
Your book took a monumental amount of time/energy/money to get it out in front of your readers. You sold some books and got some terrific reviews, even some super-nice emails! Back in the time when you could meet with book club members or do in-person book sales, you enjoyed your time with fans and sold books, too. Bravo!! Way to go.
Here’s the secret to building fans and keeping books selling: (Drum roll, please…) Write the next really good book and get it out to the fans, regularly. This is true for fiction and non-fiction books. If you’re traditionally published, your publisher is going to want a minimum of a book a year; and that’s not a bad model for all of us to shoot for.
It’s very likely that you’ve written a fun short story or some poetry or maybe even a novelette, or an essay you’re proud of that can be expanded easily into a small book. If not, you are an expert on something, and that knowledge can provide an answer to a problem for someone else. Those things have more value than you think!
Repurpose those articles into a mini-book that you can put out as an Ebook for .99 – 2.49! Give your readers something new to read while you’re working on that next full-length book. Those poems that you’ve written but shared with very few would be a wonderful gift when bundled together, with or without some applicable photos that you’ve taken along the way. In ALWAYS CHASING ‘EM, Daria and I pulled together a collection of some of our short mysteries, many already published years ago but no longer available, but also some that placed or even won contests but never saw publication before. We’ve heard it has been a fun read for our fans which is what we wanted it to be!
The bottom line is that to impact YOUR bottom line, you have to keep great material out in front of your readers so they don’t forget you and so they don’t lose their precious enthusiasm for your work! Enthusiastic readers are your biggest asset – so look through those archived works and see what you might be able to repurpose for those fans!
Do you have three or more books finished and they’ve been out awhile? How about offering a boxed set for readers? New look, new format – no new writing really required! Or how about turning it into an audiobook? There are a good number of ways to spark new interest in older work, which results in new interest in new work, too!
And in this unusual time, remember to treat yourself kindly – that will make being patient easier, too. Productivity will probably be down a bit – no worries. Every day, invest in some quality quiet time, a nap when needed, eat well, get a walk in the outdoors and be grateful for all of the blessings in your life, great or small.
Keep reading and writing!
Nancy Q.