11 Tips for Marketing Your Book Series

How to maximize your marketing impact with multiple books.

1. Make your first book free or discounted!

Yes, you spent months perfecting your first novel, and it deserves to be priced to earn you something for your time, but when you have two or three books trailing it, consider the investment opportunity of utilizing the first book as a reader magnet. Allowing readers to try some of your first book (or all) before they spend any money can give you the opportunity to hook them early and guarantee sales on the remaining books in your novel series. Utilize sites like Story Origin to share samples or full-length reader magnets with newsletter swaps and group promotions. This step is only for those authors who already have more than one book in a series available for readers. 

2. Keep your books at a reasonable length to publish quickly while still delivering a great story. 
Aim for 40k-60k length.

Longer books take a longer time to come to market (with all the prep involved in cover art, editing, formatting, etc…) so get the rest of your series out quickly to make sure you keep readers engaged and ready to pounce when that next new release comes out. Just be sure that while you are sacrificing word count, you're not sacrificing story quality. You must to tell a good story.

3. End your books with genuine cliffhangers

Cliffhangers make readers need, not want, NEED to continue on. Give them something to look forward to. Make them want to pounce on that next book when it hits the market.

4. Make sure the covers look uniform.

Your novels should look like they belong together. Make it easy for readers to see that they are part of a book series.

5. Make sure the books are available everywhere!

Amazon, Google, Apple, Kobo, BN, Smashwords, D2D, etc… The more channels you belong in, the more available your book series is for readers to find and read.

6. Advertise the first book in your series.

Spend most your advertising budget on the first novel in your series. This is your lead in. If they love your first book, they will look for the rest of your series.

7. Use your front and back matter to advertise follow-up books. 
Make sure the other books are listed in the front and back matter of each corresponding book in the series.

Make it easy for readers to find each available book in the series (in the right order). In the front matter of your books, list all titles available, in reading order. Do the same at the end of the book, so readers don’t have to go hunting for the information.

8. Include sample chapters of the next book at the end of the current book.

At the end of book 1, put the first “teaser” chapter of book 2. Same applies for book 2, 3, 4….

Give readers a taste of what's next.

9. Create audio editions

Use ACX or Findaway Voices to hire narrators and produce audio editions of your books. Royalty share is the easiest and lowest cost option here.

10. Create POD editions

KDP is the easiest and lowest cost method of getting your books in print, and you’ll have paper copies to bring to author events. If you're in it for the long haul, check out Ingram Spark for your POD printing. 

11. Create bundles

When your series is complete… Make a boxed set to sell separately. People love collections and offering the entire series in one boxed set will entice those particuar readers.