For the past couple of months I’ve really been thinking a lot about boxed sets. Lindsay Buroker has a good article on her site this week about bundling your series books into boxed-sets. She gives you some good templates and links to videos on how to do it.
Well, I decided to take the plunge today and went ahead and uploaded a box-set of my Chinese historical fiction novels, The Warring States Series. You can go head and pick it up on Amazon right now, and it’ll be available on other retailers in a week or so.
So what goes into taking some of your series novels, or even different non-fiction books in the same genre, and making a box-set out of them? Let’s go over what I did today one point at a time so you can see how it’s done.
Well, I decided to take the plunge today and went ahead and uploaded a box-set of my Chinese historical fiction novels, The Warring States Series. You can go head and pick it up on Amazon right now, and it’ll be available on other retailers in a week or so.
So what goes into taking some of your series novels, or even different non-fiction books in the same genre, and making a box-set out of them? Let’s go over what I did today one point at a time so you can see how it’s done.
Preparing Your Amazon Box-Set Cover
I already mentioned how I used the templates provided on other sites, as well as YouTube videos, to get my box-set image finished. I found the GIMP software program to be a little difficult at first, but I quickly got the hang of it and was able to make my cover. Here’s what it looks like:
Sure, it might not be perfect, but it does get the job done. Now people looking to get all three novels can do so, and save some money. Right now the books are priced at $3.99, $2.99, and $2.99. With the box-set you only pay $7.99 for all three books, saving you $2 or so.
This is a good strategy for me with these books because I hardly ever sell any of them. That’s right, these books are pretty much dead. I’ve sold about 60 copies of The Warring States this year but only about 20 copies of the other two. In fact, until yesterday I didn’t have a single sale on Book 2 since August and have had only 2 sales on Book 3 in that time. I’m hoping this box-set draws in a few more readers.
This is a good strategy for me with these books because I hardly ever sell any of them. That’s right, these books are pretty much dead. I’ve sold about 60 copies of The Warring States this year but only about 20 copies of the other two. In fact, until yesterday I didn’t have a single sale on Book 2 since August and have had only 2 sales on Book 3 in that time. I’m hoping this box-set draws in a few more readers.
Writing Your Blurb
Making the cover actually turned out to be the quick thing with this upload. Of course anytime you put a new book on Amazon you’ve got to make a new blurb, choose your categories, and have your book prepared.
For this collection I used all three blurbs from the books, but also put something new ahead of them, a few paragraphs of the history of the Warring States Period. The reason I did this was simple:
First, I get more words on my product page, and therefore more keywords. This might drive more people to my box-set and increase sales.
Second, I think it’s a great idea to inform people about the historical world they’re about to read about, especially if you’re doing historical fiction.
Finally, I think box-sets are great for just putting more. People can look at each individual book to see a nice, tight, and clean blurb. With a box-set I figure they’re already interested and just waiting for you to sell them on it. More sales copy is likelier to do that than less.
For this collection I used all three blurbs from the books, but also put something new ahead of them, a few paragraphs of the history of the Warring States Period. The reason I did this was simple:
First, I get more words on my product page, and therefore more keywords. This might drive more people to my box-set and increase sales.
Second, I think it’s a great idea to inform people about the historical world they’re about to read about, especially if you’re doing historical fiction.
Finally, I think box-sets are great for just putting more. People can look at each individual book to see a nice, tight, and clean blurb. With a box-set I figure they’re already interested and just waiting for you to sell them on it. More sales copy is likelier to do that than less.
Preparing Your Table of Contents
Not only did I write up a fresh blurb, but I also had to get my books in order. That starts with opening Book 1 and cutting Books 2 & 3 into it. But I’ve also got to take all that front and back matter out, such as ‘about the author,’ ‘also by’ and the previews for the next books.
And it doesn’t end there. All of the chapters I had contained just numbers. That means my bookmarks were useless. I had to go back through and name all my chapters again, or at least the bookmarks of them. I did this by giving each book a letter and going through to make notations like this:
And it doesn’t end there. All of the chapters I had contained just numbers. That means my bookmarks were useless. I had to go back through and name all my chapters again, or at least the bookmarks of them. I did this by giving each book a letter and going through to make notations like this:
Book 1 was ‘a,’ Book 2 ‘b,’ and Book 3 ‘c.’ This made it easy to keep track and create a functional multi-book TOC quickly. Here’s what it looked like in the end:
Publishing the Damn Thing
After that it’s just a matter of setting your price and publishing it. You now have an opportunity to make more money from the things you already have out there. Mainly it gives readers another option when they’re considering buying something, and it also gives you a fast and easy way to discount a whole series for a sale.
That’s the thing: I can see myself putting this box-set down to $2.99 (I’ll never go lower than that) and giving it a BookBlast ad one day (I’ve long ago given up on ever getting anything with BookBub). I hate to give away that much work for such a low price, but sometimes building up those readers is a better strategy.
For now I have no plans to do that, but at least I’ve got the option. I hope to get at least one sale of this box-set this month, which would make the whole process today worth it. Although to tell you the truth, I’m pretty happy just looking at that cool 3D Amazon box-set cover image.
That’s the thing: I can see myself putting this box-set down to $2.99 (I’ll never go lower than that) and giving it a BookBlast ad one day (I’ve long ago given up on ever getting anything with BookBub). I hate to give away that much work for such a low price, but sometimes building up those readers is a better strategy.
For now I have no plans to do that, but at least I’ve got the option. I hope to get at least one sale of this box-set this month, which would make the whole process today worth it. Although to tell you the truth, I’m pretty happy just looking at that cool 3D Amazon box-set cover image.
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