a. Six weeks after publication date

b. Six months after publication date

c. Three years after publication date

d. None of the above

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you know my answer is “d. None of the above.” I constantly remind authors that they should be promoting their books as long as they’re available for purchase.

Allow me to give you new hope for old books.

Readers don’t care about publication dates

As I pointed out in “5 ways to promote your book long after the launch,” readers don’t care when your book is published. All they care about is whether it’s a good book.

In case you doubt me, I’ve got proof.

In her February 27, 2021 Wall Street Journal Off Duty section column, “The 8 Crucial Books for Novice Home and Garden Designers,” Michelle Slatalla shares her favorite books from her personal design book library.

They “cover what I consider the four topics you need to tackle when creating a home: landscaping, architecture, interior design and decoration,” she wrote.

Round ’em up

Articles like this are called “roundups.” A roundup usually gathers up the best, worst, most, least, newest, top, funniest, etc. products related to a specific category or theme.

Sometimes they’re focused on a specific topic and product category – in this case, home design books. In other situations, they incorporate all types of products. (Learn more about them in “Promote your book with a roundup article.”)

I recognized one of the titles in Slatalla’s roundup and knew it was published at least a decade ago. I suspected others might be older books, too, so I checked publication dates for all eight of them.

Documented hope for old books

There wasn’t a single new book on this shelf. The newest book was published in 2017; the oldest in 1989.

Here are the tiles and publication dates:

1. Time Saver Standards for Interior Design and Space Planning: 1991
2. On Decorating: 1989
3. Garden Design: 2003
4. The Anatomy of Colour: 2017
5. Home Comforts: 2005
6. The Oriental Carpet: 1981
7. A Field Guide to American Houses: Revised 2015
8. The Furniture Bible: 2014

This proves that a good book is a good book, whether it was published five months or 15 years ago.

Few authors enjoy immediate success

This is an important fact to absorb and embrace. Too many authors are discouraged when their book isn’t a huge success as soon as it goes live on Amazon and elsewhere.

They think that because they sold five copies that first week instead of 500, that the book isn’t as good as they thought it was. And they stop promoting it, which is really unfortunate.

But that’s not how it usually works. Gaining popularity can take a long time. If you give up on your book too soon, you’ll never know what it feels like to see your title on a “best of” list like this.

Stay with it. Keep promoting. Your book deserves that, and so do you.

What are you going today to promote your book so the people you wrote it for hear about it? It’s never too late to get the word out.