The best of intentions

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. All month long, we’ve been going over the ins and outs of writing your very own novel series. But not just any series. No, we’ve been discussing book series’ comprised of standalone novels, like what I’ve done with my druid series. We’ve talked about your motives behind writing a series like this, and we’ve gone over some of the traps and pitfalls associated with writing standalones within a series as a whole—and today, I want to talk to you a little more about you and your motives.

See, your series is a part of you. It was born from you, regurgitated from your soul onto the page, and so I know this part matters a lot to you.

I know, because it mattered a lot to me, too. And because of that, I’m going to approach it from a different angle.

Release Times

I know, I know, I said I was going to talk about you and your motives—and I am!—but you’ll have to bear with me. Remember, a couple sentences ago? We’re taking a unique angle here.

There are two kinds of writers, when it comes to those who release series’ comprised of standalones. There are those who want to get the whole thing written before they start releasing the books and there are those who will get a basic outline done and just start releasing as the books are ready to go.

You know which one I am.

But which one are you?

It’s an important question, and one I challenge you to answer before you get too far into your series. I want you to know your intentions, with your story. I want you to know what you’re anticipating from this, what you’re hoping for, what you expect when it comes to releases. I want you to know how much effort you plan on putting into each book prior to release, and how much attention you can give your series before the books start releasing.

I want you to know this, because your readers need to know this.

From the time the first book comes out, especially if it’s not the chronological first in the series, everyone who picks up your book will be asking when the next one comes out. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We all do it. If we pick up a book in a series, we just want to know when the next one will be out. We want to know that we’re covered, in case we really like this one and just can’t seem to put it down.

And you, dear writer, need to know (and be okay with the fact) that some readers won’t pick up your book, simply because it’s part of a series.

At the same time, others will, because it’s a series.

And at the very same time as those, still others will love the fact that it’s a standalone novel that’s still part of a series, so they can just read this one book, but know they can come back for more if they want to.

You need to be okay with all of those, and you need to know which one you’re targeting.

See how this is all about you, now?

The release is all about you, all about figuring out what you want from your series, what you expect from it, who you intend to reach with it.

I want you to think long and hard about these things, before you start publishing.

Why? Because I didn’t do that, and I really wish I had. There’s a part of me that wishes I’d waited just one more year before I started releasing the Druid Novels, just so I’d have more time to make things line up properly. They’re fine, I know. Everything’s working, there are no major errors anywhere. But there are little ones that I’ll be fixing in the second print runs, and I wish it hadn’t come to that. I really do.

So I want you to think all of this through, before you start publishing. I want you to think everything through, know what you want, and know what you expect. I want you to have the story at least mostly figured out, before you start releasing.

And I want you to have fun with it—because it is fun. But it’s also one of the greatest challenges your writer brain will ever experience, I swear.

Be sure to pop back in next month, to find out what our April theme will be!

[love]

{Rani Divine}