First off, I didn't intend for any of my stories to turn into series books when I first wrote them. Not the initial ones anyway. Dying Embers? Nope. Wish in One Hand? Nope. Definitely not Accidental Death. But I had such a wonderful reaction to all three of those that I found a way to make a series out of them.
And without fail, the second book's sales tanked. The 'Once Upon a Djinn' series as a whole did better once I finished the series, but In Deep Wish still runs behind. Fertile Ground (SCIU) has only sold in the double digits. And in the year since it's publication, Natural Causes (A Dennis Haggarty Mystery) has sold exactly 14.65 copies. And that includes the one I sold during this sale I have going on.
Not sure what the dealie-bob is. Part of it is marketing, I guess. I have no clue how to market a second book. Do I pay for ads for the second book when I have no way of knowing whether any of those ads will have touched the people who bought the first book? And I really have no clue how to get the second book out there in front of all the people who bought the first book, so they'll buy it, too.
Part of it, also, is probably that these are the second books with no third book out there. For the SCIU series, the wait for a third book will be over shortly when Early Grave hits the market. The Dennis Haggarty series? I have to write the third book before I can give anyone a firm date on when it'll be released.
Thinking about it now, it's probably mostly the fact that I didn't intend for any of those initial stories to becomes series. The people who read book 1 didn't have a clue I'd be putting out subsequent books, so they don't know to look for them. Maybe if I'd been more on the ball back then, I'd have a better reception now.
Oh, hell, it could be any number of things. I have no clue. But that doesn't stop me from running on the hamster wheel trying to figure out the answer. The Book Two Blues... It's a thing.
And now, back to book three. Early Grave only needs one last crutch word scoured out - JUST - and then I can send it to AWE. Today. Good lord willin' and the crick don't rise.
There's no forecast of rain so that crick ain't goin' nowhere. Get busy! As for "sophomore slumps"? Yeah, I'm not sure I get it either. Even when I know there's a planned series, 2nd book sales are just sort of...eh. Except for my RDR books. In that one, the 2nd book has been my biggest seller. Go figure. I don't understand why anything sells the way it does--mine or any other author's. *shrug* All we can do is just keep writing and publishing.
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