I’m seeing more and more ebook authors trading excerpts with other authors, and it came up on JA Konrath’s blog today as well, so I thought I’d write a few words on it too.
What does “trading excerpts” mean exactly? Well, at the end of my heroic fantasy ebook, I might include opening chapters or scintillating passages of one or more other authors’ works, ideally authors who write in a similar genre. Then they would do the same for me in their ebooks. This gets your name out to an audience who might enjoy your work but may not be aware of you yet. And, naturally, it does the same for the other author.
It’s not something I’ve looked into myself yet, but I can see why you might give it a try. It’s a form of collaborative cross-promotion that has a lot of precedents (the big internet marketing gurus always cross-promote each other on their mailing lists, and those people make millions).
If you’re thinking of trading excerpts, here are a few things to consider first:
- Does the other author sell a lot of books? Granted, you’re not likely to get Stephen King or even a bestselling indie author to trade excerpts with you if you’re just starting out, but if you’re doing reasonably well with sales, you might not get much out of this by trading with someone who doesn’t sell more than a couple of ebooks a week.
- Do you genuinely like the other authors’ work? Whether you say so or not, adding an excerpt to the back of your ebook may be considered an endorsement by many of your readers. You don’t want them going on to buy a book that tanks in the back half or has huge numbers of grammatical errors.
- How long will the trade last? You’ll probably want to agree ahead of time to a length, especially if this is your first time experimenting with this. You might agree to try it for a month or two at first and see how much it affects your sales.
- Will it annoy your readers? I wouldn’t think it would (it wouldn’t annoy me, at least), since they’re not paying extra and it’s easy enough to skip something in the back if they’re not interested, but you never know. If you have a blog, you could always ask your fans for their thoughts before going ahead.
Readers, authors, what are your thoughts? Good idea or not? Anything else to consider?
As a reader, I’m usually okay with additional excerpts in the back. I don’t normally read them unless it’s from an author I’m already familiar with. However, I know others enjoy teasers.
As an author, I think it’s a wonderful idea and a great idea to show support for one another. But like you mentioned, I think it’s important to like the work presented in the back. For indie authors, I think it’s a representation of the you, as the author of the featured work… a recommendation to your readership.
I guess it depends a bit on the work (and length of the work) it’s included in… A bit of the same thinking you mentioned about a sample of a novel at the end of a free short story: If it makes up too much of the downloaded ebook, it gets annoying. Smashwords does list a wordcount, after all.
I might prefer blurbs over excerpts – it may be just habit, because what I’ve seen at the end of print books were short ads, not samples by other authors – but if the books actually had something in common, and the author of the book I just read actually liked what they are recommending, I’d like that.
This is a really interesting idea.
Hi Lindsay
I think it’s a wonderful idea, provided both authors agree to rules/conditions and are clear on what is expected.
Printed novels do this all the time at the back of the book so why not here?
Personally, I always flip or scan through these before and after I read a printed novel to see if something would interest me.
I can honestly say I have never, ever picked up a book based on an excerpt I found in a book, nor one of those one page ads found often in mass paperbacks. These days I am rather finicky about the books I read and almost always base any book purchase on:
1) the sample I download to my iPad
2) I know the author and have enjoyed their books before
3) the cover…yeah, I know such a sad thing to say, but very true
I could dig that. I prefer blurbs over samples, but blurbs + samples are good.
Thanks for the comments, all!
I asked if anyone was doing this over at the Kindleboards and several have had good results. Check out the thread if you’re interested in more opinions.
They used to do something similar once upon a time in paperbacks. I kind of miss that as it could give a lead to a similar read. I don’t think they should be long.
I like the idea, both as a reader and a writer. But only if the books are comparable in content.
So if you provide a clean space opera, please don’t excerpt a steamy paranormal romance.
I have to say I find excerpts annoying if they get too long. B.V. Larson’s first Haven book, Amber Magic, was only 88% of the file. I was so upset that I complained about how short the book was in my review and docked his book a star for it, though in reality the book wasn’t THAT short. Still, I felt completely jilted as I was hoping for another hour from the book when it just abruptly ended. It actually has affected me so much that I haven’t gone on to read any more of the series–though I would like to. I just have this psychological barrier of a bad memory blocking me from taking that step.
Which is all to say that I’m not really sure one way or the other about this. I like the idea, definitely, of writers helping each other out in this way. But I also think it needs to be done carefully and with the readers in mind (in a variety of ways, not only length, but genre should come in to play as well); certainly not as a quick knee-jerk action.
I have to agree with you. I’ve had the same thing happen and its really frustrating when you think you still have quite a bit more to read only to find out a large chunk of the file is just ads. I read one book where the excerpts at the back took up 25% of the file.
If you do an excerpt, I think it shouldn’t be more than a % or two of the file size.
I hadn’t thought of this or even heard of it before reading your article, but I can see how it could be helpful. I’m worried about too much clutter at the end of my books, though, since I’m already using my afterwards to plug my website, twitter feed, and facebook fan page.
I think it’s a great idea as long as the excerpt isn’t too long and the authors’ work are comparable. But, like Reena said it is a representation of you and a recommendation to your readership so trade wisely.
I’ve been dying to try this, actually. I just haven’t found “the one” to swap with yet. I write “drama with grit for twenty-somethings,” and haven’t found another author with a similar style. If anyone wants to swap, throw me an email at liz@elizabethbarone.net. I’d especially like to try this for my soap opera serial.
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know a lot about this,
like you wrote the book iin it or something. I think that you can do with some pics to drive the message home a little bit,
but instead of that, this is grdat blog. A fantastic read.
I will definitely be back.