How to Use Your Backlist

Announcements:

• EARLY access to the Early Bird registration is now, so if want early access for sold out tickets, become a patron this month.

• I'm in a new anthology by Tsunami Press with my essay "Eye Contact." You can preorder at http://www.tsunamibooks.org/shop/pre-order-tsunami-press-first-anthology Due out the beginning of October 2023.

• Preorder of Season of the Shadow up now. (Erick's new title.) Nov 16th.

• Erick speaking at Pike's Peak Writing Conference in Colorado Springs in April 2024.

UPDATE:

• Valerie:

• speaking at another conference next month

• Becca Syme's 30 for 30 this month

• Nanowrimo in November (Erick is too!)

• Erick:

• working on little things; short stories, etc

I'M READING: beta read

Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue

Harness: A Systemic Approach: Guaranteed to Revolutionize Your Coaching by Tess Cope

Up Next: What's a Poor Girl to Do?: Prostitution in Mid-Nineteenth Century America by Elizabeth A. Topping

Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the the Early West by Anne Seagraves

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue

• Erick's Reading:

• The Most Expensive Mistress in Jefferson County by James Misko

• Show Notes:

Backlist are books previously published, still in print, for at least a year.

Helps with discoverability.

Not running on new releases all the time, but backlist props that all up.

Promote backlist books when not publishing.

Keeps people interested while they are waiting for the next book.

Keeps those titles alive, so when talking to fans about the books, you still know the sizzle of those books.

In it for the long haul; tap into the love of the backlist.

In book launch mode: use amazon free days for promo Book 1 and 2 before 3 comes out. To move them into the series after reading free book 0.

Talk about elements of older books (if you liked those, you'll love the new book).

Use backlist as a conversation starter.

Even with stand alone. If you liked xx, I've also written yyy.

Use old books to talk about the new books.

Opportunity to develop new story elements (looking at older books to see what else you can explore).

Fan service. Expanding on backlist. Going wider as well as longer.

Instead of marketing with ads, fan service to grow your audience.

All books equally important, no barrier to purchase.

Finding fans, less about marketing to the world and more marketing to your tribe.

Manufacture your own promo and free days, if you are wide.

Audiobooks, Large Print edition, Workbook ... incrementally or all at once.

It's your process. Own it. Use it the way makes sense