Publishing is all about the next book. Or is it?

With a focus on launching new titles, it’s easy for publishers to ignore the gold that’s in their backlists already. While backlist titles account for the majority of book sales, publishers often pay little attention to titles post-launch. “Taking advantage of the titles you’ve already published is cheaper and better,” says Joshua Tallent, director of sales and education at Firebrand Technologies.

But how exactly can publishers make the most of their backlists? By studying how a title has performed in the marketplace, publishers optimize their backlists through metadata, repackaging, and remarketing.

Backlist Gold

“BookScan and PubTrack Digital show backlist as about 70% of physical and e-book units sold at retail,” says Pete McCarthy, chief marketing officer at Open Road Media, which specializes in helping publishers optimize and promote those titles. “Twenty years ago, that was 50/50.” He attributes this shift to a digital and streaming mindset, with consumers becoming more willing to discover content that is new to them even if it’s not new to the market.

At the same time, McCarthy says, the noise around marketing frontlist titles has only increased. “The headwinds are fierce,” he says. “Less shelf space, algorithms trying to sort tens of millions of titles, consumers finding books everywhere—traditional media, new media, old-school social, new-school social, search, and AI chat interfaces.”

Yet for many publishers, their backlist is “a slept-on asset,” McCarthy says. Publishers already know quite a lot about these titles, and if they maximize the data at hand—actual comps, seasonality, and pricing—he says backlist marketing can be “amazingly efficient.”

Authors also appreciate publishers giving attention to their backlist titles. “As launches have gotten smaller, marketing throughout a title’s life just makes intuitive sense,” McCarthy says. “Nothing says ‘we care’ like continuing to ensure the titles they’ve entrusted to you are being worked.”

Treasure Troves of Data

With new titles, publishers use comps to predict which metadata will help their books perform best. But that data is merely predictive, and the market is full of surprises. Readers who should have bought the book show a lackluster interest. Readers in another category show unexpected interest. At online retailers, algorithms give a bigger boost to sales than anticipated—or they all but ignore the release.

Once a title joins the backlist, publishers no longer have to guess. They can look back at the data and analyze what’s working and what isn’t.

Tallent says it’s all about knowing the actual market for each book. “Knowing your audience is really important,” he says. He points to a nonfiction publisher who launched a title with the idea that teachers would be the primary market. But as time went on, they learned through Amazon reviews that parents were flocking to the title, and they adjusted their backlist marketing efforts accordingly.

Jori Hanna, director of marketing and public relations at Torchflame Books, reports a similar experience. The initial targeting for Backyard Politics was aimed at parents seeking advice for navigating political landscapes within a family. But post-launch, data showed that it was better suited for an academic market. “Adjusting the target audience and the genres has helped place this book in the right readerships,” Hanna says.

Torchflame repackaged the book with a different subtitle, then assessed the book’s metadata and made adjustments there, too. “With keyword updates, a new book description that better matched the interior tone of the book, and proper categories to reflect the academic nature of the book, we saw a higher organic return on this book,” Hanna says.

Post-launch awards also made a difference. “Many of the award systems we entered for Backyard Politics were beneficial because they offered both a professional book review and an entry into the award,” Hanna says. “Those reviews helped create additional feedback online to boost SEO by getting people talking about the book.”

Reading Nook Press author-publisher Denise Abdale also updates backlist metadata when her books win awards. In addition, she tests keywords in her online ads, transferring the best-performing ones to her sales descriptions.

At Stillpoint Digital Press, publisher David Kudler says he continually refines and updates categories, keywords, and descriptions for his backlist. “Categories have actually changed over the years,” he says. For instance, when Stillpoint first launched a bisexual romance title, Kudler says LGBT+ Romance was the best category available. “Now there are multiple categories that fit, which helps readers find the books they’re looking for more easily,” he says.

Keywords are always changing, too. “A phrase that was very niche and effective one month can become oversaturated another,” Kudler says. For instance, when he launched Risuko, the first book in a YA historical adventure series, he found the keyword “books young adult” worked “brilliantly.” But it soon lost effectiveness, and he had to make a change.

Kudler says he uses AI to find ways to improve both SEO and marketing copy for Stillpoint’s backlist. “I’ve found it helpful to spot possibilities and problems that I didn’t,” he says. “Mind, I also overrule it plenty, but as a small house, it’s always helpful to have another pair of dispassionate eyes to look things over.”

