#272: The Power of a Book Series

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Welcome to this podcast Publish with a purpose Training. My name is Shelly Hitz.

And I'm CJ Hitz.

And we're your writing mentors and author coaches inside Christian Book Academy. And today we want to talk about the topic of the power of a book series. And so we talked about publishing short Kindle ebooks last month, you know, and if you publish those short Kindle ebooks, we recommend that you take it an extra step and actually consider creating a entire series around your main topic. And so C.J. and I have done this in many ways. We talked about it a little bit last month, you know, when we started talking about the short Kindle ebooks. But your series can be anything. So most recently, CJ started a series where it started with a Heart for Prayer. And what's the subtitle of that one?

21 days of drawing close to Father God.

So that one was about drawing close to Father God. And then the second book was called.

It was Encounters with Jesus. 21 days of drawing Close to the Son.

So that was about drawing close to the sun. And so, you know, he could do another one that's about the Holy Spirit. And you know, then you, you know, he has this series, but even if not, he has a two book series. So, you know, you can do any kind of series you want, but you know, your series title can then be related to your main topic, you know, because when you're independently publishing or, you know, if you're using KDP, Amazon.com or ingramspark or any of these places, there is a space and a place that you can add a series title. You don't have to add it, it's optional. But that's another place to let your readers know what your book's gonna be about. It's another place to add keywords that people are searching. But your series title can be related to that main topic. And then each small book can focus on a specific problem within that topic or a specific part. Like, you know, even with cjs, we also have, I think we talked about this last month, our 21 day series, where it's on gratitude, faith and generosity. And so the first book is a challenge, 21 day challenge. And then the second one is 21 days of prayer. And then the third one was 21 stories. And that was an anthology, so we got other people to contribute. And then what we did was we took those three smaller Kindle books and we combined them into a larger book. And so that's an option as well. It's a great way to actually create a bigger book is, you know, to create it in smaller books first. But publishing a book series helps you build authority in that niche. And people will eventually know that you know your stuff or that you're really.

Passionate about that subject when they've seen, oh, there's a third book here in that series and there might be four or five before you're finished, but yeah, it definitely lends to that credibility.

And it works great with fiction, obviously. I have been reading a lot more fiction this last year and there's research that shows it's actually really good for your brain. But as a writer, you know, reading really helps whether even, you know, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, it really helps to stimulate your brain. And for fiction, I tell you what, there are some series that I've just devoured, right. Because, you know, I want to know what happens next. I want to continue to get to know these characters. And so fiction is set up just, you know, perfectly for a series. But I think a lot of times non fiction authors don't always think about, like, how can I create this in a series? And another powerful tip when you're writing a book series is helps with ads. So Amazon has an ad platform and we'll talk about this more in another podcast. And we have a training on this in Christian Book Academy, but they have an ad platform and it can be very effective to really push a lot of ads towards the first book in a series and then people will naturally want to buy the second and the third. And so there's carryover from that initial money you spent to get someone to purchase and read that first book. Then if they want to just continue to read, that can be very powerful. So one of the first series I created was in 2012, and it was actually when we were living in our rv. So CJ and I were reminiscing recently and thinking about those days. And cj, do you remember those days of us just in the RV writing.

Books and yeah, you know, we thought we were going to be in the RV a little longer than three, three months. But, you know, it started us on that journey, you know, getting into Kindle books around that time and that, that whole, you know, avenue exploding. So, yeah, we we sort of had our time writing books in a van down by the river.

And if you don't know our story, we thought we were going to be living in the RV full time, traveling around spring, speaking. And it was in 2011 after, you know, just the real estate crash and all the things, and the economy was suffering and a lot of Christian schools weren't inviting paid speakers anymore. And so the speaking engagements dried up. We're sitting in the rv, I had quit my physical therapy job, and we're thinking, what do we do now? And God brought in, actually a training that taught me exactly what I'm telling you. You know, last week and this week, you know, to create short Kindle books in a series and our books off and the rest is history. Right? You know, in some ways. But that year I did a series of vegetarian cookbooks. There was seven books in this series. And at that time, they sold really well because it was like really the beginning of Kindle ebooks. And so there wasn't much competition. And instead of just doing one cookbook with every kind of different recipe, I broke it down. And then I released each, you know, type of recipe separately. I earned income. I, you know, was able to, you know, just get some immediate income. But then also I compiled everything into one book at the end. So I had breakfast recipes, lunch recipes, main entrees, appetizers, salad recipes, soup, stew and chili recipes. And then the seventh book was the big book, and I called it the Ultimate Guide to Vegetarian Cooking, and it had all the recipes. But, you know, we kind of joke about it now that I was a cookbook author. I used a pen name, Shelly Lynn, which is. Lynn is my middle name. But I still have one of those print books in our pantry, and I still use it sometimes for cooking. And it was just, you know, God provided for us through that because we didn't know how we were going to pay the bills when all the speaking engagements stopped. And yet this was really a key. And it's still, all these years later, it's still a really good strategy to use when you're publishing books because once you develop a fan base, they're going to want more from you and more from you or, you know, if you're solving a specific problem. I know we have someone in our academy that she teaches about Microsoft products, so she can have a book on Microsoft Excel, one on Microsoft PowerPoint, and then you can have a series. And that first person that buys or the person that buys your first book is bound to be interested in your other Books.

