You did it. The book is finished. Edited. Formatted. Uploaded. Approved. Published. YOU PUBLISHED A BOOK. It exists out there in the world where actual people can buy it. Which means you have now entered the next exciting stage of self-publishing:
Refreshing your sales dashboard every 37 seconds.
Maybe somebody bought it since the last time you checked. Maybe you got another preorder. Maybe Draft2Digital 
suddenly discovered 400 readers in Belgium who desperately need your book. (Side note, no Belgian readers for me, yet.) Maybe Amazon just hasn’t updated yet.
Refresh.
Refresh.
Refresh.
Stop.
Seriously. Close the freaking dashboard.
First, Breathe
You just published a book. Do you have any idea how freaking cool that is? You started with absolutely nothing but an idea, and somehow you turned that idea into tens of thousands of words. You wrote them. Deleted some. Wrote different ones. Moved them around. Changed your mind. Changed it back. Edited the whole damn thing approximately 412 times.
And then you discovered that writing the book was only part of publishing the book.
There was formatting.
ISBNs.
Metadata.
Distribution.
Ebooks.
Print books.
Cover files. And print cover templates created by someone who clearly hates authors and wants us to suffer. There may have been Krakens. There may have been a rogue letter Y that wandered right off the freaking book cover. Things happen.
If you’d like photographic evidence of what can happen between I’ve finished my book! and my book is actually published, you can read about my recent book cover crisis, the Fiverr Void, and the Freaking Y.
And if you’re still in the uploading-and-distribution stage yourself, I also recently wrote about the self-publishing options available to indie authors.
But somehow, eventually, you clicked Publish. That deserves more than thirty-seven seconds of celebration before you start worrying about sales.
So breathe. Relax. You didn’t just do something, you just did something awesome.
Please Don’t Become That Author
Of course you should tell people you published a book. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell your newsletter subscribers. Post it on social media. Put it on your website. Dance around the kitchen holding your author copy over your head while singing We Are the Champions if that’s your thing. Personally I went with Tim McGraw’s I Like it I Love it, but that’s just me. You are allowed to be ridiculously excited.
What you probably shouldn’t do is turn every interaction you have with another human being into an opportunity to sell them your book.
You know what I mean.
HEY! I PUBLISHED A BOOK! BUY MY BOOK! DID YOU BUY MY BOOK? DO YOU WANT TO BUY MY BOOK? HERE’S MY BOOK!
Nobody wants that. Don’t work your book into every conversation. Someone shouldn’t be able to say, “I think it’s going to rain tomorrow,” and somehow, three sentences later, you’re explaining that rain plays an important symbolic role in Chapter Twelve and here’s the Amazon link. Your social media shouldn’t suddenly become a nonstop commercial.
And please don’t obsessively watch your sales numbers.
Okay.
Fine.
You’re going to check them.
I’m going to check them, In fact, I’m checking them even as I type this.
We’re authors, not saints. But there’s a difference between checking your sales and deciding that you need to refresh KDP seventeen times before breakfast. Those first few days are exciting, but they’re also just a few days.
Your book doesn’t expire at the end of launch week.
So What Should You Do After Publishing a Book?
Come up with a plan. Hopefully, you started thinking about marketing before you hit Publish. But if you didn’t? That’s okay too. Publishing isn’t a one-day event, and neither is book marketing. You don’t have to do everything today. Instead, start implementing your marketing strategy one piece at a time.
Tell Stories About the Book
People don’t necessarily want to hear BUY MY BOOK every day. But they might want to hear the story behind it. Where did the idea come from? Which character surprised you? What did you research?What scene nearly killed 
you? What changed completely between the first draft and the published book? Did your cover designer disappear into the Fiverr Void? Did the letter Y make a break for freedom? Did a Kraken repeatedly appear during editing?
There are dozens of stories surrounding the creation of a book.
Tell those stories.
You’re still talking about your book, but you’re giving people something interesting, funny, useful, or entertaining at the same time.
That’s part of building a recognizable author presence without turning yourself into a walking commercial. I’ve talked before about why your author brand should grow naturally out of who you already are, and that becomes even more important once you actually have a book to promote.
Give People Different Ways to Discover You
Not everyone hangs out in the same corner of the internet. Some people are on Facebook. Some love Instagram. Some spend entirely too much time on TikTok. Some are on Threads, Bluesky, or Pinterest. Some read blogs. Some subscribe to newsletters. Some find their next book at the library or while wandering through an independent bookstore.
You don’t need to attack every platform simultaneously like some kind of author-shaped octopus.
