Refresh an Old Title

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Short and sweet, hopefully both informative and entertaining - join us at I-Spy to find out the how's and why's of what we do.

TODAY'S POST: I-Spy something beginning with ... Refreshing a "Stale" Title

This subject resonates with me, I must admit! I've posted here my own comments and opinions, but some of the the source material is gratefully credited to the Book Marketing Expert newsletter.

We'd all like higher sales figures - but for many authors, they're getting harder to find. Books are popular and in the public eye for a brief moment, then consigned to the backlist, as the readership looks for the new shiny.

But what about reviving some of those older books and starting to make sales on them again? Most of us who have been writing for a while are sitting on a lot of content and a lot of older books that are taking up virtual shelf space on Amazon. I know I regularly come across readers who've never heard of me (amazing, I know! LOL) or who don't know I have many more books in the market.

You have many options now to revive, renew and even re-release a book with minimal effort. Many of our books are with publishers, so at all times you'd need to check your contract before trying out a new scheme. But many publishers - especially the indie publishers who deal largely in e-books - are often open to suggestions that will benefit both you and them with higher sales.

Release it in eBook: Many authors with older titles haven’t done anything with them digitally and now is the time to do this. If you are someone who’s been published by a traditional house, see if they have the rights to your digital content. Many old contracts don’t have this provision so be sure and check. Maybe you have the option to take back those rights, or at least re-negotiate them with your publisher. And if you're in self-publishing, you'll have worked out the logistics of producing an ebook already. Find a new cover, consider a new edit, add some review quotes - and there you are.

Release it in Audio: This is an increasingly popular market. It's relatively expensive to do as an individual, but you may consider it an option - or one to discuss with your publisher. Many readers are re-finding joy in listening to books, even ones they've already read in print!

Bundle eBook:  A long book can be separated out and put up as separate novellas on Amazon. Make

sure you have a page in the back of each book that leads the reader to the next book in the series. This will also open up new options for promotion and reviews, too. Consider virtual "box sets" too, if you have a popular series, or your publisher can group similar titles together in a new version. Here's a picture of a box set my publisher recently launched, including my older suspense novel "72 Hours", grouped with other novels published in that same year.

Change the cover: I combined two earlier books into one in 2010 - "Branded" - with a brand new cover. Sales started moving up again. It’s not an Amazon algorithm thing per se, but it’s often the newly, refreshed content that helps to spike visibility of the book because it looks new to readers, especially if your book is genre fiction. Readers are always on Amazon looking for a new book to read so it’s a great way to grab their attention. "Branded" is being re-issued again in 2016, under a new imprint at my publisher, as it's more suitable there. It's been an opportunity to re-edit it, too. So now it's going for its third launch LOL.

Short is the new long: The joy of e-publishing is that you can publish works other than novels. Consider novellas with your popular characters; seasonal short stories; interview posts. Make sure all of the new product offers links back to the older books. Over a period of 4 years, I followed an old 2009 novel "True Colors" with 3 sexy short stories for the main romance pairing, and then a follow-up novel for the secondary characters. In all cases, sales of the original novel bounced back up.

In conclusion : There’s a lot you can do with a book that’s been out for a while. As long as the content is still relevant there’s almost nothing you can’t do to it to revive it and give it a second chance. Keep in mind that once you do revive it, you can start to pitch it or, in some cases, repitch it to reviewers. A new book is like a clean slate. Make the most of it!  

Do you have any ideas on how to revive a "stale" title? Let us know!

~~Clare London~~

www.clarelondon.com

Credit to: 

Book Marketing Expert newsletter/Author Marketing Experts

penny@amarketingexpert.com

Let’s Talk About Book Covers

 I think most authors have a love—hate relationship with covers. We love it when we get a good one, but hate it when the cover goes wrong. Authors are hyperaware that bad cover can sink a book before it even gets opened and one word read. So, it's naturally a touchy subject for most of us.

Back in the day, authors got very little input into covers. We were truly at the mercy of our publishers. I’ve heard more horror stories than I could ever repeat in just this one column. There are many famous covers where there are issues with the hero having three arms, the costumes are completely wrong for the time period, or heroine has the wrong hair color or even the wrong ethnicity. Yikes! I have to admit, I was not that fond of my first covers (or titles, for that matter!). 

