From: nicky.matthews@btinternet.com   
      
   On Sunday, September 14, 2014 10:04:09 PM UTC+1, Michelle Bottorff wrote:   
   > 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.  :)   
   >    
   Absolutely right.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > > 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?   
   >    
   With smashwords I think you can give advance notification - a kind of 'coming   
   soon' with other routes I don't know but you can certainly list on amazon in   
   advance and get some sales which when they come home to roost boost your sales   
   figures. It is    
   probably the same on other platforms.   
   >    
   > > >    
   >    
   > > > 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.   
   >    
   Well there are writers who write across many genres using the same name but I   
   am kind of struggling to think of any. It used to be common in children's   
   writing Enid Blyton wrote school stories, fairy stories, adventures, myths and   
   legends but all in much    
   the same voice. It is not unusual to distinguish between different kinds of   
   output Ian Banks/ Ian M Banks, Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine and as market   
   segmentation and brand awareness has leaked, rather poisonously, into book   
   publishing it is something to    
   think about.    
   >    
   > I'm not even really making any money with the first name yet.    
   >    
   Making money out of writing has become a relatively rare occurrence : )   
   >    
   > 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.  :)   
   >    
   I would agree.   
   >    
   > 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.   
   >    
   No - it means having two possible income streams iff the work is already   
   finished and ready to go and there is no cross over appeal from one to the   
   other. You can in any case direct readers to your other identity Z writing as   
   Y is common enough.   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > 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.   
   >    
   Well you know better than I do. I've just found in conventional publishing   
   that having published nine novels as N M Browne the name  suggests ( to   
   publishers) a certain kind of writing and anything else has to be under a   
   different brand.    
      
   > 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.   
      
   Well it is a problem if you like writing different things. If you are lucky   
   your readers will trust you and follow you.    
      
   Nicky   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)