Self Publishing and You- Part 5: Multiple Products

#5 Have more than one thing to bring to market, also called a backlist or backlisting.  So all that time, effort, work, rework, polishing, rework, scrapping it because sucks, resurrecting it because it didn't suck so bad you couldn't fix it after some deep contemplation, reflection and self abuse, all to get one freaking book and I'm saying do it a few more times?  Yes.  Simply put, my research has led me to accept that, a lot of the truly successful indie authors were successful because they had multiple products to offer.

Amanda Hocking brought several books to Amazon when she first started.  If you don’t know who that is, better research that too and pray for 10% of her success.

I think this is how it works.  I'm a reader looking for YA Romance and I find your third book.  Something about the cover caught my eye.  The description was intriguing so I purchased it and I loved it.  So I then go looking for other books you wrote.  Well you have three more books and the first two are YA paranormal romance.  Well paranormal isn't really my thing but I read the descriptions anyway and they seem interesting.  I just bought three of your books because I liked one and was willing to take a chance on something else because you paid off on the first go.  I’m impatient and forgetful.  If you didn’t have other books available right then, well, that would be it.  I’ll find someone else to read and may or may not remember you.

Now, let me say that, if you’ve already got one or even two titles on Amazon or Smashwords or wherever, that’s not a bad thing.  Nor will I say, don’t put out anything until you’ve got multiple books to offer, though that is part of my plan.  It’s just something to keep in mind.

So how can you expand your backlist quickly if you’ve only ever writing one novel?

Write shorter works.  Short stories and novellas are a great way to put out a lot of high quality material quickly.  Short stories can be offered for free or for the same $.99 that people are buying 400 page novels for, because it’s a buck that they would have fed into the pop machine at work anyway.  Pricing is another issue that I’m still researching.

Here’s my plan for my YA Military sci-fi series that I talked about in the Promotion post.  First, and I just said this but want to reiterate, it’s a series.  How do you get someone to buy your next book?  Hook them before they even pick it up with the end of the one they just read.  So this 12 novella series is laid out like a season of a television series with a meta-plot, a few individual character arcs, all set in one world that is also growing and developing.  It took me 4 years to finish a 100k word novel, because I was learning to do it and I took time off, but I know I can turn out 25,000 words for a 100 page novel pretty quickly.  What’s taking time is the plotting of 12 books at the same time. WEEeeee…

Of those 12 books, I plan to finish 6 before I bring any to market and I’ll bring 4 at the same time, offering the first one for free.  That gives me time to hype 5 and 6 while also writing 7-12.  Now the heat will be on to finish those last 6 and wrap up the series in a satisfactory way which I hope will help keep me focused and driven.  I could try to write them all first then strategically release them one at a time, in groups or some other strategy that may occur to me between now and then.

But, until I get those first 6 done I’m building my social, professional and distribution network so that I’ll have a community to help me launch the first 4 books in a powerful way.  It’s better to hit the Amazon listings with great numbers and try to keep it up there than to start at the bottom with no way to move it.  Again, see Promotion if you’ve not read it.

Other ways you could do this is to write companion short stories for your novel.  Think of it as a side adventure.  Maybe one of the supporting characters has an interesting story to tell of their own.  Maybe somewhere in this amazing world you’ve built is another story to be told that cannot be told in your novel.  Got a great piece of history that is barely mentioned as backstory but want to tell the whole thing? Do it!
Of course, the old fashioned way to do this is to write.  Just keep writing.  Build your catalog of books one at a time and the success will come if what you offer is excellent.  If it’s not then you need to rework your story, figure out what’s wrong with it and how to fix it (see Editing).  No one ever said you can’t pull a book off Amazon, rework it and slap it back out there.  Why not!?  You’re the editor.  You’re the art director and the marketing director.

As a side note, something I’ve wrestled with in my writing career is impatience.  I wanted to write a great novel and get it published and quit my job and write full time.  I bet we all want that.  Just accept that it doesn’t have to happen overnight.  I put so much stress and pressure on myself to hit these crazy word counts and put out 3 novels a year (NOT!) and, when I hit a wall, I hit it so hard that I quit writing for a long time.  You have your whole life to do something with this talent you’ve been given and, as long as you are doing something, I call that successful because you’re doing so much more than your neighbor or brother in law or most politicians.  Just being willing to dream sets you above almost everyone you know in your personal life and so many of them will hate that and try to pull you back down to their level.  Just write!  Just keep writing and have a plan and work that plan.

The next post is on Reviews, and it will be the last in this series.  I realized that I neglected to talk about your book description and will probably have to address that.  There are plenty more things to talk about with self publishing though and I intend to out line the actual How To’s  from formatting to specifics on options with Amazon and others.  Might need help with this one from some of our friends who have already gone through this process.

Listeing to: Dishwalla- Give  Yeah I used this one before but I love it. J.R. Richards is one of the most overlooked and amazing vocalists of the 90s and he still sounds great.