From: mbottorff@lshelby.com
Nicky wrote:
> > But having connections between books is a marketting plus, isn't it?
> >
> Definitely as is producing new books regularly. I want to a talk given by
>the founder of Smashwords and he very much emphasised that
I've been going around telling people that the best thing to do is wait
until they have about four books ready to self-pubish before even
thinking about selling any of them, because the more titles you have
available, the more effective your time/money spent doing promotion is.
With a trilogy, for example, each customer I gain nets me three sales,
instead of one. :)
> and also giving readers advance notice of new titles.
Sounds like a plan. So, um... how is one supposed to go about doing
that, exactly?
> >
> > Bambi, being science fiction, will be a very abrupt turn off into "not
> > what I was expecting" for my existing readers. Besides, I have got the
> > least amount of enthusiastic beta-reader support for Bambi of all my
> > novels post-Cantata, so... hmmm.
> >
> That's when a different brand might be handy.
If by "a different brand" you mean I pick a different pseudonym, I don't
think that's a good idea.
I'm not even really making any money with the first name yet.
Yes, I'm selling books, and yes I do have more money now than I started
with. But to really be *making* money, I need to be covering the cost
of cover art, editing, etc, and then have something left over with which
to pay myself for having written, too. So far, I'm not managing that.
But I've been at it for less than a year. If I continue to build my
audience, and to put out more titles, I should get there. The initial
prognosis is favorable. :)
Changing names, however, means abandoning the existing audience, the
hard-won creditials as a writer of "self-published gems", and starting
over way back down in the red with nothing.
I don't see how that's worth it, even if none of my current audience is
willing to hop sub-genres with me. Being known as an author, even if
its the author of something totally different, I think would still be to
my benefit. And I'm sort of assuming that at least some of my audience
will make the jump... I am keeping it all under the "speculative
fiction" umbrella, after all.
But at the same time, until I'm in the black, it seems wise to plan my
steps to maximize return for effort. So I've been trying to put out
"similar" books. Which for me is far from easy! Across a Jade Sea and
Cantata *aren't* in the same sub-genre. Not even close.
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://www.lshelby.com/
Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/
rec.arts.sf.composition FAQ http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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