Property Development

By ReubenGBrewer (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

I have heard the term "property" used to refer to different series or worlds within an author's portfolio, so I have been spending some time lately thinking about property development, not from a land-management or real estate investor perspective, but from an author's perspective attempting to build out a large enough backlist to keep themselves self-employed.

I'm also inspired somewhat by the analytical work that Christine does over at the Better Novel Project site, where she mercilessly analyzes The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone books from every perspective she can to gain an understanding of why those books were massive successes and how to replicate that success.

My thought for this experiment and likely many others- take the same approach, but with titles closer to the genre I enjoy writing. So if I throw Tom Clancy, David Baldacci, and Michael Connelly in the mix, what do I get?

I will admit that I initially think about numbers of properties to cultivate whenever I think about starting a new book that could become a series. To date, I have written a whole bunch of different things, all sitting in a virtual trunk while I work out my million crap words, but some with potential viable futures one day, or at least in some reincarnated sequel or something. I worry (writer-worry) about creating too many things instead of focusing on making one good thing, etc. etc. The honest truth to myself is that I need to just finish, edit, publish something and make it good, but I still get quagmired in these daydream thoughts (procrastination, etc.).

So the question I asked for today - how many properties do each of these authors maintain?

I'll start with Michael Connelly. He has the following series or primary characters:

• Harry Bosch - Police Detective
• Mickey Haller - Attorney
• Jack McEvoy - Reporter
• Terry McCaleb - Retired Detective, I think?
• Various other - non-fiction and stories

So we'll call that 4-5 properties. They blend, some, and overlap characters and timelines, so it is really one story world with four threads.

Next up, Tom Clancy.

• Jack Ryan
• John Clark
• Jack Ryan, Jr.
• Max Moore

And then the grocery store spinoff books:

• Net Force
• Splinter Cell
• Power Plays
• Endwar
• Ghost Recon
• Op-Center
• Net Force Explorers
• and other non-fiction

That's a property portfolio if I say so. Again, 4 primary, but 12 or so overall.

Finally, I'll check on David Baldacci.

• Camel Club - Amateur group of sorts
• Sean King & Michelle Maxwell - Secret Service
• Will Robie
• John Puller
• A. Shaw
• Various one-off books, any one of which could become another series

So that's a 5 primary plus a wealth of others.

So, for the serial writer, it is clear that over the course of a career, you could easily manage 20+ books over 4-5 property areas, and even have successful one-offs in the mix.

From this, I interpret it as: Time not to be scared to develop a new character, plotline, and setting and write whatever you want. As for me, I've got a couple of "scenarios" outlined that could develop into various properties:

• Law student, eventually attorney
• Detective
• CIA operative
• Federal Agent/FBI
• International Assassin (less likely to be a property, more likely to be a character in something else or star in short stories)

What do you think about your portfolio? How many properties do you have? Are they Baltic Avenue or Boardwalk?