by Jay Wilburn
Making it work as an author of an ongoing series comes down to being able to sell yourself to readers and being able to sell the expanding universe you are wrapping around your stories. It would be easier if we could just sell books like a respectable profession, but “Buy My Book” has been proven to be less than effective in most all of its iterations. No, there is a game to promotion and a bit of a marathon or a long-con depending on how you want to characterize it. Writers of zombie series are trying to sell an entire universe.
I spoke about short fiction more generally in an earlier post. As part of this post on selling a universe, I want to bring up short fiction in the context of those authors who use short stories as a tool to sell their series universe. There are several great examples and different methods for using this tool in that way. A number of authors write all their short fiction set within their respective universes no matter what the submission is for. So, every published story in any venue or anthology becomes an advertisement for their universe and series. Some authors create anthologies set within their universes and invite other authors to create pieces for them. Armand Rosamilia and Chris Philbrook have both done this with great success. In Undead Worlds, featured on this tour, several authors wrote new short stories specifically to introduce readers to their various universes.
Authors have to sell their voice to readers as well. Buying into a series and a universe involves buying into the writer’s way of telling a story. This is a long-term commitment and readers are entrusting the author with time and money. In the current market, some of that comes to online presence and persona. It does not have to be a made-up personality or a calculated, marketable brand – nothing that callous necessarily. It does have to be a persona that makes the reader want to read though. Something there has to click or connect or inspire or strike up interest. This is probably a bigger concern for up-and-coming authors where the person by person retail politics style is needed. Every reader counts and social media is a nearly unavoidable requirement just to make potential readers aware of the author’s existence before the sale of the universe begins.
Some authors follow other characters within the same universe along a side series for a short run or an extended engagement. Others will maintain the main series, but use particular volumes within the series to engage in the “what if’s” and the “what ever happened to that guy” questions. Some authors have found great success with these multiple storylines within the same universe. Others regretted the tangents later. Many authors later in their writing careers had to create complex flowcharts to explain the best order to read the various books within the multiple series paths. Others had to engage in campaigns to help inform new readers of the best place to start their universes. They have sold the universe to readers, but as that universe of characters and events grew, they had a very big canon to try to introduce a new audience into.
Once readers are sold, the work becomes keeping that universe vibrant and the stories engaging. Authors have to continue to sell their universes to keep the places and people from growing old and stale within the stories. That is no easy task once plenty of story has been told and much in-universe time has passed. The creative demand weighs fully on the author in both the storytelling and the universe selling.
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