Book Authors: Do You Re-Cycle Your Original Material?

As a book author you may only be thinking of writing original material for your books. Yet some of your other original material might be re-cycled to attract new fans and promote your books.

A fiction author wrote me an email describing an annual event in her hometown. In the email the author mentioned a scene in her award-winning novel connected to this annual event. I emailed her back recommending she use her email as a blog post on her author site, especially as the material included a mention of her novel.

And what about scraps of stories you may have from years ago? Pull these out of a drawer or off your computer and consider how this original material might be used to connect with your current and prospective book fans.

When you write answers to an online interview or write emails explaining interesting events can you re-cycle some of this original material into other writing projects?

At the moment I’m adapting the screenplay HOT POTATO — an homage to the classic movie “Bringing Up Baby” that I wrote with my husband — into a short novel that I will publish on Kindle. (The screenplay is already available in the paperback FOUR COMEDY SCREENPLAYS on Amazon at http://amzn.to/TPy6Cs)

If you consider the original material you may be creating every day, there may be a treasure trove available for you to share with others.

P.S. I have been adding chapters to my fiction project on Wattpad — THE MOTHER SIEGE: A DYSTOPIAN THRILLER — and my nonfiction project on Wattpad — TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY: A COLD WAR MEMOIR. Click on the project names to read all the chapters.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and the romantic suspense spy thriller CIA FALL GUY.