“Over 300,000 new titles are published a year in the US. 75% of industry sales come from backlist titles, and 25% come from frontlist.” Ingram Content Group
Books move to the “backlist” a surprising one year after publication, although most of us who are published realize that once launch day is over, the publisher’s marketing team quickly moves on to the next launch.
I pay attention to backlists because I found out recently that the next unfortunate step is “no longer available” and then “out of print.” Discouraging words for one of my books from a traditional publisher, not a decade old!
Besides long-term sales of older books that make the bulk of royalty payments, continued promotion and attention to these titles remind the publishers you are out there, still promoting, and might have written another book they would like to see!
Easy books to promote annually are holiday themes - everyone needs a book for Valentine’s Day, and good ones from past years are still sold. Get them on a list of holiday books, and they will live a long time.
Perennial sales are also tied to a curriculum or preschool or grade school event - NF picture books are often incorporated into school collections, but so are fiction books on STEM and SEL topics, as well as back-to-school and 100th day books.
But I am trying something new this year. I have a back-list book published in 2022 (yeah - COVID era release). It is a board book, which means the original “readers” have grown out of it, and new babies need to be informed! (Well, their parents, anyway.)
So I am giving a new direction to How to Dress a Dinosaur. Its original themes were “getting dressed” and “dinosaurs.” Now I am spinning it to focus on the very ingenious and patient mother in the story.
“Meet the book about real mothers of preschoolers this Mother’s Day!”
I contacted several friends who I know do holiday lists and asked for my book to be included. I entered it in a contest recently and won an Honorable mention. I contacted the publisher and requested a little promotion with other Mother’s Day books. I’m still thinking about FB and Amazon ads.
So take a look at your “formerly known as new” books and see how they can be repositioned in the market to give them new attention - and sales!
Follow or subscribe for free to see how this reboost works out. Robin