All the Reasons to Write Prequels for Your Book

 

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Only a couple of days until you finish your 50,000+ word manuscript in this year’s NaNoWriMo – and what then?  

Editing, cover design, formatting and layout – it all will take not only weeks, but often months until your readers will find your book in stores or at online retail sites.  Don’t let them wait this long, give them a short (or even longer) story that is related to the content of your book, a “prequel”.
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Promote Your Future Book Through Short Stories.
Savvy authors are building excitement and attract readers to their upcoming books.  Editor Alan Rinzler describes them:
Back stories for the longer book to come.  Others are like outtakes from the novel, standalone narratives that add to our knowledge of the characters but don’t appear in the books themselves.
Prequels provide readers with the flavor and quality of the forthcoming book in a way that makes them yearn to read more.  This technique has had notable successes lately, like propelling a book from obscurity to six-figure advances, and building pre-publication buzz and momentum.”
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Rinzler mentions two authors, published by the “Big Five”: Brittany Geragotelis and thriller author Mark Sullivan.  One of the most talked about prequels was written by J.K. Rowling, she did it for Harry Potter.  Stephen King also often writes prequels in the form of short stories for his books. Just like these bestselling authors, every writer should create a prequel (or several) for their upcoming book.
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It’s Never too Early to Write a Prequel.
You might write it even before starting to write your book, using your research, character outlines or your first draft manuscript.  Often your novel has to be shortened to create a faster pace.  Don’t delete these text parts! Create your prequel out of it.  Or use locations where your novel takes place to elaborate and write in detail about it.
For example: If you write a thriller and your protagonist is an art dealer in Paris, you can write several prequels how and where in Paris your mystery unfolded, a comprehensive description of the main character and his dealings or a pre-story of the events.  Or you could even write a non-fiction prequel about all the restaurants and coffee shops that your protagonist patronizes.
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How to Publish and Promote Your Prequel?
Most important is that you post it in as many venues as possible, including your Social Media sites.  Even better are reader communities or forums, where people tend to spend more time, including sites, such as Google+, LinkedIn, Wattpad and Goodreads or FictionPress, and send an invitation to load it down to your readers on your mailing list.
It could also be a short story in form of a magazine or website / blog article, or a short (free or inexpensive) e-book or a guest blog, and even a video or a slideshow.  Promote it as much as you would promote a book.

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Show Off the Quality of Your Upcoming Book!
Build pre-publication buzz and momentum and create backstories for the longer book to come.  Don’t see prequels as a marketing gig, they are valuable parts of your author platform and brand.
Don’t forget: Promotion of your book must start long before you finish your manuscript, so that you do not lose sales and success!  Competition is growing by the day…  Do what you as a writer likes most: WRITE!  Not only 50,000 to 90.000-word-manuscripts, but also short stories and blog articles.

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