Please, de-serialize

[Nik]

Rise of an Oligarch
Mortal Showdown
Be First or Be Dead

[lethe]

Rise of an Oligarch has "book one" on the cover, and both it and Mortal Showdown have Mikhail as a protagonist (not sure if Michael in Be First or Be Dead is the same person).

Why should it be ''de-serialized"?

[Nik]

Hi Lethe,

Thanks for asking. Because I believe as an author and owner of the content I get to decide how to present and market them -:) I'll go with standalones in the meantime and I believe for sound reasons, but I may return with serialization request later -:)

Thanks!

[Krazykiwi]

Nik, that's not how GR works, because GR is a catalogue and a database, not just a marketing platform. If they share characters and a universe, (and they do - even with the anglicised his name in the third book, it's clear from the reviews it's the same character) then they're a series for GR.

If you're really sure they could be read in any order, they could be unnumbered, and you're welcome to provide a description for the series as a whole that explains they are standalone novels that share a protagonist and universe.

I'll note there's also at least one review on the third book that suggests you won't enjoy it without reading the first two - you might want to rethink what you're planning.

[Nik]

Krazykiwi wrote: "I'll note there's also at least one review on the third book that suggests you won't enjoy it without reading the first two - you might want to rethink what you're planning. ..."

Hi Krazykiwi and thanks for an elaborate explanation.
Sure, I plan to try both ways. Now I want to try as standalones. Is there any reference why anyone besides the author should decide how to present a book? Strange, who gets to decide? Has a person, who did, even read the books? My blurbs might also not be perfect, covers, writing style-:) Shall anyone take care of these too? To me at least it looks like deciding whether the book should be perceived connected with any other or not is still within author's autonomy...

[Krazykiwi]

GR is not a store, so marketing on book pages is not allowed - actually we edit the blurbs of books all the time to remove reviews, praise, marketing stuff. (ETA: I was tempted to remove the hashtag stuff in your blurbs, for instance, because they're useless since the descriptions aren't searchable. It would be much more useful if you shelved your books that way instead, so they get tagged on the right under the genres, which are searchable. But they're not doing any harm either, so I left them be.)

GR also routinely renumbers series differently than authors do, and we don't remove out of print editions when they're taken off sale, or have new covers made etc. All because GR is not a store, it's a catalogue, and aims to record books that have been published so that readers can catalogue them if they wish.

In any case, librarians don't set the policy, but we do have to follow it. You can try contacting staff at support@goodreads.com and asking for an exception.

Actually your request is a little unusual, mostly we get authors asking for things to be made into series that aren't under the GR rules.

[Nik]

Thanks, KK. I should check this shelving advice, how to do it.
Re my request, I know -:)
Be it for marketing or cataloging purposes, I believe artificially packing books into series may be misleading more than helpful. In my case - probably borderline. The first done with a co-author and the other two, which I've written alone, are very different style and genre wise and thus shall appeal (if at all) to a different readership. Serialization may be a disservice.

[monika]

I googled out of curiosity this /series/ and i dont understand why have you allowed to make it a series and promote it as a series in the first place - i've seen sites referring to them as a "series" (for example amazon has a little book X of three of the oligarch series) and you, yourself said in the interview here: http://baerbookspress.com/tag/mortal-... that this is a series (i don't want to be mean, just... curious) .
I think it will seriously be the best if you provide us with a description of the series with information that they are in fact standalones and they are only connected by the universe/characters etc. I think sooner or later someone will ask the librarians to create a series out of these books (if we delete this one) and the librarian might create it again not knowing about this topic and your request to not making it a series, and we will be here again discussing the same thing...

[Krazykiwi]

monika wrote: "I googled out of curiosity this /series/ and i dont understand why have you allowed to make it a series and promote it as a series in the first place - i've seen sites referring to them as a "serie..."

That is another reason lethe nor I will do it and why she asked "Why?" in the first place (other than it's against policy and we'd get in trouble). Unless there's a note from staff saying this is an exception, it'd be no time before someone else just remade the series, based on the covers/blurbs/easily found previous marketing material). Seen it happen time and time again.

[Nik]

Hi Monika and well noticed!
Indeed I was positioning them as a series, for it takes author some learning too to understand whether the books are perceived better together or separately. Indeed they have connection of characters and universe(to a degree), however there are probably more divisive factors than uniting. Basing on your and Krazykiwi advice, I'll see how best to tackle it, since I understand now that authors have very little saying about book's destiny once it arrives to GR-:)

[Sandra]

Nik, think of Goodreads as a library. Would you go into your local library and tell them what to do? Probably not. Even though I've been tempted on more than one occasion.

We catalogue all published works even when out of print & all covers etc and like to make series of connected characters & universes. With so many librarians (over 60,000) there will be at least one that reads your books and wants to make a series.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

They definitely seem to be a series by Goodreads standards. However, if they can be read out of order, etc., we can add a series description if you provide one.

[Nik]

Sandra wrote: "Nik, think of Goodreads as a library. Would you go into your local library and tell them what to do? ..."

Hi Sandra, depends -:) I won't come to somebody's apartment and suggest to rearrange the furniture, because I think it's tasteless, since it's a totally private matter, but a library exists to serve readers and offer them best service. If I thought something was very wrong in cataloging this or that book, I'd probably draw librarian's attention to it. I'm for a proactive approach and if I believe something is wrong, I've no problem to voice my opinion clear and loud for 60k librarians and the entire universe for that matter -:)
In my case it's borderline - so I'm not that particular, although I came to think that it'd be better for readers to view each book autonomously.

[Nik]

rivka wrote: "They definitely seem to be a series by Goodreads standards. However, if they can be read out of order, etc., we can add a series description if you provide one."

Hi Rivka, thanks! That's a good idea and I'll think how to best utilize it