Pick a few. Figure out what works for you. Then build from there.
An email list is especially useful because it gives you a way to reach readers without depending entirely on whatever mood a social-media algorithm happens to be in that day. If you’re still building yours, I have a whole guide to using author newsletters to build relationships with readers.
Create Things You Can Use More Than Once
One of the easiest ways to make yourself hate marketing is to wake up every morning thinking:
Crap. I have to promote my book again. What am I supposed to post today?
So build yourself a little marketing library.
- Create quote graphics.
- Make character introductions.
- Create book mockups.
- Record short videos.
- Share tropes.
- Use behind-the-scenes photos.
- Create “If you like ___, you might like ___” posts.
- Make a sell sheet you can give to bookstores and libraries.
- Create a few Pinterest pins.
I literally have a folder on my OneDrive called Character Images, and I’ll reuse the images with different blurbs about them. Now, because I have no—and I mean NO—artistic talent, I employed AI to make my character images. I also took 
some key scenes from my book and had AI create images for me that I can use when I share things about my characters.
Aisling loves dressing boho, for example, so I have an image of her dressed that way, and I recorded an excerpt from my book to use as the voice-over. But I can also use that image in another reel, and then another.
Reuse things. Seriously. You are allowed. The Internet Police will not come to your house because you shared the same graphic twice. Most people probably didn’t see it the first time anyway.
Use the Publishing and Distribution Tools You Already Have
Your publishing platforms aren’t just places where you uploaded files and then fled screaming.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing includes publishing and promotional tools for Amazon authors, while Draft2Digital can help independent authors distribute books across multiple retailers. If you’re working with print books and broader bookstore distribution, IngramSpark is another option worth understanding.
The point isn’t that you have to use every service available. You don’t. The point is to understand what the tools you’ve already chosen can do for you after launch instead of treating publication as the finish line.
Ask for Reviews Without Becoming Creepy
Reviews matter. So yes, ask your ARC readers and early readers to leave one. Put a polite reminder in your newsletter. Make it easy for people to find the place where they can review your book.
And then…
give them time to actually read the freaking thing.
Do not mentally stand over your readers holding a clipboard. Okay maybe you can do it mentally, but remember:
They have jobs.
Families.
Laundry.
Other books.
Apparently lives that don’t revolve entirely around the fact that you published something.
Rude, but true.
Keep Being a Person
This might be the most important one. Don’t stop doing everything you used to do online just because you’re suddenly An Author With A Book To Sell. Write your blog. Talk about other books. Share things you find interesting. Post something ridiculous. Have conversations. Support other people. Be funny. Be helpful. Be weird. Be you. Maybe you could arrange to have a child get married the weekend after you publish your book. I promise you that will keep you distracted. I understand that may not be an option for everybody, but it’s working for me.
People don’t want to build relationships with advertisements. They want to build relationships with people. And if they like you, enjoy what you create, or find what you share interesting, maybe they’ll eventually become curious about your book. That’s a much better relationship than screaming BUY MY BOOK at them every morning.
Your Book Has a Life After Launch Week
This is something I think we forget when we’re staring at those dashboards. Your book doesn’t have seven days to 
prove itself. You can talk about it next month. You can promote it around a holiday. You can create new graphics. You can run an ad. You can pitch it to a bookstore. You can approach your local library. You can write a blog post that connects naturally to it.
You can promote it when the next book comes out. You can discover six months from now that something you never expected works ridiculously well. Marketing isn’t something you do once. It’s something you experiment with. Try something and see what happens.Keep the things that work, change the things that don’t. Try something else.
And whatever you do, don’t decide whether your book is successful based entirely on what happens during its first few days.
Those numbers are information. They are not a verdict.
If you’re at the other end of this process and haven’t actually reached Publish yet, my guide to the essential steps for writing and publishing a fiction book can help you see the whole process from beginning to end.
You can also browse my free writing and self-publishing resources, including my Self-Publishing Checklist and Author Platform Starter Checklist.
And Maybe Take a Nap
You published a freaking book. You don’t have to spend the next 48 hours desperately trying to convince the entire 
Internet to buy it. Share the news. Absolutely. Celebrate the hell out of it. Then make a plan.
Start implementing your marketing strategy. One thing at a time. Pay attention to what works. Adjust what doesn’t. Remember that your book isn’t going anywhere. Neither are all those potential readers who haven’t discovered it yet.
So breathe.
Relax.
Look at the thing you made and allow yourself to be ridiculously proud of it for a minute. You actually freaking did it. You published a book!
And then?
Maybe take a day or two to nap.
