Hi, everyone. We're glad you're here. This is the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. Get ready to have your world rocked. As we dive into the wild and sometimes wacky world of self-publishing. We are three fabulous bestselling authors. I'm your host, Kimberly Todd with my best friends.

K. C. Luck

and Jamey Moody. 

Join us as we discuss the joys of writing, challenges of self-publishing, and anything else that tickles our fancy. 

Hey there, and welcome to episode 40 of the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. I'm Kimberly Todd, and I'm here with my fabulous friends, KC Luck and Jamey Moody. Today we're talking about Managing Your Backlist, but before we start, how was your week?

My week was good. The most exciting thing though is all the marketing I've been doing to get ready for my book release, which ironically is going to come out on the same day as this podcast. So, June 27th, Fixing Hearts will be available for you on Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited. So please go take a look and give Evelyn and Jo a chance.

Awesome. Awesome. Let's see, the last time I talked to you, my dear listeners, we were in the middle of the Women's College World Series and my team, Texas Tech, had gotten to the final and they fought hard, but they did not win. I did have several, emails back and forth from Cheryl because, her team, lost out early, but she rooted for my team and it didn't win either, but it was just fun. Yeah. Emailing back and forth with her. So, I did that.

And let's see what else. I've had Greats. So, we've been swimming every evening and we had a big storm last night that came through and I thought it was really sweet this morning and I was on Facebook and noticed that one of my readers that lives in the, metroplex area had messaged me and said, "Hey, I just heard a storm's coming. It's gonna get to you first. Hope you're safe." But I thought that was so nice, you know? Yeah. Because they know where I live. So I think that's, the highlights of my great boring week. So, Kimberly, how about you friend?

Well, I just wanna say Happy Pride weekend to everybody that's in New York City or coming into the New York City area for Pride. We always like going to that ourselves. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to convince my wife, but I'm still gonna try. And then, I don't know, since we're all lesbians, I saw this funny joke on Instagram, so I'm gonna tell it! 

Okay.

Hit it!

How do lesbians settle a fight?

How?

Rock. Paper. Scissors! 

Ahhh, I love it! 

Nice. 

That's right! 

Oh my goodness. Wow. 

I thought that was funny.

Okay. 

I don't why? It's like dad joke. Kind of... 

I still think it's fun.

Oh that's fun. 

Oh man.

And then the only other thing I wanted to talk about because it's Pride. I don't know if anyone's seen this, but there was a documentary on ABC called, "Coming Out later in Life." It just out. Did watch 

I haven't seen it yet. Is it good? 

It was fantastic. I cried a little bit and they had a 94-year-old man who came out at 94. So cute!

Wow.

They had a colonel I think he was a colonel, or high up in the military, and he came out to his wife and kids. And then there was a woman who had a very religious family, and she was afraid to tell her parents. And at 52 she told her husband and her kids and she came out and everyone supported her and she wasn't gonna have her, mom and dad on the documentary, and they said they wanted to be 'cause they were proud of her and they didn't mind at all. Anyways, it was so sweet to watch. I thought it was a really good documentary. 

I think, that's why we love toaster oven tropes so much or later in life, because it is so hard. I know it depends on how old you are actually when you figure it out. And if you had to repress that because of society, so, that's awesome. I'll have to watch that.

Yeah, and I think the youngest person was 45 that they had. Everyone else was older than that, but I really enjoyed it. I thought it was good.

And then we had our little Pride thing here in my town, which I thought was amazing because it was only one hour every year and went up to six hours this year and they had a Broadway star come and sing, and they had all these vendors. I bought an amazing photograph and it was just a great time. So that was nice. And it was only like one foot from my house, so that was perfect.

That's nice.

That is good.

 So that's it for this week for me. So, do we have any texts?

We did have a couple texts from our regulars and the first one's from CeeJay who said, "You're killing me smalls." That's in reference to the every other week, new timeline. So apparently, they are a little disappointed maybe. I don't know how to put it, but the Goonies reference did make me laugh. And then, Cheryl said she's glad we decided not to end the podcast, so that's very good. Yeah, I do feel like we have some value and, from emails, that is exactly what CeeJay emailed me. She, is actually not too sad, we're going to biweekly. She understands why we're doing it and she likes that we're changing it to Fridays where the episode comes out. And, she said, life is about perspective. You guys rock. She also added, I think the format is great and yes, it's educational as well as entertaining. So I do think we're doing some good out there. And she understands Kimberly's pain, having to, edit us because she's done a lot of, editing as far as her photography goes.

And we've had a couple trial runs so far, and it has been a lot easier, so thank you everybody.

Because we wanna keep going. And then, of course, Cheryl did email me and she felt like I was a little too happy when I had said in the last episode that her team lost. So it was kind of fun. But anyway, Kimberly, have we had any Instas.

Oh, this week? Nothing on Insta, but you can post on Insta or you can DM me. So this week we are talking about managing your backlist and I thought I would start today. And one of the things that I have is that when you do a launch, it's always good to mix up your social media, and your emails with your new book, but at the same time include one of your backlist items so that you have equal exposure going. So you're kind of doing your launch, but you're also reminding 'em. I also have this book, and you can kind of mix that up as you go.

Mmm..hmm. And I especially do that with my Darkness books, because I really want them to read 'em in order. So as I get ready for the new one to come out, I really push the back list. So yeah, mixing that up so that they know this is one in the series. Please go read the other six or seven.

I can't remember what I'm on now. I think I'm doing seven. Yeah, two dozen, whatever it is. Something like that. But I have a really good idea going forward on how I'm gonna do it for the next Darkness Books, which is one I'm writing right now, and it's gonna come out October, so that'll be kind of fun. I'm gonna do like a month long read-a-thon to get people excited about the next book, so yeah.

Oh, that's a good idea. 

New authors. I want you to understand that your back list is what will sustain your author business. Yes. New releases are fun and they're exciting and they get a lot of attention, but just imagine you've got all these books waiting for them. They read this new release and they love it and they think, hmm, I wonder what else this author has written. So then they go look at your back list. And there's a bunch of books back there for them to, read. Or maybe not a bunch, but I mean, they've got several other options to read. And I think that's the important characteristic of your back list.

Well, I'm in the middle of a big backlist project that I think I started at the beginning of the year actually. I take one of my backlist books and I started at the beginning with the first book I launched, and on Mondays I do a reel on Facebook and on Instagram and Threads. And then on Wednesdays I do a post, which may be, just a little promo about it, just a post about maybe the trope or something like that.

And then on Fridays, I follow it up with the same book with, a post on, reviews. People will either do the titles of the reviews or I put a review out there on it. And what I do is I tag 'em "Spotlight" because I'm calling it a spotlight each week. And then I tag it "Backlist" or “Backlist Books.”

Then I tag “Sapphic Romance” and the other things. But I think I have seen some, numbers move from it. I first did, like I said, my debut and now I'm in about the middle of it. I did one this morning for The Woman at the Top of the Stairs because that starts a new series and that's gonna be the spotlight this week.

And I try to sit down and do several of 'em, so I have them ready and waiting. It's not as bad as you think. If you'll just take, you know, a couple of hours and do several of the posts so you have 'em ready. And then on Monday morning, I can do that. Wednesday morning. Friday morning. So.

I've seen authors take one of their first books and they will do a promotion basically around their anniversary. It's my fifth-year anniversary today and I'm offering it free, or I'm offering it a discount. And I thought that was a really good idea. 

I've done that. And also, if you've written a series, one thing that I do sometimes is I will make the first book free or put a promo out there and do it for a day or two so that once you can get hooked on that first book, then they'll come and read the others behind it. Yeah, definitely.

