As a writer, or an aspiring writer, you no doubt have heard people speak of \u201cthe long tail.\u201d Many of you probably thought they said \u201cthe long tale\u201d meaning some form of epic novel. This is a topic one cannot really cover or fully understand until they come to terms with rewatchability. The two generally go hand in hand.<\/p>\n
You probably remember a movie based in part on the Clinton White House sex and perjury scandal years called \u201cWag the Dog\u201d where the President tried to divert attention from his own problems by having a movie producer produce a war. It gets its name from attempting to make the tail (tale?) wag the dog instead of the dog wagging the tail (tale).<\/p>\n
In your case the dog is your new piece of work, be it novel, short story or whatever. When you market it and get the work out there it will hopefully attract some quantity of new customers. The definition of new customers for the case of this discussion are people who have never read any of your work before. Until you reach the threshold of one million plus subscribers to your blog who religiously buy your new release, you cannot really stop searching for new readers on your own.<\/p>\n
Some percentage of these new customers will hopefully find your new work rewatchable or develop a strong personal connection with it. This will inspire them to seek out other works by you. Each new book released and marketed by you \u201cshould\u201d cause additional sales of your prior work. In order to really benefit from the long tail effect you need to built up a substantial catalog of work.<\/p>\n
Most writers exercise incredibly poor judgment when they want their first title to be a mega hit. They get no long tail effect with that. Many times they also do no further work. A good many people have visions of the life they wish to lead once they become rich and famous. It usually doesn\u2019t involve anything resembling work.<\/p>\n
A wise author planning on a long career as a writer wants their break out book to happen 15-20 titles into their career. This gives the long tail quite a snap when it whips. It is also justifiable to retire at that point. You put 20 books out and now have a mega hit under your belt. Nobody would fault you for pursuing other interests. Just about everybody will fault the writer who gets rich quick then dies from too much partying.<\/p>\n
If you are planning to have a long tail career there are two things you must do. Write rewatchable books AND increase your advertising effort with each title. If you really write well, get everything professionally edited, professional cover design, etc. About 5 titles in you should see noticeable long tail effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a writer, or an aspiring writer, you no doubt have heard people speak of \u201cthe long tail.\u201d Many of you probably thought they said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publishing"],"yoast_head":"\n