Episode 292 - Reviving a Series with Greta Boris
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Greta Boris discusses REVIVING A SERIES, including the process authors can use to evaluate what went wrong with the original work; the importance of ensuring that titles, covers, and marketing strategies are brand right; and the specific steps authors can take to improve the books' craft, tighten plots, and align better with genre expectations.
Greta Boris is the USA Today Bestselling author of The Mortician Murders, a humor-filled ghostly mystery series, and The Almost True Crime Stories, a psychological suspense series. She hails from sunny Southern California, where—based on her stories which are all set there—things are darker than you’d expect. She loves coffee, wine-tasting, and dogs but not necessarily in that order.
Episode Links
https://www.facebook.com/greta.boris
Greta’s previous appearances:
Episode 248 - Constructing a Multi-Layered Villain with Greta Boris
Episode 242 - Uncovering Your Author Purpose with Greta Boris and Megan Haskell
Episode 184 - Planning a Novel with Greta Boris and Megan Haskell
Summary
In this episode of The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Greta Boris, USA Today bestselling author of the Mortician Murders and Almost True Crime series, about reviving an old book series. Greta shares her approach and insights into transforming her original series, The Seven Deadly Sins, into a new successful venture, shedding light on her experiences and strategies to breathe new life into her stories.
Greta begins by detailing how her initial series did not achieve the level of success she had hoped for. Despite positive feedback from book clubs, the series failed to capture significant commercial attention. This prompted Boris to re-evaluate and analyze what went wrong, leading her to explore various avenues for rejuvenating the series.
As Greta explains, one of the primary steps in her process was evaluating the craft, marketing, and genre expectations of the original series. She outlines three key areas she examined:
1. Craft and Storytelling Issues: She acknowledges that some of her initial books had draggy spots and unclear motivation for characters, particularly the villains. This can be detrimental to a thriller or suspense series, where pacing and plot coherence are vital.
2. Marketing Missteps: Boris realized that the series title "The Seven Deadly Sins" misled readers, often signaling either horror or romance rather than the intended thriller genre. Moreover, the covers, though attractive, were signaling women's fiction, causing a disconnect with her target audience.
3. Genre Mismatch: The original series struggled with its position in the mystery thriller genre. Greta describes her attempt to align the books more closely with psychological suspense, noting her analysis involved reading bestsellers and award-winning titles in her target genre to identify common elements such as writing style, pacing, and narrative perspective.
Through discussion with her publisher and other authors, Greta decided to pivot the series conceptually by introducing a new overarching theme—framing each book as a season of a true crime podcast hosted by a recurring character. This allowed for a thematic unity that connected the books more cohesively.
The conversation also tackles practical aspects of manuscript revision. Greta elaborated on how the first book in the series required the most extensive rewriting, where she retained only about 30% of the original text. She emphasized the importance of ensuring that the character motivations were clear to avoid confusion and dissatisfaction among readers.
For marketing, Greta capitalized on updated blurbs using tools like ChatGPT to reframe her narrative hooks, ensuring they were punchy and compelling. Additionally, she worked with her publisher to redesign covers that were consistent across the series and aligned better with genre expectations, opting for place-based titles with stylistic similarities to increase visual uniformity and brand recognition.
She mentioned that the revamp proved financially beneficial, noting that the newly launched series has already generated more income than the original series ever did. Although traditional publishing restricts instantaneous sales tracking, Boris found reassurance in indicators such as rights deals for audiobooks and positive reviews on platforms like Goodreads.
Towards the episode's conclusion, Matty and Greta reflect on the dual benefits of revisiting and revamping previous work, emphasizing both the potential financial gains and the satisfaction of elevating storytelling quality. Greta encourages authors to adopt a critical editor's mindset, suggesting that the effort can lead to a more extensive backlist with increased sales potential.
Ultimately, this podcast episode serves as a comprehensive guide for authors looking to reassess their existing series. Greta Boris's experience provides valuable lessons on refining narrative craft, targeting marketing efforts more effectively, and embracing genre conventions to align better with readers' expectations, all while maintaining engagement with an evolving readership.