This is a guest post by my author friend, Charles E. Yallowitz. Charles is on a blog tour to promote the latest release in his celebrated Legends of Windemere series, Warlord of the Forgotten Age. After 19 years, his series is coming to an end, so he’s the perfect person to discuss the challenges of promoting a long series.

Promoting A Long Series

Thank you to Nicholas for letting me be a guest and helping me promote Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Age.  After 19 years of writing, editing, outlining, and toiling, my big fantasy adventure series comes to an end.  One thing I didn’t mention there was all the marketing. So many promos and ads and guest posts and fretting over numbers.  It really makes me wonder how I found any time for actual writing, especially since I wrote the final 12 volumes in 5 years.  Gotta love spending a decade doing outlines and character designs, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.  How do you promote a long series?

  • Warlord of the Forgotten Age | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's booksBlogging is your best friend and worst enemy. This will become the hub of your social media life since you control it all and there aren’t any annoying algorithms like Facebook.  Interact with other authors of various genres and just have fun with this part of the marketing.  Write about yourself, give some behind-the-scenes stuff on your books, and the various pieces of the craft.  Where does that worst enemy part come in?  With a long series, you can eventually run out of topics and the risk of spoilers grows as you progress.
  • Speaking of spoilers, you’ll drive yourself nuts trying to block all of them. I gave up when people were talking about them in the comments.  There’s still a few that I’ve kept under wraps, but the temptation to do a reveal is high.  You have to really balance the revelations and secrets here. The BIG twists should always be protected by you, but the smaller ones might help to draw people in.  After all, long series can create reader fatigue and these tidbits can give them the energy to move on.
  • Categorize your promo sites, which can vary by the author. Some do it from free to expensive.  Others change it every time depending on the traffic during the last promo. I went with creating an affordable core where I always announced debuts with, and the pricier ones would be spread out since they usually had bigger impacts.  It would always change depending on my income, so most of my promo site stuff revolved around blogging.
  • If you can put in the time to master every social media site and maintain your presence there then go for it. I couldn’t do that, so I tried them all out to see what felt easiest and best.  Blogging stayed, of course, and I began using Facebook more than other sites.  When they changed the algorithms to make it harder to be seen without paying for ads, I moved to Twitter.  The quick blurbs, pinned tweets, and the retweeting system made it something I could do easily.  Some authors I know use Pinterest a lot, which is great for ideas.  I haven’t received much from it as a promo site, but I rarely had anything beyond covers.
  • When promoting one book, look for chances to mention others. You might not be able to get the whole series into a promo, but maybe you can connect what you’re doing to 1-2 previous adventures.  For example, I can do a promo for Warlord of the Forgotten Age and state that it started with Beginning of a Hero.  This is mostly for blogging, but slipping in a mention can help the series overall.  Believe it or not, you sometimes have to make it clear that this is a series and not a standalone volume.
  • Always be prepared for things to change. Many years will pass between your first and final volume, which means you need to be flexible.  Sites close up, prices rise, and new avenues appear while funds remain low.  Choices and risks have to be made with every release.  It’s still good to have that core where you always appear and create some stability, but even those can’t always be the case.
  • This might be a strange way to stop and I’m not very good at following this piece of advice, but guest posts are gold. Promos for social media are typically straight, short, and to the point.  Hard to get some personality in there.  Guest posts and interviews allow you to be yourself and bring some fun to the promos.  These don’t even have to wait for a book debut too.

Again, I want to thank Nicholas for letting me be a guest not only this time but all the times in the past.  It’s always appreciated.  Please check out Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Age and witness the end of one era and the beginning of another.

Need to catch Legends of Windemere from the beginning? Then click on the picture below! First book, ‘Beginning of a Hero,’ is free!

Ready for the newest adventure in Windemere? Find out if Queen Trinity earns redemption or will return to the Baron’s side!

About the Author:

Charles Yallowitz was born and raised on Long Island, NY, but he has spent most of his life wandering his own imagination in a blissful haze. Occasionally, he would return from this world for the necessities such as food, showers, and Saturday morning cartoons. One day he returned from his imagination and decided he would share his stories with the world. After his wife decided that she was tired of hearing the same stories repeatedly, she convinced him that it would make more sense to follow his dream of being a fantasy author. So, locked within the house under orders to shut up and get to work, Charles brings you Legends of Windemere. He looks forward to sharing all of his stories with you, and his wife is happy he finally has someone else to play with.

Blog: www.legendsofwindemere.com
Twitter: @cyallowitz
Facebook: Charles Yallowitz
Website: www.charleseyallowitz.com