Dawn Bates: An International Bestselling Author's Insights On the Perfect Book Launch
- Aug 9, 2023
- 6 min read
Exclusive Article
Dawn Bates is a true international bestselling author multiple times over on five continents. She specialises in developing global leaders into real authorities who wish to give a voice to the voiceless whilst working with them to create brand expansion strategies through activism and authorship. Profound truths, social justice and human rights underpin everything she does, and at the core of her soul is a passion for being of service to humanity, giving hope, courage and confidence for others to stand in their truth and live a life of conviction. She writes for various magazines, sails around the world on yachts as a digital nomad and is currently working towards her PhD in Human Rights and Social Justice with the University of Oxford, whilst also hosting her own podcasts The Sacral Series and The Truth Serum.
Her books are powerful and comprise of solo compilations and multiple collaborations of the highest caliber. Dawn brings together the multi-faceted aspects of the world we live in and takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, whilst delivering mic dropping inspiration, motivation and awakening. Her work captures life around the world in all its rawness. Dawn’s expertise and insights will make you rethink your life, whilst harnessing the deepest freedom of all: your own truth. She’s an authority on leading others to create exceptional results by igniting the passions and fires deep within to speak and live powerfully.
The rules of the perfect book launch just do not exist and if anyone tells you it does, then they are not evolving with the marketing and publishing world, and they are not taking into consideration just how different each and every author and book journey is. Ask anyone with a dose of common sense and a logical mind, and they will tell you launches depend on a number of different aspects. Whether it is a new book or a new car, every product launch requires a variety of tools, strategies and phases.
For those who think there is a perfect launch, you can bet your bottom dollar they are the ones who focus on cookie-cutter style launches in one particular genre, for a particular age range, and a particular nation. They are also almost certainly stuck in a time warp and hamster wheel. Now I am no launch expert, so why on earth would you listen to a word I say? Well, as an author coach who deals directly with the human behind the books in question, and writes books in the realm of human rights, social justice, and cultural diversity, I can tell you this:
With the depths of growth an individual has gone through in their life, and the transformational journey writing a book of any real substance demands, what is perfect for one author is not perfect for another, and what is perfect for one book is certainly not perfect for another – if the previous one was indeed perfect. This is something that really should make sense to everyone, but unfortunately, it doesn’t.
As human beings, we are all different in how we want our careers (and private lives) to look. We all have very different coping mechanisms, expertise, and experience, as well as different ideas of what makes us successful. Some of my clients were just looking for a slow burn to their book growth due to the content they had just released into the world.
Overcoming fears of imposter, worries about what friends, family and peers would say raises a lot of stuff many authors didn’t think they had going on, or thought they had previously dealt with.
For others, they have wanted to go BIG, and then when the media interviews I had lined up for them started coming in thick and fast, reality hit and they chose to take a step back and grow sales on a smaller scale. Different topics require more sensitivity than others and depending on what the author has been through to get to the point of publishing, combined with their advertising budget and the size of their team, will very much depend on whether we go for an advertisement in lights in Times Square or a launch at a local university, business event or international conference.
With so many experts out there telling soon to be published authors to get their ARC[1] team in place, I can’t help wondering how much experience they have writing a book and releasing it into the world. Some write fiction books, which, as we all know, is very different to a business strategy book, which is again different to a book on trauma or political corruption.
The stakes are different. Some are the wooden stakes driven through the vampire's heart in the fiction storyline, and for others, it is their personal freedom and the safety of their family which needs to be considered. With all the pressure on people to perform, conform and do things ‘the right way’, getting all the vanity metrics in place, we are seeing an increase in mental health issues, and not the positive kind either.
This last month has been Mental Health Awareness Month, and one of the latest books I am working on with a client is all about how 10 women from different parts of the world, all from different socio-economic backgrounds, all tried to commit suicide. It might sound like a depressing read, but the courage these ladies have shown in bringing their stories to the fore is nothing short of inspirational – and much needed to combat a lot of the stigma surrounding mental health issues and attempted suicide.
Debbie Debonaire, Founder of HeartAct, and the lead author and creator of the vision for the book Alive 2 Thrive: Life After Attempting Suicide – Our Stories wanted to showcase how these incredible women have gone on to not only survive but succeed in so many different ways in life.
Some have become international bestselling authors, others are running hugely successful businesses, whilst others have created community projects to help prevent others from going down a similar path. With authors spanning more than 6 countries and many more cultures, the taboos surrounding mental health and the various topics covered have meant the launch of this book is needing to be handled with extreme care and attention. It is not a case of going big or going home. This is a slow burn, a carefully nurtured approach to those taking part, their families, and the millions of individuals around the world contemplating or dealing with suicide.
With my latest book The Potent Power of Menopause: A Culturally Diverse Perspective of Feminine Transformation we launched the book at an International conference and gifted the book to the largest menopause conference with 50,000 attendees. We went full out every day in the press, on social media and have had some major players in the menopause world promoting the book in their networks around the world to great success. We went hard, we went big, and we have still not got home yet!
As an author, author coach and publisher, I have seen and studied many different launch processes in many different genres, countries and industries. I wouldn´t be a very effective coach if I hadn´t now would I? My own books have also had very different launches from having no idea really with the first launch as I did that all by myself with no help from anyone else – not even the publisher who I worked with.
The second book launch saw me host a private dinner and had more than 75% of the guests not show up – which made me never want to do another launch ever again because the feelings of disappointment were too big for me to deal with; to now launching whilst on the move around the world and doing on line launches only.
As I have said, depending on where we are in life to the experience we have, the support we are given, the genre of our books, and the investments we are prepared to make will depend on the kind of launch we end up with.
There is nothing wrong with any launch as long as we are happy with the results we gain from it – and for some, just having the book live on different platforms is enough. For others, we want a healthy ROI and a 6-figure launch – which is not always an easy thing to do for many.
So, if you are looking to write and publish a book, just remember your journey, your book, your launch = your way. And if you would like to contact me to see how I can support and guide you through the process, then send me a message and let’s see what is possible together.
Reference:
[1] Advanced Reader Copy team of reviewers
