it went live was a quiet affair and he slowly let the reviews trickle in.

Then, in May, he did a promotion stack, which served as his actual launch. With what he spent on the four consecutive days of promotion, plus the lower launch price, he only broke even with the sales he got. However, the consistent sales over that week gave him continuing traction in the algorithm and a lot of reviews.

Both of those have long since earned him back the investment he made into his first book.

In addition to the promotion stack he did, Brian also started advertising his book on Facebook, which like the lead manget before it, had an excellent conversion rate and consistently brought him new buyers.

Continuing Momentum

We are now in October and last month, Book 2 of the series, Rogue Element, was released. The new book hasn’t slowed down sales of book 1. Quite the opposite, actually. He is still running ads on Facebook for book 1 and they are still generating sales, but he is no longer running promotions.

With no other advertising or promotion, the book continues to sell well and receive new reviews.

His web presence is small, but you’d never know it from how consistently his books sell.

Also, let’s praise his AWESOME website…

He attributes his success to a cumulative effort: getting that algorithmic boost from his early promotion stack within the first 30 days of release, the strong review turnout, the mailing list automation, and the quality of his reader magnet and his novels.

I recently wrote about how I took all my books wide, but for now, staying Amazon Exclusive and getting Kindle Unlimited page reads is working for Brian. It puts his books in more readers’ hands, and those readers will find a link to his mailing list in the back of the book.

As it should be.