The Sense Behind Cliffhangers

I really believe it’s time I write this post. I don’t think many readers understand where we as independent authors stand in the great marketplace of fiction books. We can write great books but it means nothing if we don’t get eyes on them. Personally, I love writing a story in the series format. It gives me a big plot point to write toward, one that gives the story a huge dramatic reason to continue. However, just because we write a book doesn’t mean we’re going to get visibility. We used to have more of it when I first began eight years ago, then Amazon was building it’s ebook/Kindle platform so they wanted you to consume as many ebooks as possible. Plus, now, Amazon is in the publishing game and so that makes it harder to be seen on their store. Even Apple Books and Nook used to give us more visibility. These days, it takes a huge effort consisting of ingenuity and promo cash to get eyes on our books. Free and 99¢ promos help us get that visibility. We pay our bills from the work that we do. The mortgage, credit card payments, food, gas, etc. If you download a free book, then at some point you’re going to pay. Most ebooks from publishers are $11.99 for one book. You purchase the complete The Dark Christmases Trilogy, three books (book one free), the total is $7.98 for over 800 pages of a story! If we as authors are writing for a living, then we’re not doing it for free. A book one of a series is designed to get you interested in our story. If you like what you read, then you pay for the rest. If you don’t like the story or the writing style, then you as the consumer get to move on and find something you like! It’s a win/win situation. You get to test the product for free! Heck, the last series I got hooked on was Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan series. I paid for each book. Only she had a huge platform to get my attention. I watched “My Brilliant Friend” on HBO and wanted to know what happens next. I wasn’t like, I hate cliffhangers! One star! I’m entitled to the whole series for the price I paid for book one.  I will say though, that the more I focus on one genre, writing one style of story, the less I’ll have to survive on the “series” format. BUT, I love writing trilogies. Love it!