Increase Your Romance Book Sales

In a word ... spinoffs.

What are Romance Novel Spinoffs?

It's when you use characters from one of your novels in another. For example, in my latest short, multicultural romance, A Lover for Beth, the main character (Sara Elizabeth Whitehead) was the best friend -- ie, secondary character -- of the main character, Kingston, in Desperate for More (another short, multi-racial romance I wrote).

Now, not all characters will lend themselves to this. Usually, they'll "tell you" or something about them will just spur you on to use them in another novel. It'll be something about their personality or the way they related to the main character that will just speak to you. I guess what I'm saying is that you'll just know.

The Benefits of Doing Spinoffs

1) Spur sales of book from which it was spawned -- this is obvious.

2) Less character development -- in that you already have some background on this person, so you won't have to start from scratch;

3)  Plot development -- as the character is already developed and has some type of connection to characters you've already created, coming up with a plot is usually less difficult than starting from scratch; and

4) Revive sales of long-ago "dead" novels.

Conclusion

If you have a popular book/series already, why not give one of the secondary characters from this book/line in a story of their own. The results may just surprise you! So far, mine have. This new title, (A Lover for Beth), is one of my fastest selling ever -- and it's spurring sales of the series that spawned it (Desperate for More) -- which was written months ago.

How do you increase your romance ebook sales? Have a tip to share? Have you used the method discussed here? Please share in the comments section below.