{"id":6590,"date":"2015-11-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crocolessons.com\/erwa\/the-care-and-feeding-of-your-back-lis\/"},"modified":"2019-12-17T14:41:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T14:41:01","slug":"the-care-and-feeding-of-your-back-lis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/21\/the-care-and-feeding-of-your-back-lis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Care and Feeding of Your Back List"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nBy Lisabet Sarai<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nLast week a writer friend of mine included a wonderful excerpt from his first book in a blog post. I\u2019d read (and loved) this book when it first released; perusing the post felt like meeting up with an old friend.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nThen the author casually mentioned, in a post comment, that the book was out of print. I felt like shaking him in frustration. Why in the world, I wanted to scream, did you let that happen? Don\u2019t you care about keeping your work available? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nThere\u2019s so much in the world of publishing that we authors can\u2019t control: Amazon\u2019s latest tweaks to its ranking algorithms, payment schemes, and censorship policies; publishers being bought out or going bankrupt; out-of-the-blue bestsellers that have readers (and editors) clamoring for cookie-cutter copies. One thing we can control, however, is the disposition of our accumulated body of work. In my opinion, we owe it to ourselves to keep our backlog of books and stories out there in the world, where readers can access them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nSome of you may ask, why bother? Everyone knows it\u2019s only new releases that get any sales (as demonstrated by the thirty-day cliff phenomenon)<\/a>. Who\u2019s going to want to read a book that\u2019s a year, or five years, or ten years old? Anyway, no publisher will be interested in a dingy old reprint. If some of your back list dates from before the ebook revolution, you might not even have the manuscript in digital form. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nExamined carefully, none of these arguments (excuses?) holds up to scrutiny. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nFirst of all, though your book may be \u201cold\u201d, there are undoubtedly millions of potential readers who\u2019ve never encountered it. Sure, your fans (whether you have five or fifty thousand) may have read your earlier work, but for lots of readers, your book will be a welcome discovery. If someone picks up an old book of yours and enjoys it, he or she is going to want more. You need to make sure you can give these people what they crave. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nOut of the 200 or so people who completed my survey earlier this year (http:\/\/lisabetsarai.blogspot.com\/2015\/08\/reader-survey-results-part-2.html<\/a>), 30% had never read one of my books, and another 25% weren\u2019t sure. That\u2019s over one hundred people for whom everything on my back list will be new and exciting. I want those readers!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nEven for readers who know your work well, it\u2019s important to keep your older stuff available. What if they want to reread one of their all-time favorites? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nMy brother\u2019s birthday was yesterday, so last week I went to Amazon, looking for two books I read\u2014and loved\u2014decades ago: Winter\u2019s Tale<\/em><\/a> by Mark Helprin and Little Big<\/em><\/a> <\/a>by John Crowley. My copies of both books date from the eighties. They\u2019re falling apart. I was delighted to discover new editions of both titles. I sent them off to my brother, and you know, I just might replace my tattered volumes with new ones. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nMake sure that readers who love your work can do that, too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nYou may be interested in re-releasing your out-of-print opus, but think publishers won\u2019t want it. Think again. These days, especially, publishers who are trying to satisfy the market\u2019s insatiable desire for fiction are more than willing to look at your back list titles. In fact, they may recognize that they\u2019ll have to invest less time and effort in a previously released book because it will have already been through one or more rounds of editing. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nMy debut novel Raw Silk<\/em> has been through three publishers. Ruby\u2019s Rules (now retitled as Nasty Business<\/em>) has had four, Incognito<\/em> two, Exposure<\/em> three. I\u2019ve had publishers go bankrupt and others decide they didn\u2019t want to publish erotica. In a few cases, I\u2019ve reclaimed my rights because I wasn\u2019t happy about my sales or the way the publisher was run. My goal has always been to keep all my novels available\u2014whatever that required.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBut I write short stories\u201d, you may respond. \u201cNobody wants those.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nNot true. I recently published a 5K tale (a reprint) through an indie publisher who was actively seeking short fiction. You can also self-publish your stories, either individually or as a collection. In fact, since most anthologies ask for only one-time rights, you may be able to publish a short piece in multiple places. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf you really can\u2019t find anyone to publish your tale, you can still make it available free, using it to introduce readers to your published work. That\u2019s better than letting it languish in the dusty recesses of your computer memory!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd what if your book was published so long ago that you don\u2019t have the source in electronic form? As long as you have a physical copy, you can subject it to Optical Character Recognition (OCR), a process that uses image analysis to recognize typescript and turn it into digital text. OCR may produce a significant number of errors, so you will need to carefully review and revise the output. However, this process will allow you to create both ebook and print versions of a book that was previously available only in hard copy form. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nOnce your older work is available, you should spend time promoting it, at least occasionally. Last Sunday I posted an excerpt from a book published back in 2010. One reader told me in a comment that after reading my blog, she\u2019d gone out and bought herself a copy. Talk about encouragement\u2014I felt totally energized. I immediately added 3K for my current WIP!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn short, there\u2019s no reason why you can\u2019t keep all (or most) of your back list in print and available to readers. The only real barriers are emotional. These days it\u2019s sometimes hard to muster the motivation to do anything related to publishing or marketing. The obstacles seem insurmountable. Don\u2019t allow yourself to become discouraged. There are legions of readers out there, searching for great fiction. Help them find yours!<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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