When Is The Best Month To Publish?
Other than the fact that books typically release on Tuesdays, there’s a whole array of months and seasons available to authors when it comes time to pick a release date for their books. While it’s not down to a science, e.g. “If you release a mystery novel in July it’ll be a guaranteed bestseller!” there are some months that are better than others for books releases. It depends mostly on your genre. Let’s break the possibilities down, month by month.
January: This is a decent month to publish non-fiction, particularly if you’re writing an advice or self-help book that teaches the reader to do something. People love buying books to assist with their New Year’s resolutions, after all. If you’re writing fiction, though, January isn’t a great month to publish. People are still broke from the holidays, and not likely to buy books for themselves to read as entertainment.
February: This is a fantastic month to publish if you write Romance of any kind! Why? Valentine’s Day, of course! There are also lots of Romance promotions happening on the various book distribution platforms in this month, so why not get a new book out there when tons of Romance readers’ eyes are looking at the space? On the other hand, non-Romance writers may want to wait until another month when the hype dies down, so they’re less likely to be drowned out by all the romantic hub-bub.
March - September: This is a good time to publish pretty much anything, fiction or non-fiction, regardless of genre. There are no major holidays that require large purchases to be made, it’s vacation season, and younger readers (or their parents) will be looking for something to keep their brains occupied over the school break, at least in the U.S. So the months from roughly May through July may be particularly good times to publish if you write YA or Middle-grade books.
October: You probably saw this coming, but if you write anything that could be considered spooky, October is a great month to publish! Horror is a no-brainer genre, but paranormal mysteries, fantasy that involves monsters or the supernatural, and even scary Sci-Fi will work well in this month. Don’t forget romances that involve the supernatural, either.
November - December: Unless you’re a household name, this is generally a really bad time to publish anything. Why? Everybody’s Christmas shopping, yes, but statistics show that folks typically don’t buy books as gifts for other people (the one exception being very young children). Since they’re spending all their hard-earned cash on gifts for others and not themselves, they aren’t likely to buy a new release from some author they don’t know at this time of year. Having said that, if you’re writing a book that takes place AT Christmastime, or New Year’s, then by all means, release your books in these months. But otherwise, steer clear and wait until the following year to publish.
Have you published a book? If so, when was the release and do you think it had an impact on how the book did? Let me know!