Publications marketing specialist Kalen Landow made updating backlist metadata a priority when she came on board at the Geological Society of America (GSA). “From double-checking the accuracy of books’ specifications to refreshing descriptions to optimize SEO, clean metadata is a priority,” she says, noting that she, too, uses AI to help with keyword development.

“Revisit metadata at least once a year by adding [updated] author bios, awards information, and making sure your BISACs are still correct,” Landow says. She also suggests that publishers conduct periodic data audits at online retailers to make sure the covers and metadata are correct for all titles.

Even the fact that changes have been made can lead to stronger backlist sales. “Changing something on the Amazon data does have an algorithmic effect,” Tallent says. He suggests publishers time their data changes for maximum effect. If that’s not possible, he suggests publishers implement a system for reviewing every title’s metadata annually. For instance, titles published in April would get a metadata review every April.

Refresh, Repackage, Remarket

Having mined their backlist data, publishers are well-equipped to maximize their ROI by refreshing, repackaging, and remarketing those titles.

Backlist marketing may not seem as exciting as launching a new title, McCarthy says, but that doesn’t make it any less important—or potentially profitable. “It’s a different game that is quietly powerful,” he says. “You know how a book has performed in terms of its sales track, format skew, confirmed comps, price points, audience attributes, and more.”

He suggests publishers think of backlist marketing not in terms of campaigns but as a system, much like long-term portfolio management. “It’s continuous,” he says. “Marketing, measuring, learning, optimizing. Over time, this creates a very virtuous feedback loop.”

A data-driven backlist marketing system also scales well, McCarthy says. “You can make smart, small bets on tactics that compound over time,” he says, noting that those tactics include optimizing listings and prices along with marketing to known and lookalike audiences. Marketplace changes can also create a need to refresh and remarket older titles. For instance, Tallent points out that book descriptions with online retailers used to be just one paragraph. Now, publishers can take advantage of HTML styling, secondary images, and A+ content on Amazon.

Kudler refreshes backlist covers when they’ve gotten stale or when they need to be optimized for the right audience. Likewise, he may adjust the “sneak preview” at the end of a book. He has also leveraged his backlist by creating omnibus editions and thematic collections. Some feature single authors; others feature multiple authors.

“This has been particularly effective with romance/erotica shorts,” he says. He cites a collection of wedding-themed stories, Wedding Belles & Bridal Beaux, which includes short stories from two of Stillpoint’s authors, drawn from several series. “These sorts of collections often have a longer tail than individual titles,” Kudler says. “We track links from our books via UTM codes built into links and QR codes, and they’ve been somewhat successful at moving readers to other titles by the same authors.”

Kudler has also had success with authors who add new titles to old. “One of our better-selling series, Heather Albano’s Keeping Time, started out as a duology,” he
says. “I encouraged [the author] to write a third title, and the series really took off. We released an omnibus e-book last year, and she included a sequel short story available only in the box set.”

Abdale taps the power of podcasts to breathe new life into backlist titles. “By having the podcasters speak about the book, their relevance to a current situation, it has spiked sales,” she says. She also plans to rebrand her backlist with design changes to the covers. “Consumer tastes change, so we have to adapt the style [and] colors to reflect what attracts the consumer now,” she says.

At Torchflame, Backyard Politics got a full makeover after the publisher better understood its market. “We redid the layout, refocused the metadata, and created a brand-new cover to better reach our target readership,” Hanna says. “We then followed that with an aggressive marketing campaign so that the new version of the book would be more visible than the old version.” With the book’s political content, they timed the re-release to coincide with the November 2024 campaign season.

A conversation with the author was what initially set the makeover in motion, Hanna says. “Much of our best work has come out of routine conversations with our authors to help them identify where they need the most assistance and to formulate plans that feel actionable instead of overwhelming,” she says.

Torchflame also takes advantage of seasonal promotions at online retailers like Kobo, and they work with authors on e-book price drops and Goodreads giveaways for backlist titles. “Overall, our increased marketing opportunities and making it easier for our authors to market their own books have boosted our backlist titles, with strategic rebrands and additional editions when possible,” Hanna says. “We’ve been quite pleased with our results.”

At GSA, the backlist is always front and center. “When a new or revised book is published, we use that as an opportunity to promote backlist alongside it. Our books go on to sell for years after their release and always benefit from periodic refreshes.”