So by now you should be getting the idea. You know, what seems to work best is generally when you've got six or seven books in that series. You know, like, like Shelly mentioned with our Vegetarian Cook series.

You know, that seems to be a sweet spot where Amazon begins promoting the other books for you. It gets in that algorithm, the recommendations and they're actually doing some advertising for you. They do this by displaying your book on customers who bought. You've heard this before, quote, customers who bought this also bought. Yeah, and you'll see that. And you know they're sending out promotional emails about your books. So if they see, oh, there's a line up here and this person bought breakfast recipes from, you know, vegetarian recipes.

Again, what's the next one? The next one, the next one. Amazon's going to pick up that and they're going to say, we recommend this one because you bought this. So it can be a real powerful tool of momentum that builds the more you have in that series.

They actually have a cool tool now that, and this changes all the time. But right now when you upload your books and you enter in the series title, you and the book name and all of that, it creates this really cool looking graphic with all of your books in that series and it puts it on your book page. And lately when I've been looking at books, especially fiction books, but also other books and I see that graphic there with all the books and it's really eye catching. And so there's so many different ways that. And then you can market those other books in the series inside your book, you know, let them know that next book is coming out. But you may think six to seven books sounds like a lot of writing, but remember, we're talking about short Kindle ebooks. And so if you take that, you know, 10,000 words that we talked about last month and do that with six or seven books, that's 60 to 70,000 words, which, that's less content than some full length novels. So you're basically breaking it down. And some topics don't always naturally fit into this kind of format. But I just really encourage you to start brainstorming and thinking about how can I create in a series? Because it is powerful.

If you want to really consider writing a series and maybe say even finishing one book a month, if you do an entire series this way, it could be finished in less than seven months or a year. Now that is, it is a big task and you have to be really devoted to it. But even if it took you two years you're making money as you go because you're releasing each book. It's not like you're spending two to three years writing your big, big book. And you have to wait until that book is completely done to start being a published author. Making money, all those things, you get some of those benefits right away. So, so, you know, the benefits from publishing your series can last a lifetime. And you know, when you are published as an author, you know, you have a few benefits like credibility, authority in your niche, exposure for your business. You can reach more people with your message, even internationally. And, you know, if you have a business, you can get leads for your business on autopilot, find new clients for your services, diversify your income and more. And so we've just been talking last month and this month about, you know, thinking about publishing a Kindle book. Think about, you know, how can you benefit from that? And I hope that you've gotten, you know, the wheels turning and let us know, what are you thinking about? Like what, how could you apply this to your topic or to, to the books that you've written? You know, if you've already written a book, you, you know, and it's done, you know. Well, is there other follow up books that you could write as well? I've been thinking about that myself with my book Broken Crayons Still Color. It's done so well. I thought, man, I need to consider making a series. And it's not necessarily like the next book in the series, but I am right now in the process of creating a devotional that will be in the same, you know, for the same target audience. And it, and it will be, you know, similarly titled and all of that. So I'm, I'm getting there, but it's something that we can all think about. And if you're in the very beginning stages, you can actually plan this, you know, before you start writing your books. So, cj, why don't you just pray for us and close us in prayer today?

Yeah, Father, we thank you so much for this time together.

We just ask that you would continue to spur each person with ideas. I pray that you would give them inspiration for perhaps a series that they can be working on. One book leading into three, four, five books, maybe more. And I just want to pray that the wheels would really begin turning with each person and whatever niche that they're in, whatever they specialize in, what their passion is. We just pray that you'd help them think along these lines to be able to really reach a wide audience that will be excited about each book that comes out so we thank you for this way that we can manage our writing and think outside the box and we'll give you the glory and the honor for the sales that happen as a result of putting our books into series. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you for joining us for another training and we will talk to you next time.

Take care.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kids Kingdom Writers. We believe that you as a Christian writer have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers.