Author Collaboration Helps Build Fan Base
The good thing about readers is that when they finish a book, they soon look for another book to read. In that way, every writer in your genre is your ally.
Who should you collaborate with? The best authors to join forces with are the ones who have written books like your own. Of course you want them to write in the same genre, but the more similar the work, the better.
Reach out to authors you meet via social media, or scour your genre on Amazon (you might check out the "Related Products" books on your sales page, for instance). Then read the ones that interest you, and contact the authors via their websites.
You don't need a large group of authors for this to work. Four or five will do the trick. Organize a special promotion day (or days) in which participants lower the price of their ebooks and then use their platforms to advertise the sale.
The Benefits of Author Collaboration
+ You have subscribers, and your collaborators have subscribers. Both of you have followers who enjoy books in the same genre. So when you send a newsletter about your collaborators' books, and they send one about yours, you're reaching a fresh group of potential readers: those who specifically enjoy your type of book.
The possibility of hooking new readers with your series (and/or gaining subscribers to your newsletter) is much higher than if you were to advertise to the general public.
+ Special sale days draw a lot of interest because each writer is exposing the sale to their subscribers list. Let's say each author has 300 subscribers (a low estimate). If you have ten authors in your sale, that's exposure to 3,000 readers in your genre.
During the promo, you'll get your book in front of 3,000 readers who enjoy your type of book, and the low price of the book will encourage them to give it a try. The opportunity to buy ten books for $10 is pretty enticing!
+ You can all post for each other on social media and gain more followers on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, etc. You'll find more readers as well as more authors in your genre—authors that you can potentially collaborate with down the road, thereby continuing to grow your platform through collaboration.
Hopefully a few of those followers will check out the sale. It's hard to turn down a book that interests you when it only costs 99 cents!
Finding your readers is more than half the battle, and that's why collaborating with authors in your genre can give you a big leg up on gaining exposure for your book.
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