branding – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 146: Relaunching an Old Series to Success and Hitting Lists with a Multi-Author Boxed Set with Ella Summers

August 22, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

We recorded early today to accommodate our guest living in Switzerland, urban fantasy author Ella Summers. She has three paranormal and fantasy series that sell very well on Amazon: Legion of Angels, Dragon Born, and the recently relaunched Sorcery and Science. She was also a part of the big Dominion Rising multi-author boxed set that recently released and sold over 30,000 copies (we first interviewed the organizer, Gwynn White, about this boxed set back in April when it was on pre-order). We talked about tropes and expectations in urban fantasy, and also about rebranding and relaunching an old series that didn’t sell well originally.

Here are are few of the details we touched on:

Why Ella likes 60-70,000 words for her novels.
What readers of urban fantasy expect and when it’s okay to add non-standard elements (Ella mixes in science fiction and steampunk elements in her various series).
The strategy she recently used to relaunch her first series, which wasn’t a big seller and didn’t mesh with her existing brand.
Not being afraid to edit books in a series and do more than simply changing covers and blurbs when relaunching it.
Some popular tropes in urban fantasy.
How urban fantasy does in Kindle Unlimited today and if the niche is getting too crowded.
The tactics the authors in the Dominion Rising boxed set used to get tens of thousands of sales.
Branding covers not just within a series but across an author’s entire body of work.

You can find Ella on her website and check out her books on Amazon, including the first book in her best-selling Legion of Angels series.