[Marilyn Peake]

I decided to take the advice of so many of you who have recommended publishing series. I'm very close to completing the next two books in my Mutation Z zombie series. As has been recommended many times here, I'm planning to set the price of the first book as permafree. Right now, it's in KDP and KU. Unfortunately, it just automatically renewed about 1-1/2 weeks ago and I can't pull it from KDP and KU until June 13. Here are my questions:

1.) I'll be completing the next two books in the series at the same time. Should I publish them at the same time or spread out the publications?

2.) What are the best places to publish a series? Is it best to publish the first book on many sites and the other books in the series only on Amazon, or do you recommend something else?

3.) How would you recommend beginning to promote a series?

Thanks so much for any advice you can offer!

 

[J.A. Cipriano]

I can give you my advice, and then if I'm wrong, hopefully someone smarter than me comes along to correct me.

If your books are really popular and you'll sell a bazillion copies, put them all out right away and rake in all your monies. If that is the case, ignore me. If not, read further.

1) The advantage to pushing both of the books at the same time is that you might get a reader from your first book immediately into your second into your third. You might accomplish the same thing with a preorder on the third book.

But remember you have a 30 day window on visibility. You are effectively limiting your 60 day window to 30 days by doing a simultaneous release. This is why I have seen people suggesting to do a month between. Maybe this won't matter for you.

However, I have been told that you get more of an algorithm boost from multiple releases at once. I don't know if I've seen data to reflect this so it might be all pixie dust and smoke.

2) Series do well pretty much everywhere. You have to publish your first book somewhere else to get amazon to permafree anyway. I've seen people do ku and permafree successfully, and others not. This is a decision only you can make.

3) with your mailing list if you have one. If not on free sites. Some sites like book butterfly and freebooksy have series options you can do, but sadly there aren't a lot of them. with three books you can theoretically do a promo on free book 1 and a countdown on book 2. I've seen this recommended a lot, however, with 3 books this does not leave you a lot of room for sell through.

You could also consider doing some kind of box set with your books. again this works better with 4+ books.

 

[Marilyn Peake]

Thanks so much, AJ, for your advice. It's really helpful! I'd like to keep all the books in the series exclusively with Amazon, except for the first one which I want to publish on other sites as well in order to have that one go permafree. You explained a number of options that sound promising. Thank you!

 

[Incognita]

Lindsay Buroker has a great blog post on this very topic:

http://www.lindsayburoker.com/book-marketing/marketing-your-series/

 

[Silly Writer]

I don't have any advice on series, but I'll be watching this thread to see what I can pick up.

But I did want to tell you I read Mutation Z, and loved it! I'll be picking up the next books whenever you do release!

 

[Marilyn Peake]

I don't have any advice on series, but I'll be watching this thread to see what I can pick up.

But I did want to tell you I read Mutation Z, and loved it! I'll be picking up the next books whenever you do release!

Oh my goodness, thank you so much! What a nice surprise!

 

[Silly Writer]

Marilyn,

You could release one and put the other up as pre-order. That way (I think), you still keep both of your 30-day windows, which I believe starts the day of actual release. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong) AND you'll snag those readers who only buy when a series is complete.

Maybe someone with Pre-order experience will pop in and tell us if that's correct. If so, that's what I would do.

~L.L.

 

[Marilyn Peake]

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions. L.L., the suggestion about pre-order for the third book in the series and keeping two 30-day windows open sounds really good.

Anyone else have recommendations?