Prequels: Author’s Benefits of Writing Them

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J.K. Rowling did it for Harry Potter – every writer should create them too: Writing a Prequel for their upcoming book.  According to the FreeDictionary:  “A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work, whose narrative takes place before that of a pre-existing work or a sequel. [pre- + (se)quel.] prequel.” They are teasers in short story form that preview the key characters and settings of an upcoming novel.
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Prequels: Promote Your Future Book Through Short Stories
Savvy authors are building excitement and attract readers to their upcoming books. Editor Alan Rinzler describes them: “Back stories for the longer book to come. Others are like outtakes from the novel, standalone narratives that add to our knowledge of the characters but don’t appear in the books themselves.  Prequels provide readers with the flavor and quality of the forthcoming book in a way that makes them yearn to read more. This technique has had notable successes lately, like propelling a book from obscurity to six-figure advances, and building pre-publication buzz and momentum.”
Rinzler mentions two authors, published by the “Big Five”: Brittany Geragotelis and thriller author Mark Sullivan.
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When and What to Write?
It is never too early to write a prequel.  You might write it even before starting to write your book, using your research, character outlines or your first draft manuscript. Often your novel has to be shortened to create a faster pace. Don’t delete these text parts! Create your prequel out of it. Or use locations where your novel takes place to elaborate and write in detail about it. For example:  If you write a thriller and your protagonist is an art dealer in Paris, you can write several prequels how and where in Paris your mystery unfolded, a comprehensive description of the main character and his dealings or a pre-story of the events.

No Limit on the Number of Prequels
The prequel can be one story or a dozen. However, it should be an irresistible preview of the book itself, short, but with a revealing scene from the draft manuscript of the novel, and a great teaser for the upcoming work. The author’s goal should be: to make the reader want more…
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Where to Publish a Prequel?
There is no limit how you publish a prequel. It could be a short story in the form of a magazine or website / blog article, a short (free or inexpensive) e-book or a guest blog, and even a video or slide show.  Most import is that you post it in as many venues as possible, including your Social Media sites. Even better are reader communities or forums, where people tend to spend more time, including sites, such as Google+, Wattpad and Goodreads or FictionPress, and send an invitation to load it down to your readers on your mailing list.
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Prequels are beneficial for you and your readers: Show off the quality of your forthcoming book, build pre-publication buzz and momentum and create back stories for the longer book to come. Don’t see prequels as a marketing gig, they are valuable parts of your author platform and brand.
Don’t forget:  Promotion of your book must start long before you finish your manuscript if you don’t want to loose sales and success!  Competition is growing by the day… Do what you as a writer likes most:  WRITE!  Not only 90.000-word-manuscripts, but also short stories and blog articles.

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Making the Decision to Self-Publish Your Series

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Guest Blog by William Stadler

Writing a trilogy can be daunting. But deciding whether or not to sell your series to an agent can be overwhelming. I have considered this idea a lot, and really I don’t think that I would ever sell one of my series to an agent unless I was guaranteed a lot of bells and whistles on the contract…Here are the reasons.
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Publishers, as great as they are in some regards, really do writers a disservice, especially when it comes to a series. If I would have decided to publish Extracted, book one of The Pioneers Series) with a trade publisher, here’s what could have happened.  Bear in mind that I have already written books two and three of this trilogy. I would send in Extracted to the publisher (or the agent, depending on how you wanted to query). The publisher would read it over. If they liked it, I would sign a contract.
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Having a Publishing Contract 
Being under contract means that I cannot sell my book on my own, and I have just relinquished all of my rights (except for the copyright) to the publisher.  I now have lost all creative input into the book. The cover is out of my hands. The distribution channel selection is out of my hands.  And, I’m going to have to wait six to eight months before I ever see my book on the shelf. That’s after the first four to six months for them to review the work.

So let’s be conservative and say that this entire process took only twelve months. Finally, my book is on the shelf and it can be bought from any major book distributor in the USA. That’s great!

But here’s the thing about books: they only stay on the shelves for maybe three months if they’re not selling, which is usually the case for debut authors and those who don’t have a strong fan base.
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That’s not so bad. I mean, we gave traditional publishing a shot, so now we can just take our book and mosey on back to our desks and work on it some more – perhaps self-publish it pretty soon. Wrong!
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Publishers Own the Rights
The publisher owns the rights to that book. And since it’s a series, they not only own the rights to that book, but to all books within that series. Say I wanted to make a spin-off, using my main character from Dark Connection (since I’ve lost all my rights to the series). I can’t do that either. Why? Because Genevieve Solace, the lead character in this work, belongs to the publisher as well. So there will be no spin-offs, nothing. I have to start from the ground up.
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Author-Publishing is the Way to Go
I believe that a series should hit the market as a self-published work (unless you are able to keep your rights)  

• You have so much more flexibility.
• You can change your cover if you feel that’s the reason sales are down.
• You can change the interior design.

Heck, you can change the entire story! But if you submit your series to a publisher, then you have lost all rights.

And let’s say you are as lucky as JK Rowling with her Harry Potter series.  Keep in mind that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was her first book, so her royalties were probably only around 7-10% per sale. With her second book, she might have made more per sale, but the publisher does not have to grant her a higher rate. Why?

What’s in it for Publishers?
They know you’re going to write more of the series. And they know that you can’t sell that series through anyone else but them. So there’s no benefit. And here’s the thing: Even if by her seventh book they increased her royalties to 25% (which is right around the highest for authors at her level), she could have made loads more if she had self-published – right around the 70% royalty range for Amazon, with the lowest being around 30% starting out.
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Money, Time and Rights
So a series is best if self-published in my opinion. Traditional publishers don’t spend thousands of dollars to market their new authors. You are going to have to market for yourself anyway. Why lose money and time and rights in the process?
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William Stadler is a freelance writer who ventured into novel writing with the passion to see stories and characters come to life. He typically enjoys writing fantasy, where he believes creativity and imagination meet. You can visit his blog at http://www.wstadler.com

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $159 for 3 months! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/ to advertise your new book, specials or your KDP Select Free Days.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 950 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

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http://www.111publishing.com
http://www.e-Book-PR.com/

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Kathryn Stockett: Millionaire after 60 Rejections

The Help

… “A year and a half later, I opened my 40th rejection: “There is no market for this kind of tiring writing.”  That one finally made me cry. “You have so much resolve, Kathryn,” a friend said to me. “How do you keep yourself from feeling like this has been just a huge waste of your time?”  That was a hard weekend. I spent it in pajamas, slothing around that racetrack of self-pity—you know the one, from sofa to chair to bed to refrigerator, starting over again on the sofa. But I couldn’t let go of The Help.” Read the whole story:
http://www.more.com/kathryn-stockett-help-best-seller

And then there is J.K. Rowling
Describing her life before Harry Potter as a “mess,” Rowling lived with her daughter on welfare in a run-down council estate apartment while writing the book that started it all. Now she’s even wealthier than the Queen. To all the publishers who turned down her whimsical manuscript: You missed out on a fortune.
http://www.more.com/rags-to-riches-stars

Leave a comment: 
How many rejections did you get so far? More than 60? I am wondering how many bestsellers the big publishers missed. Wouldn’t it have been easier to self-publish (ebook and print) and better for Kathryns self-esteem – and then be picked up for bestsellerdom, making more money from the very beginning?