Advertising the series, or individual book?

indianroads

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I'm in the process of uploading my most recent book to Amazon. It's number 3 in a series that will eventually be 5 books. Each of the books are pretty much stand alone - yes, there is some back story, but it's briefly mentioned and not that relevant to the current story.

So - should I advertise just the new book and mention that it's part of a series, or should I advertise the first book and the series and mention there's a new offering?

In general, how do you handle letting people know when there's a new book within a series?
 

indianroads

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I mistakenly put this thread on the Self Publishing forum - it should have been here.

I'm in the process of uploading my most recent book to Amazon. It's number 3 in a series that will eventually be 5 books. Each of the books are pretty much stand alone - yes, there is some back story, but it's briefly mentioned and not that relevant to the current story.

So - should I advertise just the new book and mention that it's part of a series, or should I advertise the first book and the series and mention there's a new offering?

In general, how do you handle letting people know when there's a new book within a series?
 

cool pop

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I have 4 series. One where I will be releasing the last installment next year. The rest are complete. For the complete ones I sometimes promote the entire series but mainly I promote book 1. I have all book ones in my series free. When I release the new one for my current series I will promote book 1 not the new book. Most people won't read a series until it's complete anyway because they've been burned by authors/publishers not completing series. I used to promote the new books in the series when they released but found it a waste of time and money. Most authors say they promote book 1 only and funnel sales to the new book that way. With a series, you usually don't pick up new readers only get the ones currently reading the series. When the series is done you can pick up new ones who won't touch the books until the series is done.

It's up to you what you want to do but I wasted time and money promoting each installment so I just promote the first.

I handle letting people know by sending an email to my mailing list and by promoting book 1 (if you have your series linked together on retailers) people will see how many books in the series. New readers most likely won't buy the new installment anyway because most people don't start in the middle of a series. It's makes so much sense to promote the first and go that route.
 
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cool pop

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You're welcome!