Churn defined defined is from the draft of “Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium: Best Practices, Words, Concepts, and Warnings to Help You Write and Market Compelling, Useful, and Entertaining Prose”
(c) 2024 by Bill Peschel
churn: The process by which authors frequently lose readers and have to replace them with new readers. While some change is natural, authors successful over the long haul increase the core of readers anticipating their next book.
Churn is not good in book publishing, but good in making butter.Authors who deliver books that are indistinguishable from other books in the same genre find it difficult to retain readers. This requires extensive advertising to lure new readers or draw back old readers. On a chart showing an author’s sales year over year, churn can be identified if sales spike due to a promotion, then return to the original level. The lack of a steady, regular increase overall in sales and readership, even as new books are written, demonstrates the readers have been lured in, are disappointed, and then leave. Another sign of churn is that each book in the series sells noticeably poorer than its predecessor.
“Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium” will be published by Peschel Press. No release date has been set.
