I'm happy to announce some special pre-order pricing! Just $2.99! The regular price will be $9.99.
My new book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.
CLICK HERE –> BUY NOW
If you already pre-ordered it, don't worry — you also received the $2.99 price applied automatically since you're not billed until the book digitally “ships.”
The Kindle version launched on Tuesday, June 27th. The print edition won't be ready then… it will slip into early July.
UPDATE — the paperback and hardcover books are NOW available through Amazon! It actually happened on June 30th!
The Kindle version launching earlier mainly results from a mistake I made. It's not a major problem, but I made a bad assumption — a common cause of mistakes!
Before I get to that… please join me on Friday…
Free Live Event on June 23 [Recording]
Thanks to my friend John Saunders for organizing a LinkedIn Live event on Friday, the 23rd. I hope you'll join us as John asks me questions about the book and what I hope readers will learn from it. You can now view the recording…
Book Launch LIVE – Featuring Mark Graban – The Mistakes that Make Us
Here is the quick preview that John and I did:
And here is the recording of the session:
What Happened With My Launch Planning?
After finishing my manuscript on March 31st, I submitted it to the company I hired to do copy editing, page design and layout (for the print book), and final proofreading.
On May 3, I set up the Kindle book in Amazon's KDP platform for pre-orders. Amazon has you choose a date when the book will be released. To their credit, they make it very clear that pulling the release date forward is fine (if the book is ready sooner than expected).
They also state that delaying the launch is bad — because customers, although not charged yet, will be disappointed by the delay. It's said that Amazon will punish you for being late (although you get one mistake, which is kind of them):
“… you can delay your release date up to 30 days once without penalty.
The second mistake brings a penalty:
.”If you delay the release a second time on a given title, you won't be able to set up a new pre-order for one year or extend release dates for other existing pre-orders.”
Again, one cause of mistakes is bad assumptions. I made a bad assumption about when the work on the print book would be done. I thought setting a June 27 release date included about three weeks of buffer time.
But that turned out to be incorrect.
The company that I'm working with gives estimates about how long each step in the process will take (and each step is a range, like 10 to 15 business days). I should have sketched it out like a Gantt chart, but I failed to do so.
The Kindle book will be ready to release on June 27th. It's basically ready now, with the text and formatting. I've done my own proofreading, and some friends have helped. I should have the notes from the professional proofreader in time to launch the Kindle book with those problems corrected.
I could delay the release to wait for the print books to launch at the same time. That said, I've been told that having the Kindle version be available earlier than the print books (which happens even with major publishers) is not unusual.
When I launch the Kindle version (and the print books), I realize it's unlikely that any book has ever been published without defects (and sometimes defects are found on the first page). One great thing about publishing through the Amazon KDP platform is the ability to quickly iterate — to fix any minor problems that make it through the publishing process with a new upload to Amazon.
I bet early buyers would be forgiving of any small mistakes in the initial release. I mean, it is a book about mistakes, after all…
So, I think I should keep the Kindle launch date at June 27. I don't think that's a big mistake. I don't want to disappoint anybody with a delay on the Kindle book.
But I have learned and I hope I remember the lesson learned for any future books that I write and publish. Writing this blog post to reflect and share will help reinforce that lesson learned.
Again, you can pre-order here if you like.
Update: Maybe I made a mistake in… thinking this was a mistake. I got a reassuring note from my book coach saying that it was OK to have the Kindle version launch before the print editions.
“I like to see the launch on different days since it gives you the opportunity to “launch” twice! I think this is a solid strategy.”
Much ado about nothing on my part, perhaps…
What do you think? Please scroll down (or click) to post a comment. Or please share the post with your thoughts on LinkedIn – and follow me or connect with me there.
Did you like this post? Make sure you don't miss a post or podcast — Subscribe to get notified about posts via email daily or weekly.
Check out my latest book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation:
The number of pre-orders for this book now exceed the number of pre-orders for my previous book “Measures of Success” — so that’s exciting. Thank you, everyone!