After I finished the first three Darkness Books and a little bit of time had passed, I decided to try to promote them again with a box set. So I did the trilogy as a box set, and it did pretty well. It did moderately well. It brought some attention back to them and some people bought them who hadn't necessarily bought the ebook, but I just read it on Kindle Unlimited, so they bought it that way.

So that's another option is you can always make, box sets of your books or make some sort of special version. I know some people make annotated versions of their books, et cetera, to try to reinvigorate the interest.

I've done a box set on my first series. I haven't done it on any others, but there is a box set out there in my first series, and it's cheaper to buy it in the box set than to buy each one of them individually.

Yeah, I bet people like that. And then another thing I had was, I always do like a bonus ending or sometimes a prequel for my books when I do a launch. So what you can do is you can take that content and start pushing it back out again if you want on social media or in your email list, but what's even more fun is to add a little bit more to it so it has even something interesting that someone that might have already downloaded it for free in the beginning, they go back and, wanna reread the book and get the new content. It's another way to promote your back list in between everything else.

One thing that I haven't done and I really need to do is you need to go into your back list and update the front and the back matter, because you've written more books. So I always put a list of my books in the front and the back. So you've written more books by now, and so you go back into those first few books that you've written and update them. I know I need to do that.

Yeah, I really need to do that and that is really important, but I'm horrible about it ' cause there's just so many and it's kind of a pain because you have to go back and reformat it and things like that. But yeah, make sure your mailing list link is updated. And all the new books in there. Honestly, we should do it once a year. We should set a date and say, we're just gonna go back and do it. But I know some of mine are really stale and it's just bad author maintenance. 

And you look at 'em and you go, yeah, not now.

Yeah, I know. I know now that I'm retired, I should do it.

Well, and just imagine though, one thing that I do in the back of my books right now is always put a chapter or two of another book in it, and imagine if I would go back to those first series that I wrote, and in that very first book, I put the next chapter or two of the second book, and in the second book, I put the chapter or two of the third book. Just imagine the read through potential that you've got there.

Okay. Jamey, you have just talked yourself into probably looking into that. 

I mean, come on. later. Yeah.

Well, yeah, but I mean, 

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Another way, and you can see it happening right now with lots of authors participating is the I Heart SapphFic Great Pride Giveaway. People are getting up to 50 free books a day in this giveaway. And it's because authors have donated eBook copies. And a lot of them are their back list. So it's a great way to get interest in your book. So even if people don't win that day, they're seeing your book out there again.

Right. Mm-hmm. 

Also, I Heart does sales at different times during the year, and that's when I'll use my back list. I may put an entire series in there, whatever price that they choose a lot of time it's 99 cents. And I'll put the three books from a series in there for 99 cents and that will get people, to look at your back list.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's easier when you have a series to manage the back list. Sometimes it's a little harder when you're trying to get them to read some of your standalones. So I try to put standalones in some of those, sales. But I don't find it as quite as effective as when I put the first darkness in the sales. So yeah, managing the backlist can be tricky when you have a lot of standalones, but you're just gonna have to really put it out there. You're gonna have to remind people.

Yeah. And then one other thing I have, which I know we all think about at one point or another, is I've seen a couple of authors that I read lately do this. You take an older book and you just do a new cover.

 I was gonna say something about that too. 

Mm-hmm 

Uhhuh. 

And it's almost like it's a new book, but I believe you can just go into your KDP dashboard, swap out the cover, and you don't lose any of your ratings or reviews.

Right. You don't. 

Because I never done that yet myself. 

And it just, it refreshes it. You can also change the blurb.

Mm-hmm.

That gives it a fresh look and that might draw more eyes to it. 

And it will get you more keywords.

Right. There's nothing wrong with updating your keywords as you go too. 

Something I hadn't thought of, I know you two do this more than I do. Is that A+ content?

I do it.

