How Many Books Should You Publish To Make Money?
The image of books, and many books at that, speaks volumes to writers: when you publish, you want to have a good assortment of books. At least, that is the way most authors like to think.
This might be true to some, but for others, marketing your book in the right way and at the right time will make a difference.
I believe most authors and writers say that they can’t simply write one single book and then keep pushing only that book. Rather, they will have to work at the art of publishing as a long-term many book thing.
When I say many book thing, I rarely hear someone tell me that they have only one book in their minds. If they write fiction, they have a series of books – some interrelated some not. For others, if they prefer to write a non-fiction book, there is always a desire to research and write about something else.
I would go as far to suggest that publishers want you to write and publish more than one book. There are few authors who write an instant classic and then never have to write again. There are countless authors who have written one book and are now happy with it, but they only wanted to publish that one book.
Publishing one book is, in many ways, similar to a writing a blog — you need more than one great blog post to make people want to come back to read your blog.
Your blog is your platform which means you won’t have to publish as many books since your audience is a lot wider and you can learn from them about what they do and don’t like. First, you do have to publish more than one book to make the money you want to earn.
If you are wanting to make money… then I believe that you will most likely have to market and publish more than one book.
2 Comments
Damaria Senne
There are fortunate authors whose first book garner them a huge readership and they established as writers. But many authors have to write a lot of books, build their readership base one published book at a time. And the more they write, the more their readers become faithful and begin to trust the author. If you're that kind of author, the backlist then gives new readers a way to find out more about you and if they like you enough, they may very well start reading all the other books you've written. That why your first book could sell very well, even become a bestseller, after you've published your 6th or 10th book, because you have now established a solid reader base and more and more people are reading your first book.
As to your question, for me, the first book is just the beginning. I want to publish as many books as I can get out of my head and into a publishable state.
Al
I guess for most writers the answer is the more the better!