A debut launch carries more risk than a backlist push — there's no existing review base, no algorithm history, no audience to reactivate. Worse, MQ had no social media platform at all going in. Colonel Khan & the Mystery of the Falcon Feather was over a decade in the making, introducing a classic "gentleman investigator" into a genre where readers are famously loyal to established series.

Do you have a brilliant idea for your book but struggling to finish it? Are you on a tight deadline but can’t type fast enough? Are you...