A self-published book launch done right

Hello!

​Val Mullally from my writer’s accountability group launched her new book yesterday. It’s her fifth self-published book.

The launch was a Zoom event hosted by John, a colleague of Val’s, who was simply excellent as a host.

It was a paid event, to keep the trolls away, but pay-what-you-want. Val personally invited many people, sending them a code for free participation. She also promoted the event through two work-related organisations she’s an active member of.

The “it’s paid but here’s a free code” approach worked. Lots of people turned up, with about half of the attendees paying and half using free codes.

Val read an excerpt from her book, the host asked her the typical “why write a book?” and “what did you learn?” questions, and there was a Q&A section.

She recorded everything, and now she has an excellent resource for creating promotional shorts or reels.

I’m sure it resulted in a good number of book sales. It also helped cement her image as an expert in her field.

In short, it was an excellent launch event. And I’m kicking myself for not having done a similar launch event!

I’m a “learn-through-doing” person.

As I start to learn something new, I like to just try things, and then go back and learn more now that I have some context. Then I try again.

This is the action-reflection loop you have probably heard of already. A formal definition I found via Google is:

I’d never launched a book before Kill the HiPPO. I’ll gladly admit it’s something I knew little about beforehand. Now that I’ve tried some things, I’ve become highly attuned to how other self-published nonfiction authors promote their book.

Val told me that where I see an excellent launch, what I don’t see are the scars from five previous book launches. She did it well because she’s done this before and learned along the way.

I suspect you have similar scars from your experience making software and learning what features to build. Read through a certain lens, Kill the HiPPO is a collection of stories of founders developing scars as they try things, pause to reflect, then adjust their approach.

And it’s the scars that make us good at what we do.

Until next time, keep making great software.

Steve McLeod
​​​killthehippo.com​​

PS: If you’ve bought Kill the HiPPO, have you written a review yet?