book series – Publetariat

Quick Links: How to Write a Binge-Worthy Book Series

June 26, 2016 by Publetariat

Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Have you decided that your novel should be a trilogy? Or even a series? Jenny Bravo from Blots & Plots to the rescue! She gives out tips to help write a great series, even if you are a pantser.

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How to Write a Binge-Worthy Book Series

by Jenny Bravo

It’s stressful enough to plan one book, let alone a whole trilogy. As a pantser, the idea of sitting down and mapping out an entire world for several books makes me want to give up right then and there.

And yet, here I am, writing a trilogy. So, what’s the deal? First of all, you should know that I didn’t plan a single second of this. I wrote my novel, These Are the Moments, with the intent to wrap it up in a nice bow and be done with it.

But what I didn’t expect was how much story was leftover for my secondary characters. Two powerhouse women characters with major flaws and big, unfinished stories – Reese and Vivian – were ready to step up to the stage. So, I’m letting them.

How can you write a binge-worthy book series? Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

Know The Heck Out of Your Characters

The first thing that popped into my brain when I thought about writing a trilogy was my cast of characters. Here are a few questions to ask yourself before we dive a little deeper:

Have my characters completed their arc?
Where is there room to grow for these characters?
Will the story continue with my current main character or will it shift POV’s?
How can I build on what I’ve already created for these characters?
How will the relationships shift and change?

For me, I decided that my series lent itself best to the idea of a new main character with every book, that way I won’t get bored, and hopefully, the reader won’t either. How can you make decisions about how to continue with your current characters?

Read the full post on Blots & Plots

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

How To Revive A Stale Book For More Sales

January 3, 2016December 8, 2014 by Publetariat

This post by Penny Sansevieri originally appeared on The Future of Ink on 11/28/14.

What if I told you that you could simply and easily revive an old or older book and start making sales on it again? Would you be game?

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 was at an event a few weeks ago and an author there said that he had a science-fiction/fantasy book that had been out for a few years and it hadn’t done well. “I sure wish I knew then what I know now,” he said. And I realized that for him, it’s really not too late.

This is an issue a lot of authors face: a stale book that’s been out for a while and you feel like you’ve really exhausted your options. Book sales are sagging and you figure it’s over.

Well, it’s not. You have a ton of options now to revive, renew, and even re-release a book with minimal effort.

Read the full post on The Future of Ink.

2014 Smashwords Survey Reveals New Opportunities for Indie Authors

January 3, 2016July 6, 2014 by Publetariat

This post by Mark Coker originally appeared on the Smashwords blog on 7/6/14.

Welcome to the 2014 Smashwords Survey, our third annual survey that reveals new opportunities for indie ebook authors to sell more books.

As in prior surveys (view the 2013 Smashwords Survey here and 2012 Smashwords Survey here), we examined aggregated retail and library sales data of Smashwords books and then crunched the numbers based on various quantifiable characteristics of the book.

For this year’s survey, we examined over $25 million in customer purchases aggregated across Smashwords retailers including Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, the Smashwords.com store, Sony (now closed), Diesel (closed), Oyster, Scribd, Kobo, public libraries and others.

This year, we break new ground with more data, including survey questions that explore preorders and series, two categories of inquiry that weren’t possible in prior years. These latter two categories were enabled by Smashwords’ introduction of ebook preorder distribution in July, 2013 and our new Smashwords Series Manager feature which allows us to capture, analyze and share the performance of series books.

The goal of the survey is to identify Viral Catalysts. I first introduced the concept of Viral Catalyst in 2012 with the publication of my free ebook best practices book, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success. A Viral Catalyst is anything that makes a book more discoverable and more enjoyable to readers.

Click here to read the full post on the Smashwords blog.

Impatient Readers Lead to Rapid-fire Series Release

January 3, 2016February 27, 2014 by Publetariat

This post by Sadie Mason-Smith originally appeared on the Melville House blog on 2/12/14.

On-demand services have not only changed the way we watch television shows, they’ve affected our expectations of all media. Instant gratification and binge-watching have affected the consumer model, and the publishing world is taking notice. Julie Bosman reports in The New York Times on a new trend in the industry: publishing release dates for series are getting shorter. Editors like Farrar, Strauss & Giroux’s Sean McDonald are catering to the ravening hordes of but-I-want-it-now readers by shrinking the release dates between installments from a year to a few short months.

According to McDonald, these readers are more than just Veruca Salt imitators—they’re scared. “You can end up with angry and perplexed fans,” he said. “I think people are more aware of series storytelling, and there is this sense of impatience, or maybe a fear of frustration. We wanted to make sure people knew that there were answers to these questions.”

That sound you hear in the distance is George R. R. Martin laughing diabolically. Probably while killing a beloved character. Fans of serials have long been subject to the perfectionist whims of their favorite authors. Who can forget J. K. Rowling’s extra months of work as each successive Harry Potter book took an incrementally longer time before release? Who, even now, is on the edge of their at-this-point-worn-down seat for the last installment in Robert Caro’s Lyndon B. Johnson biographies, a five-book project that has been in-progress since 1982?

Click here to read the full post on the Melville House blog.

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Know The Heck Out of Your Characters

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