[Sam Rivers]

I have two novels about Sally Ann. They both use the same characters and start out the same. This young woman marries a cowboy and goes to live on his ranch.

Sally Ann and Her Cowboy is an erotic romance so has explicit sex. It is just a fun novel and the characters have a lot of fun.

The second one is Sally Ann and the Indians. It doesn't have any explicit sex and has a much better story line. It is more serious though and Sally Ann become a stronger woman.
I mainly wrote the second one since my older sister wanted to read it and she won't read anything with explicit sex in it. She still said it had too much sex after reading it so I guess I shouldn't have mentioned that the girl got married.

However, it is interesting though since both have been good sellers, but Sally Ann and the Indians is pulling ahead and has sold more books this month than the other one. I guess a good story pulls out ahead of one of a racy nature.

So have you ever used the same characters in two books that are actually different stories and types?

 

[Zelah Meyer]

Not in anything published (since I haven't published yet!) but I have a format that I have started using for playing around with different character pairings.  I mentally cast the hero and heroine and then stick them in a generic setting where things could play out in a multitude of ways, I then write down all those different ways so that I can explore how the chemistry/interaction between them could possibly lead them to behave.  I wouldn't use the finished results for a story in their own right but it gives me some good material that I could revise and work in to a different story. 

I think it can make for an interesting study to see how things could work out differently for the same characters.  Personally speaking, if things turned out substantially different to the other story, I'd probably give the characters new names and tweak a few things to make it a totally different one.  Interesting to hear how it's working out for you though.  Good luck with them both! 

 

[Dennis Coslett]

I sort of am doing something like that, but not with any major character.

I have completed a private eye novel in which the crime victim is a reporter who will appear in another novel I'm writing, where she reports on a crime that is one of the major events of the story. Her actions in the non-series novel will contribute to her role in the private eye novel.

I hope that that makes sense to you.

 

[apbschmitz]

Who knows if readers would go for it, but I love the idea of a multi-book writing project in which the first chapter is always the same but in chapter two the story swings in a radically different direction than the previous book. It would answer, sort of, that question all of us consider in our lives — where would I be if I had done x instead of y?

 

[Sam Rivers]

It is interesting how just one changing one thing in a story can change the chain of events.

For example in Sally Ann and Her Cowboy, her husband Clint is faithful to her and gives up running around with saloon gals when he married her.  So she remains sweet and loving.

In Sally Ann and the Indians, her husband Clint refuses to give up running around with saloon gals after he got married.  Sally Ann doesn't take kindly to that activity.  He should have never bought her that riffle since she had other things in mind besides just shooting rabbits.

 

[Pearson Moore]

Franklin,

Interesting descriptions and covers.  How long are your novels?  I see that one is 50 kb and the other is 63 kb.  These must be around five or six thousand words each, then, I'm guessing.  Twenty-five pages or so in SSF?

 

[Sam Rivers]

How long are your novels? I see that one is 50 kb and the other is 63 kb.

Pearson, those are my smaller novels. If it is under 100 kb, I just charge $.99 for them. Sometimes people like to read something smaller if the price is smaller too. The smaller ones helps to sell my larger novels. All of the smaller ones have sold well at that price.

Ben and His Twin Wives is 288 KB so I charge $2.99 for it. It has been a really good seller so far and will probably soon be ahead of Sally Ann. It is the first novel in my Hawkins series. I have published three more in this series

For the other larger novels, I also sell for $2.99. It seems to have been a good strategy so far since I get sales in both prices ranges.

 

[vrabinec]

Oh, I thought this was gonna be like March Madness for novels where we line up two novels at a time and they square off against each other with people voting whether or not to kick them off the island.

 

[Tara Maya]

Maybe the second book is simply better. But it's also possible that the cover fits the genre of the second book better. I don't think readers looking for erotica are going to realize a picture of a cow means a racy story. 

 

[Sam Rivers]

Tara, someone suggested that I put a picture of a sexy girl on my Sally Ann and Her Cowboy book cover. So I did that thinking it would make it sell even better. The book suddenly stopped selling so I put the original cover back on and the book started selling again. It has been my best seller so I just leave it alone and don't make any changes.

Sally Ann and the Indians has started selling well too since it came out.

Actually neither book is better, just a different.

 

[Sam Rivers]

Now Sally Ann and Her Cowboy has pulled even with Sally Ann and the Indians.  So they are now neck and neck.

These two books have been great sellers.