Hey there, if you’re a world manager for one of our BackStory worlds this is definitely a blog post worth reading. Today, we’re discussing the things to consider when choosing your world’s next franchise. Don’t forget to check out our other posts for more insights into how to manage your world and its team. Let’s get into it.
Choosing your world’s next franchise can be a tricky thing. A lot of work goes into building a franchise, which can even take years, so making sure that you have a good set of plotline ingredients is a must. Investing in a new franchise takes time, and time is money, so let’s make sure we’ve covered all of our bases before finalising our decision.
What genre to choose?
If you’ve been around BackStory for a bit you know that we don’t classify fantasy or sci-fi as genres, we call them settings. But when it comes to genres, such as, mystery, thriller, crime, horror, romance, adventure, comedy or psychological fiction, choosing the right one can be paramount to your new franchise’s success.
Let’s answer the following question first.
Are you looking to gather new fans to your world or are you trying to retain the fans you already have?
If you’re looking to bring new fans on board, then it usually makes sense to pick a genre that your team either hasn’t covered yet, or is in short supply of in your world’s content.
If you’re looking to retain current fans, the old tried and tested genres might be a better fit for you new franchise.
There is no hard and fast rule to follow with this, but don’t forget that you can always delve into the analytics of how your current content is doing in terms of sales and readership to give you some insight.
It’s also important to remember that when you’re deciding on a genre for your new franchise you need to look at your current roster of authors. You may want to choose the horror genre, but realise that non of your current authors have any experience in that area. You mught have to consider bringing on a new author to fill that gap.
Where in your world’s history to set it?
The next thing you might want to consider is just whereabouts in your world’s history you’re planning to set this new franchise. Is it near the beginning, the middle or the currently generated end?
If you have a deluge of content for a certain period of your history it might make sense to look to a different point in time to do your franchise. Remember, quite often franchises can spawn out of other ones, so choosing a part of history that is currently unwritten about could be a good bet.
If you flood a period of your world’s history with a lot of franchises it can make things very interesting for your readers. However it can also increase the probability of bad continuity, and bad continuity is a killer.
Keeping up with the times…
Take a look at your other franchises for a moment and try to categorise or describe them. Do you have enough content with strong female leads or are you a bit short there? Are you covering the LGBTQ+ market enough, or is it time to broaden your scope in that regard. These kinds of questions are important to consider when planning a new franchise.
Remember your aim at all times is to grow your fan base, and that means being inclusive of people from all walks of life. Your readers pay with their hearts just as much as with their wallets, and capturing the imagination of new readers is crucial to running a successful world on BackStory.
Final thoughts
Here are a few final thoughts for you to think about when planning your new franchise.
- Is our current team of creatives able to pull off the new franchise, or do we need to recruit to achieve it?
- Are we looking to bring in new fans, or retain current ones with this franchise?
- Is it time to open up a new period in our world’s history to franchises?
- Should we progress our world’s history another 100 years first?
- Should we do a little market research with IWDs first to see how receptive fans are to our idea?
We hope that has helped you guys out when thinking about your next franchise. Good luck!
