Piggyback Your Books
Happy Valentine’s Day! 💖
In this post, I discuss the importance of a series or having multiple titles under your author name.
Piggyback Your Books
Apart from the few exceptions of authors who become bestsellers with their first opus, it takes an average of three books for an author to gain traction with the general public. This means that once you have published your first novel, it is in your best interest to get started on the next one without delay. A lot of authors spend so much time focusing on marketing their first novel that they don’t take the time to adequately prepare for the next one, and this can be a major downfall. This doesn’t mean, of course, that one has to drop all marketing efforts once the novel has been published, but just that it would be prudent to keep a strong perspective on one’s future career and next steps.
In the traditional publishing world, it takes an average of three years (or more) to publish three books. The advantage of being a self-published author is that you can publish on your own time, and, therefore, potentially much faster. The idea is to gain momentum, and gain it fast, as the more titles you have under your belt, the larger your loyal fan base will be. On average, a self-published author will probably begin to see some success starting with their third book, so this is why it is so important to just…keep…writing!
Think of it from a reader’s point of view: you fall in love with a book and the first thing you want to do when you finish it is read the next one (if the title is the first in a series), or at least another title by the same author. If, as an author, you already have a few more titles under your name then you will have immediately made a couple more sales, as well as won over a new fan. Loyal fans will do their own marketing, too, via word-of-mouth advocacy and online reviews, which helps get your name out there. All-in-all, it can only be a win-win situation! Bestselling authors and many publishers like to stress the importance of always having “more than one iron in the fire” at all times. Most prolific thriller writers are already halfway through their next novel before the previous one has even been published!
If the idea of writing a series interests you, keep that in mind when planning your first novel, as you will already want to start thinking about the rest of the series. There are some huge benefits to writing a series of books, especially if you are just starting out:
- A series is a great way to establish yourself in your niche, whether that be futuristic, dystopian style fiction, thrillers, or romantic stories. Having more than one book in the same niche gives you more traction, which then leads to the next advantage:
- A way to develop a loyal fan base from book one. Even if you choose to move away from a specific genre at the end of your series, your loyal fans will most likely already be enamored by your story-telling and follow your work wherever it leads to.
- A way to sell your books in bundles. Readers often dislike having to wait for the next episode to be released, so having all parts of a series in one book can be a huge benefit when it comes to selling books.
The benefits of writing more than one book within your first year of self-publishing are not to be ignored. In recent years, several authors have found huge successes in creating extremely popular series with back-to-back books. If they could do it, so can you!
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Have a great week!
💖
Marquina
Originally published at Authorpreneur Launch.