I published my first book waaaaay back in 1993. It was a historical romance set in the Scottish Highlands titled FLEETING SPLENDOR. What about this cover says Scotland? Nothing. Ugh! Plus it was a clinch pose, which were the rage at the time, but wasn't my first choice. The image is a bit fuzzy because this is a photo not a digital file. Authors weren't given digital files of our covers back then. 

Below is the cover for my second book, A TOUCH OF FIRE. It is probably the least favorite of all the covers I’ve ever had done. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the heroine (from the 1700’s) has buttons on her blouse and bright blue eye shadow. Plus it looks like she's wearing a wig. Ugh!

Luckily, things have changed. Given the advent of the digital age, publishers are more open to author input because it's a lot less costly to tweak and play with the design. Now as self-publishing has stormed the publishing landscape, authors have a LOT more input into their covers and can even design them down to the last pixel. 

So, what’s important about a book cover? Many things. But before you start to design one, decide on what kind of message you want to send out about the book. What’s your target audience? What kind of readers do you want to reach?

Your cover needs to immediately establish the genre and the mood. So first, think color. Many genres, especially horror or dark romantic suspense set the tone by having covers with dark colors. So, if you can mix it up a bit and yet still maintain the mood—using a brighter or contrasting color can really cause your book to stand out and get noticed. But don’t go overboard. Lots of pink on a cover signals “women only.” That’s okay if your target audience is women-only, but if it’s not, you don’t want to narrow your audience like that. Pink also signals lighter and brighter. Is that the right tone for your book? Color is critical.

There are many other important factors to consider when creating a cover. Even if you are a debut author, people want to know who is the author. Where is your name placed on the cover? Is this is a book in a series? If so, is that information readily available on the cover? Have you branded your series by making all the books in the series similar enough to be easily recognizable as part of a series? Is there a tag line? For example, in my case, all my books say,  “A Lexi Carmichael Mystery.”

Several months ago my publisher let me know they were going to re-design my entire Lexi Carmichael series with new covers. The intent is to make them more contemporary, hipper and edgier. The goal is to reach a wider, and perhaps, a bit more modern audience. It is all about marketing, baby. It’s important your covers are current, eye-catching and can instantly parlay the book’s genre and mood. A picture is worth a thousand words…so create a great cover to get the reader inside the book to read all of your wonderful words!

Here is the new cover for my latest Lexi Carmichael geeky mystery, NO TEST FOR THE WICKED, which is out December 1. So, what do you think?

The Good, the Bad and the Downright Ugly

I’ve been writing for more years than I care to remember and, so far, I’ve only had one cover that has reduced me to tears. The story in question was a contemporary romance/saga set on the beautiful Shetland Islands and featured a romance between a doctor and a fisherman who spent days/weeks at a time on a trawler in some of the most dangerous seas in the world. Woven into this was the story of the Shetland Bus – where men risked their lives day after day taking small boats into occupied Norway during the second world war. The cover?

A bimbo holding a red rose? Why???

I’m not particularly pleased with one of the covers for my crime novels, Where Petals Fall. This story opens with the finding of a body in a disused quarry so I can see the logic behind the cover, but I can’t like it. (I loathe the title more – and yes, I chose the thing.)

So when I know that I’ll soon be seeing a new cover for the first time, I worry. Carina Press have given me the best covers ever but still I worry. My luck has to run out some time, yes? Well, it’s not running out just yet. Here’s the cover for my November release.

I asked readers of my blog to tell me what they thought. Everyone loved it and a few said it suggested “gothic horror” to them. I hadn’t thought of that but I can see exactly what they mean.

Me? It’s almost reduced me to tears – of the good sort! I may have said this about the last cover but I believe this is definitely the best cover I’ve ever had.

Here’s the blurb:

Portrait of a mystery

Dylan Scott vowed never to return to the dreary town of Dawson's Clough. But one visit from a beautiful ex-lover and he's back in Lancashire, investigating a possible murder. The police think Prue Murphy died during a burglary gone wrong, but her sister isn't so sure—and neither is Dylan. After all, the killer overlooked the only valuable thing in Prue's flat.

So who could have wanted the quirky young woman dead, and why? Dylan's search for answers takes him to France, where he discovers Prue's family didn't know her as well as they thought they did. And the more he digs, the more secrets he unearths—secrets someone would kill to keep buried…

So what do you think? Mystery? Horror? Gothic horror? 

Writers, have you had a cover that's reduced you to tears? Readers, does a good cover entice you to read? Does a bad cover put you off?