Can't you mention the other books in that? I'm pretty sure I did it for the Darkness Series, at least for the first few. I don't know what's out there now, but I'm so bad about that stuff. It's a wonder people buy any of my books really.

Naughty.

Bad girl! 

But now that you're retired... 

I should be writing a list. I should have, sticky notes going. 

Get to it.

Yeah.

But yes, you can do that in A+ content. And A+ content isn't that hard to actually create. They've got the modules there for you, and you sure could. That'd be a great way to boost your backlist. 

I mean all the traditional publishers do it, so we should do it as well. Since it's there and it's another place to, you know, call out your book.

Yeah, for sure. 

Oh yeah. I'll always put some kind of promo. I like to put a quote from the book in there, and then maybe, an image that is kind of related to the cover sometimes or related to the MCs. I just think it gives the reader something else to look at, something else to entice them. To click by. 

Mm-hmm. Do you ever do, I've done this where you, do some of the tropes?

Yes. Mm-hmm. Those tropes are important. People really do look for them.

Maybe you have several tropes, and the blurb only calls out three. You could do three different ones in the A+ content. 

Mm-hmm. 

Mm-hmm. I agree. I do that occasionally.

So, okay. I just wrote all this down. Update back of books. Update blurbs and keywords. Let me put that and do A+ content. Okay. I'm busy for the rest of the month. We can't do anymore podcast.

Triple Gold Star.

There you go.

Write it down. I'm gonna work on it. Keep me honest. Ask me later if I did it. 

Oh, we’ll remember.

Yeah. 

As much as we love to write and create these romances or stories, it is a business and this is the business part of it. So yeah, you gotta do it. 

I do have another one. Do you ever cross-reference your books like characters? 'cause I do it a lot.

Oh my gosh, yes. Especially in a series.

I mean more like in Fixing Hearts, for example. It's coming on the 27th. Hint, hint. I actually have them talking about photographs on the wall of one of the main characters that were taken by a character in another book. 

Oh yeah, I do that. Mm-hmm. 

The first book I wrote was set in the Virgin Islands, and I had a couple in my fourth book in different series and everything go to that bar that I wrote about in that first book. And those people were there and it was so cool. It was so fun, and my readers loved it. They're like, “Hey, I remember this.” 

Mm-hmm. 

So it was so fun.

Yeah, and I did that. I snuck some V.A.M.P. stuff into Mafia Girl, Maybe? And I don't think, anyone figured it out 'cause no one wrote me. No one mentioned it. So now I'm wondering if they're gonna find it.

Oh, I bet they figured it out. I bet they did. I'm surprised they didn't. But yeah, my, readers love it and I love doing it. Don't you, I mean, it's kind of fun bringing in those characters from before. You'll do it for sure in a series. But then sometimes you revisit, or I did revisit a setting that was really great, and why not throw those characters in there and let them, you know, share their knowledge. 

Well, I think that's it for this week. Next week we're gonna be talking about how to find a great cover designer for your book. Do we have a question of the week?

Yes, we do. Here's the question. What's a book cover that made you one click immediately? And what about it grabbed you? And you know, I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna put it on my book if you tell me the answer.

Hey, I wanna add something real quick before we sign off. KC, when does your book release? Today? June 27th? 

Yes.

When this comes out, so for the hat trick on talking about the book date, it is June 27th. Yes.

Okay. I wanna remind everyone that I have a new release out, More Than a Wish. But then also when this podcast airs, I will have probably just come back from a book signing event at Love Stories in Oklahoma City, and I hope I have seen you there. 

Okay, well that's it for this week. Thanks everyone.

Thank you everyone. See you in two weeks.

And once again, Happy Pride. And don't forget rock, paper, scissors... 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to reach out to us, you can contact us by email at contact@threelesbiansandapen.com with the number three spelled out or on Instagram, Facebook and X at Three Lesbians and a Pen using the number three. And finally on our website, at threelesbiansandapen.com, we look forward to hearing from you, see you next week.