When Is A Series Not A Series?
My first and second published books were 'Vacation' and 'Female Prey', in that order. My third book was 'The Elusive Prey', which continued the adventures of Kimberley from 'Female Prey', and my fourth was 'Claudia's Surrender', which continued the story of Claudia and Sam from 'Vacation'.
At this point, the publisher warned me against writing sequels, pointing out that sequels never sold as well as the originals. A point was also made that readers didn't care much for series either, since they had to start with #1 of each series or risk not knowing what was/had been going on.
This seemed like good advice. I hadn't been getting published for very long, and I figured that my publisher knew more about the business than I did. And yet, with the kinky resort town of Gordburg I'd come up with a setting in which I could place a lot of stories.
I thought back to some old 'series' that I had read when I was younger, most notably the old Tom Swift (Senior and Junior) books. Each might be a 'series' in that each book had a number, but each of the stories contained within had been stand-alone. They might have a regular cast of recurring characters, with different non-recurring ones for each separate book, but reading the fifth one in either 'series' never left me wishing that I'd read 1, 2, 3 and 4 beforehand so that I hadn't missed any vital background. I figured that if 'Victor Appleton' and 'Victor Appleton II' could make that work, so could I. So that's what I tried to do.
So, none of the 'Prey' or 'Gordburg' stories are properly part of a series. But then, what are they? I think of them as more of a collection, but that doesn't quite seem to fit.
At this point, the publisher warned me against writing sequels, pointing out that sequels never sold as well as the originals. A point was also made that readers didn't care much for series either, since they had to start with #1 of each series or risk not knowing what was/had been going on.
This seemed like good advice. I hadn't been getting published for very long, and I figured that my publisher knew more about the business than I did. And yet, with the kinky resort town of Gordburg I'd come up with a setting in which I could place a lot of stories.
I thought back to some old 'series' that I had read when I was younger, most notably the old Tom Swift (Senior and Junior) books. Each might be a 'series' in that each book had a number, but each of the stories contained within had been stand-alone. They might have a regular cast of recurring characters, with different non-recurring ones for each separate book, but reading the fifth one in either 'series' never left me wishing that I'd read 1, 2, 3 and 4 beforehand so that I hadn't missed any vital background. I figured that if 'Victor Appleton' and 'Victor Appleton II' could make that work, so could I. So that's what I tried to do.
So, none of the 'Prey' or 'Gordburg' stories are properly part of a series. But then, what are they? I think of them as more of a collection, but that doesn't quite seem to fit.
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This advice came up almost ten years ago, so it may have been perfectly valid at that time, for that publisher. In addition, I was just starting out as an erotica author, and hadn't achieved any real recognition yet. Things have changed since then. Now it's not unusual for readers to ask me to write more about the lives of some of my characters.
Books are not much that much different from popular TV shows, which are also series. People keep watching them in order to find out what happens to those 'characters'. Well at least I do, and I do so because it gives me something to look forward to and become excited about. When we find something we really like it is only human nature to want 'MORE'. Just my humble opinion.