Some of the most successful authors in history have made a killing through publishing a book series. Sagas like Game of Thrones and Twilight have enjoyed massive success throughout the world. These series tell a story that exceeds the scope of a single tome. That’s why the story needs to be split up into various volumes.
Now, there is no rule saying that your series must be three, four, or five volumes. Frankly, that depends on how far you want to take your story. In the case of non-fiction books, it largely depends on the topics you are looking to cover. Thus, the main idea of a bundle is to create an ongoing body of work that readers can enjoy for an extended period. In this article, we’re going to look at four things you need to know about doing book bundles the right way.
Your Narrative Needs to be Connected
If your planning on a fiction series, each tome needs to build on the previous one. While there are many ways of doing this, the idea is that you want an ongoing narrative that readers can get hooked on. Often, this means following the lives of a few characters closely or going through the lives of multiple characters. As such, each book needs to provide a continuation of the previous one. The last volume needs to somehow bring everything to a conclusion but without ending the story altogether
As for non-fiction books, each volume should be a part of a greater topic. For example, if you are doing a how-to series, each book should address the individual parts of what could lead up to be a larger project. As such, the reader would be unable to produce a larger project without reading each book. This creates a sense of continuation even though there is no storyline.
Selling the Complete Set
Some authors like to sell each book individually. That might work well if you’re doing individual books that don’t connect somehow. This could work for non-fiction books. As such, you give readers the opportunity to buy just the individual books they are interested in or the entire set.
As for fiction books, authors like to offer up the first book at a heavily discounted rate so that readers will give it a chance. The hope is to get readers hooked on the story, so they’ll buy the entire set. This works really well when books have a seamless narrative throughout.
Get the Pricing Right
Print book bundles are expensive. After all, the cost of printing multiple books and putting them together in a box set can be quite high. In this case, you don’t have any of these costs (unless you are planning to make them available in print form). Consequently, you can offer individual volumes at, say, $4.99 each, or the box set of four at $14.99. Naturally, readers will find that they get a better deal for the bundle rather than individual copies.
If you are planning to make your first volume available at a discounted rate, a $2.99 price tag seems reasonable. However, you need to make sure that your readers don’t pay $14.99 for the set. As such, they would need to get the remaining volumes for, say, $10.99. This is important as you want to make sure to entice your readers as much as possible.
Unrelated Bundle Offers
There are prolific authors that have a large number of books already on the market. Yet, they are somehow unrelated to one another, that is, there is no narrative across the various titles. If this is your case, you can offer readers the opportunity to purchase your books at “3 for the price of 2” or “buy 3 get one free.” There are a number of ways of doing this. The idea is to make the seat more affordable than buying each volume individually. Therefore, you’re looking to save your customers money.
