I've heard people say that the best way to sell books is to write a new one. Is this true in your experience? Does an author coming out with a new book usually see that much of an uptick in their backlist sales?
It IS very often true. (That's why I've probably said it on here 9,000 times!) Though how much of an uptick is anyone's guess.
Here's the thing: Your brand-new frontlist book has a limited window in which it's going to likely be appearing "buzzy" -- there are just too many new books coming out vying for people's attention! Months after release date, when you are sick of talking about it, any marketing efforts from the publisher have moved to newer books, ten thousand new books have come out to replace yours on displays at the bookstore -- at that point, it becomes backlist.
(That's not an insult AT ALL -- that's the literal term for books that are no longer "frontlist" -- the term comes from how products are listed in a catalogue. If you open a Widget Catalogue, the brand-new widgets that are about to come out have flashy looking placement in the front of the catalogue -- last season's widgets, and older, tried-and-true widgets are toward the back of the catalogue, probably with smaller and less flashy looking placement -- this is the nature of the widget catalogue, and so, too, is it the nature of how books are sold. BUT it's important to remember that flash-in-the-pan frontlist looks cool, but A STRONG BACKLIST KEEPS THE LIGHTS ON, for widget-makers, as well as publishers, booksellers and authors. BACKLIST IS IMPORTANT!)
So maybe your backlist sales are already robust, maybe they are meh, but either way, at a certain point, they have probably reached some kind of equilibrium where they aren't really GROWING anymore.
There are a few things I can think of that can cause an uptick in backlist sales at that point. (And that may mean a little bump to sales for a short time. Or maybe a BIG bump. Or maybe an improvement that lasts for years to come. Who knows?)
But you notice how there's only one of them that you have any kind of control over? Yeah.
-- Timeliness / Virality: Something happens in the world that brings this topic / book back into the public consciousness, or influencers "discover" it and revive interest in it. (Like, one of my client's decade-old backlist book originally published in 2008 all of a sudden started taking off out of nowhere, presumably because it has a similar theme to a popular Netflix show except less problematic and with queer characters, and it sold enough copies that they redid the original book with a new cover, and asked him to write a sequel, which comes out tomorrow!)
-- Word-of-Mouth: This is similar to "virality" except it usually has a slower build and it's with regular people IRL instead of influencers online. In the world of kids books, I've seen this happen where, maybe an author randomly does a school visit, and suddenly one classroom of kids in Michigan gets obsessed by that particular author -- they start asking the local bookstore for the books, so the books get brought into the store and put on display, and then another classroom at another school gets hold of it because Artie Cohen's cousin recommended it, and suddenly all of Ann Arbor is reading this book, and wouldn't you know it, the Cohens have extended family they are visiting in New Jersey, they bring the series with them to gift the kids, and an outbreak starts in Weehawken, and so on. (Yes, I have really seen this happen in my role as a bookseller!)
-- Awards / Curriculum tie-ins / State lists: If your book is lucky enough to win an award, particularly one given by librarians, that can give a big boost to sales for a good long time. If teachers start to use your book in connection with their curriculum, and/or it gets put on summer reading lists at schools, state reading lists, etc, that, too, can help sales for a good long time. These things may happen over the course of years, not instantaneously, which is why they are helpful for backlist.
-- You write a new book. The new book is buzzy! During the buzz window there's fresh marketing, you are talking about it, people are talking about it online, it's visible, on displays, etc. People are interested in the new book, they buy it, they like it, they look for your other books. Or, people are interested in your new book, they search for it online, your other books pop up in their algorithm, etc.
(There are probably other ways I can't think of, but I bet they sorta fall into one of these buckets!)
