Paul McKenna’s latest book launch (UK link here, USA link here) is almost an object lesson in what not to do when you launch a book.

There are so many schoolboy errors with this launch that if Bantam Press were my publisher I’d be having some very strong words and probably hunting either for a replacement publisher or deciding to self publish.

The launch date logic would sound good.

It’s a self help book and January 1st is the day that the self help market really takes off.

New Year resolutions are made.

People turn over a new leaf and vow to start their life afresh.

So books and other products aimed at this market do very nicely, especially at the beginning of the year.

So launching a book with a publication date of 1st January – at least on the surface – makes sense.

But let’s look a bit deeper:

Almost everywhere in the world, New Year’s Day is a public holiday.

So if you order from Amazon (the market leader in books), their carrier can’t deliver the book on the launch day.

There’s no Kindle version available – I’ll talk about that a bit more later – so the instant gratification of buying and reading the instant download isn’t an option for delivery.

That leaves book shops.

Here in the UK, after Amazon, most books are sold by supermarkets.

They only stock the best sellers but they move them in quantity.

And New Years’s Day is one of the very few days a year that they’re closed.

Hmm.

That’s considerably narrowing down the number of places you could potentially buy the book on launch day.

It leaves traditional bookshops, always assuming they exist and are open.

Here in Cheltenham – a town with just over 100,000 population – we’ve got one remaining bookshop.

It’s owned by the Waterstones chain.

It was open.

But the new Paul McKenna book wasn’t in stock.

It isn’t difficult to send out boxes of product – books or anything else – with an embargo until a certain date.

Book stores do that all the time – J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books used to get launched at midnight and stores opened specially.

Mobile phone shops have the new Apple phones ready to sell as soon as they open their doors on launch day.

It’s normal.

But it hadn’t happened at out local Waterstones.

So I went round the corner to our local W H Smith – they have a book section upstairs and I knew from previous years that they have a whole shelf devoted to Paul’s books.

But, again, not the latest book.

In fact, it wasn’t even on the shelf there today (3rd January) and there wasn’t an obvious gap on the shelf which could have been caused if it had sold out.

At least Waterstones did have copies 3 days after the launch but only at full price.

For a book that’s listed by Amazon UK as being their number 7 best seller overall and number 2 in self help, that’s poor.

And it means if you’ve got shares in W H Smith or Waterstones you might want to reconsider. That’s not financial advice, it’s just an observation.

OK.

So I couldn’t buy a physical copy of the book on the theoretical launch day.

But most of the market is Kindle.

The number one best seller in self help is a Kindle version.

In fact, half the top 10 are Kindle. And another is an audio download.

That’s 60% of the top 10 available for instant download.

But Paul McKenna’s books aren’t available on Kindle.

None of them.

Why?

I’ve no real idea.

I’m guessing that it’s because they have a CD or DVD included.

But that’s no real excuse.

It’s very easy to set up a protected download area and link to that within a Kindle book.

It would take a techie at Bantam Press maybe 30 minutes to set up and maybe a bit longer to upload the CD quality track.

The standard for a book related download is to give a reference that has to be quoted – I’ve done that with computer books and also a fiction book where I got access to some music downloads as a thank you for buying the book.

It’s been common place with computer books for over a decade.

Even computer magazines no longer have a cover disc – the software is available for download.

But, stubbornly, there’s no Kindle version.

Maybe the “change” aspect of self help doesn’t apply to the author or his publisher 🙂

In my view, it’s a dumb move.

It’s cutting out a large chunk of the potential audience.

And it also meant that the only other logical option to get the book on the actual launch day was ruled out.

On top of that, there’s not yet a look inside option on Amazon.

I can understand that there’s sometimes a delay with look inside happening – I’ve had that with some of my Kindle books.

But I’m self published so I accept that as part of the deal.

Major publishers don’t generally like Amazon but they do normally pay to have things happen and one of those should be the look inside option from the day the book is listed for pre-order.

What can you learn from Paul McKenna?

Well, despite my negativity about the publishing process, his books are good.

I’ve got almost all of them in my collection and I’ve read the majority of the ones I’ve bought. Sometimes more than once.

But you can learn to get the simple things right:

• Make the launch date a day when people can buy the book from their preferred store in their preferred format
• If (against everyone’s better judgement) you choose a dumb day and a dumb format to launch, at least make sure that the handful of potential outlets have your book in stock
• Follow the market in book format – if over half the top 10 in your sector are electronically downloadable, don’t be King Canute and think you can single handedly turn back the tide
• Obviously make sure your product is good quality and good value

So if you’re doing anything in your business “because you’ve always done it that way”, step back and have a re-think.

Often it’s simple tweaks that make all the difference.

In Paul McKenna’s case, I could almost guarantee that if his publisher had made a Kindle version available, his new book would be the number one best seller in self help rather than number 2 and quite possibly be number one in the whole of Amazon UK.

If you’ve got any comments, feel free to use the box below.