I have mixed feelings about this party. I felt like it was already a success going in because I had so many fantastic participants and because the Kickstarter was a success, so my launch was successful before it happened. Some things didn’t work so great and I know what not to do next time too. Do you have any feedback/advice for me?
Things that worked:
Facebook likes
Goodreads giveaways got me an enormous amount of attention. If I’d known about that before I would have done it long ago. I’m planning a regular giveaway now because of that. 197 people added my book because of the giveaway.
Kickstarter made this a win before it happened.
Lots of great re-tweets on Twitter! Thanks everybody!
Things to do differently:
I did too many posts this time. I’m sorry. I get all gushy when I’m excited and I can be too much. (You should see me hopped up on caffiene.) My plan next time is to spread them out more during the launch week. I think I’ll get a lot more attention for each and lead up to the launch better with more forewarning too.
Bigger isn’t better. I had more to post about this time but it didn’t get me any more views. I’m going to relegate it to 6 posts per day maximum next time.
By Sunday people lost interest, so I’ll probably keep the contests open but stop posting Saturday.
Nobody posted on Facebook
Only a few people liked on Amazon and nobody tagged
Nobody did the “fabulous five” and I thought that was so cool. đŚ
Never, ever publish and un-publish on Smashwords before release. I totally lost the “new book” listing because I did that. Big mistake.
I probably shouldn’t have posted about future pricing plans just before the launch. Doh!
Party Sales:
A lot of my launch day sales were eaten up by pre-release sales. This was not a loss and I sold a lot more in pre-sales than I did with the previous book at the release party. I only got 2 sales of Don’t Judge a Book By Its Magic during the party though – one ebook and one print book. That was disappointing.
438 people downloaded The Disenchanted Pet free on Kindle and 7 people downloaded The Lustre from Smashwords.
Post view breakdowns:
Kate Policani 
But you learned valuable lessons and gained valuable knowledge. To me that is a win for you. It is a lot of work what you just did and also takes a lot of guts. I say bravo to you.
Thank you Muse!
Thank you, Muse!
I agree with Muse and to add to that, you teach others along the way as well and that is always winning!