What is the Best Day of the Week to Launch a Book?

This is a very tough question to answer

Let’s consider a few cases

When Trying for Bestseller Lists

If you are trying for a big bestseller list, such as New York Times Bestseller List or USA Today Bestseller List, then you must launch according to their ‘weekly dates’ i.e.

When determining what books are considered bestsellers for the week, they consider a specific set of 7 days. You must find out the details and launch on the First Day of Their Week. This will ensure all your sales get counted properly towards the Bestseller List rankings

When Trying for Amazon Bestseller Lists

Each category has a specific set of days of the week when it is best to launch. You will have to research for your specific genre

Generally

1. Launching on a Monday or a Tuesday is best
2. Launching on Friday or Saturday is not ideal, especially during the Summer
3. For Holidays, there are some holidays that are not good for book sales (Thanksgiving, Easter) and some that are very good (Christmas, New Year’s)
   1. You always want to launch a few days before the main holiday, so that your book can be at a good sales rank on the main day when all the readers come streaming in
4. Non Fiction does better during weekdays
5. Some genres do better during weekends. You will have to check for your category

In general, you should avoid weekends during Summer and even Summer itself is slow

Weekdays are better than weekends for most categories

You don’t want to launch too close to the weekend. Not only should you launch on a Monday or Tuesday (for most categories), you should ensure there is a follow on period (Wed to Fri), with enough traffic, so you can benefit from the higher sales rank you get after launch

When Trying to Maximize Your Launch Month

There is a theory that for a period of time after launch, the book store algorithms give your book better exposure

1. In the past there used to be a one month period. If your book started seeing sales, the store algorithms were quite likely to pick it up and feature it on various lists such as Hot New Releases, Trending, etc
2. Now the general consensus is that it is a 2 week honeymoon period. If your book can see a sales spike, or a steady stream of sales, anytime during these first 2 weeks after launch, the store is quite likely to pick it up and feature it

When trying to maximize your launch month

1. Beginning of the month is better than end of the month. People are running out of money by the last week of the month
2. Weekdays are clearly better than weekends for most categories. Please do check for your individual category
3. Set up all your promotion efforts to maximize the first 2 weeks honeymoon period

General Points for Launching Well

1. Launch only when the book is well polished and ready. Rushing the launch or having some hard deadline is counter productive
2. Launch only after reviews are lined up. All the marketing you will do. All the initial visibility you will get. Will benefit you a lot more if you can get some reviews from your most loyal readers, right after launch or even on launch day itself
3. Do not go off of one single data point. Do your due diligence and go by information verified by multiple people. One person could launch on Saturday during the Summer and somehow still have a great launch. All the people who were out at the beach or on a road trip did not affect his launch adversely. However, they will almost certainly kill your book launch
4. Have your promotions lined up well in advance
5. If discounting, set up your discounts early. The ebook stores have a knack for messing up promotions, so do not do things last minute. Discounting can take a few hours to a few days on most bookstores

If you have a plan and do your due diligence, things will go well. So take your time and do things properly