One example is GSA’s Roadside Geology of Colorado, originally published in 1980, revised in 2002, and updated again in 2014. With updated, color versions of photos and maps, Landow says sales “jumped dramatically.”

Help at Hand

With all that publishers are already doing, the prospect of trying to optimize their backlists can feel overwhelming. Thankfully, there is help at hand.
One option is Firebrand Technologies’ Flywheel program, a recommendation engine that examines thousands of data points from a title’s Amazon sales history to guide publisher decisions about backlist data changes and marketing.

The Flywheel concept began five years ago with studies showing a direct link between the quality of metadata and the sales of a book, Tallent says. “It is a service, not just a program,” he says, noting a 10%-15% increase in sales for participating publishers.

Flywheel uses Amazon’s sales data, working only with publishers who qualify for the retailer’s Vendor Central. Before initiating Flywheel service, Firebrand creates sales projections for each backlist title it intends to take on. Only when the publisher and Firebrand agree on those projections is a contract signed. Payment for the service is tied to an increase over the initial sales projections.

While Flywheel is technology-driven, Tallent says the service goes well beyond what a publisher might achieve by feeding prompts into generative AI. “We have our own algorithms that help us understand the data,” he says. There is also a human component, with Firebrand’s staff helping publishers decide which books to focus on and what marketing makes sense based on the data.
Tallent says it’s all about attending to the right book at the right time. “Every title has a natural flow of when it is likely to have sales,” he says, be it a function of seasonality, what is happening in the world, or some other factor the data indicates.

As publishers implement the suggested metadata changes, Flywheel tracks how Amazon’s algorithm responds. “Once we’ve made a data change, the next week that title may have that uplift we’re looking for,” Tallent says. Using recommendations in their Flywheel dashboard, publishers who want to make the most of that uplift can add marketing options and potentially even more data changes, creating an uptick in sales instead of the slide over time that is more typical with backlist titles.

Open Road Media’s Ignition program is another resource for publishers who want to make the most of their backlist. Launched in 2017, Ignition is built on Open Road’s reader communities in websites and newsletter lists, with the goal of making backlist marketing data-driven, continuous, and sustainable.

“The idea was to offer a service that would free up publisher resources so they could focus on major launches, author relations, print, and emerging formats, while earning more and reducing their own marketing expenses,” McCarthy says. “That premise resonated. The program has indeed grown sales, and it has grown incredibly.”

On average, McCarthy says Ignition doubles the sales of titles enrolled in the program. “We achieve this using our marketing platform, which centers on the strategic use of our first-party audience of millions of engaged readers we reach directly via email, web, and social,” he says. “Behind the scenes, our proprietary tools make use of machine learning, automation, and continuous testing to put the right books in front of the right readers, every day, across about 100,000 titles.”

With increased sales come increases in rankings, ratings, reviews, and visibility. “We see halo effects across authors’ other titles, better algorithmic placement, [and] better selection for earned promotions,” McCarthy says.

“If a publisher feels there’s gold in their backlist but they can’t get to it because of limited staff, bandwidth, strategic focus, or expertise, then we’re a natural fit,” McCarthy says. “Often, the e-books we inherit are in decline. We reverse that trend, dramatically and durably. The result benefits publishers and authors alike. We also absorb all the costs, so it is truly a no-risk scenario for publishers to make some financial gains in an area where few do.”

Publisher Keith Riegert has seen the results firsthand. “We have been working with Open Road at Ulysses and Velo for many years now and have seen enormous benefits from their active management of our backlist titles,” he says. “By utilizing Open Road’s technology and marketing expertise, we have seen eye-opening shifts in the volume of sales for e-books that had previously remained dormant and undiscovered online.”

Those gains aren’t limited by format, Riegert says. “When our e-books are promoted or advertised by Open Road, we see a statistically significant increase in sales of our print versions as well,” he says. “The increased awareness and discoverability the e-book receives has a direct halo effect on the title’s other formats.”

Old Becomes New

By mining backlist gold, publishers make the most of assets they’ve already invested in, strategically refreshing, remarketing, and repackaging titles to drive sustainable revenue.

“Don’t treat backlist as inferior to your frontlist,” Landow says. “Your book will always be new to someone, and most customers and sales outlets really don’t care that something wasn’t just published.”

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