Releasing at the moment?

[LSMay]

Just wondering if anyone has put out a new release in amongst the current Covid-19 situation?

I have noticed my sales and reads all-but disappear in the last couple of months (although free book promotions have done better than normal), and a few of my contacts have anecdotally reported the same. It's left me a bit nervous about putting out my next new release right now. It would suck if it released to crickets. It's the first in a new trilogy, and I haven't made any promises about the release date, so I can hold off if I want.

Has anyone released recently? How did it go compared to your pre-Covid releases?

[notthatamanda]

So, I'm a prawn, but 2019 was my best year. 5 figures gross on Amazon. I spent a lot of it learning AMS, which was going well, until it changed in Jan/Feb 2020. I did an audio book for my April release and the narrator is also a fabulous editor. I had a lot of money to spend while I was writing this book and figured I knew more now than I ever did. I have no mailing list and my website is very basic.

My first book was in 2016. I had a cover from the Amazon cover generator. I was so confused I didn't even know how to check sales and assumed Amazon would email me. A couple of weeks after the release they added the dashboard and I was like, wow, look sales. I sold more of that book the first day it released than I sold of my April release this year.

This book - I had it set for a June release with the idea of moving it up to April if I had it all ready. I did and moved the date up. My initial idea was to target the book "You are not alone" for AMS. This plan had worked well when I picked a trade book for AMS as my main target for my release in Sept. I moved the date up and then things got really bad coronavirus wise. I thought of moving the date out but that wasn't appealing. It's a complete disaster.

I think probably with a good mailing list and if you have a AMS plan that works it would be okay. I have neither. There was a big change to AMS and the formula of authors and book titles for keywords seems to do nothing, and at least one author who says they are very successful with AMS says there was a major change, but no one is going to share that info and I am completely in the dark about how to pivot on this one. I can't even think of any ideas.

I'm writing the follow up to my Sept book, which was WWII fiction and I'll probably publish it but I don't know what I am going to do about a cover. I am making chicken feed this year. It's a hobby, so it's okay, but now is not the time to dump money into the business from my family's budget.

Audio - I did it for the experience and to give the book a better look. I've made 13 bucks on audio. I never expected to crush audio but at the rate Amazon is going the audio isn't going to be up for another couple of months so it really was a complete waste of money, but still a great experience.

For both my trilogies I wrote them as one giant book and released them all at the same time. I even released them backwards, over the course of a day or two, so I could have live links in each book to the next one. I didn't think I was a big enough name for anyone to go looking for book 2 months later.  My first trilogy is still my biggest seller, and my release in Sept. 2019 is second.

Hope this helps with your decision.

[VanessaC]

I released a book yesterday - book 4 of my current series - which had been on preorder for a while.  I had a really good number of pre-orders, for me, and so far seeing a nice trickle of page reads from KU.  So it's been more successful than my previous release, but I'm not a big seller, so do bear that in mind.

I saw a huge increase in page reads when the US went into lock down, so I think a lot of people were looking for a distraction. I don't think it's a bad time to release, but everyone's experience may vary.

[TimothyEllis]

About normal for me.

A 2 week pre-order period on 1 book didn't work very well. So I'm making sure they get a full month now.

Launches are a bit compromised at the moment, because follower emails are not being sent out reliably.

Book 2's and after need to be added to the series page asap after going on pre-order, because until they do, they get no real visibility.

Mailing list for launching a pre-order for sales, and on release day for KU readers, is now the single best way of getting debut rank.

Things have changed this year, mainly Amazon stopping its own promotions because of its overloaded mail servers due to increases in sales email load for covid. But this just means the mailing list is far more important now, and getting books added to series pages.

[notthatamanda]

I'll add, if you get lucky with the also boughts that will help.
I had 29 preorders on my WWII historical fiction book. The day it launched, there were over 30 pages of also boughts, all WWII historical fiction, which was a surprise since every other book of mine is contemporary fiction and I only have one author name. I think that was a huge factor. 
That started it off nicely and things went great for 120 days when AMS changed and 

[Indiecognito]

I've released two novels since the pandemic hit. Things have been relatively normal. I don't know if it's the readership for this genre, or that I've trained my readers to expect to pay, but they're still buying paperbacks and still pre-ordering, both of which sort of astound me, given the current financial climate.

That said, I did a bunch of free promos on a first in series the other day, and while I gave away a fair number of books, the read-through hasn't been as good as it sometimes is.

[Hopscotch]

Uptick in sales/reads of novels from March fell back to usual levels this month.  Published one anthology of short stories in June, two more set for July/August - because writing short stories is all I seem to have energy for these days, thanks to my Pandemic-Induced Malaise.  Three novels half-done sitting on the shelf and there they'll sit.

[DmGuay]

I released one May 31. Great preorders and high page reads. My numbers went up with the spring shut downs. I think it depends on genre. People are looking for an escape.

I do seem to have hit the summer slump, though, but still plan to release a new book in August.

[Writer]

I haven't noticed my new releases behaving any differently since Covid.

[alhawke]

No major difference for me. Some predicted a huge increase in sales with covid. And I've read that free ebooks are selling better. My books and my new release seemed to perform the yoozh.