What are YOUR thoughts on a release schedule for a Series?

[Lee]

Hello all,

I've looked around and didn't see this question asked in this way before, so here goes.

I am developing an Epic Fantasy series and I would like to get some honest feedback on how often the individual books in the series should be published.

As a part-time independent writer, I am concerned about the length of time it takes for me to create a 'finished product'.

What do each of you consider a reasonable amount of time between large, well written books in a Fantasy series? A timeline short enough to keep you engaged and buying the next book(s) in the series, but long enough to produce a quality product.

These will be large tales in the 200k-250k range.

No right answers, just looking for people's thoughts and opinions.

Thanks,

Lee.

[Shanna]

Well my books are around 90-120k words and it takes a good 3-6 (or longer) months to get them ready, but I work full-time too and I'm not allowed to have my laptop here at work so I only write on the weekends and after work. I would expect 6 months to a year at least for a fantasy that size...

[Steph]

If readers really like the first book, they'll happily wait a year or two for the sequel, providing of course you can reassure them that it's genuinely on its way. All authors write at different speeds: e.g. I published book 1 of a sci-fi series in 2012 and to date I'm only halfway through writing book 4 (each being 110-130k words long, half the length you're proposing).

A determination to finish a series is essential. I've read a fair few indie books advertised as 'Part 1 of ...', which years later never produced a sequel.

[Victoria]

Though there's no right or wrong answer to this, since every author writes at different speeds, and has different non-writing things they need to be giving their attention to as well, I think most people would consider a year or two to be acceptable, but get a bit impatient if it started taking longer than that.

[Wayne]

Victoria, if I had it all to do again (famous last words) I would have written at least two of the three books in the series. Instead, Acre's Bastard came out in 2017, Acre's Orphans comes out this month, and who knows when I"ll complete the third in the series as there's been at least one non-fiction book in between (a guy's gotta make a living) While I'm proud of the work, I know from a business perspective I have to go back to square one with each novel. Fortunately, each one stands alone pretty well. We always reserve the right to get smarter.

[Lee]

Thanks for the comment Wayne.

If I read your post correctly, that exactly what I'm trying to decide on. How long should I hold off publishing Book 1 of my series so that I can maintain a reasonable timeline for the remaining books and not lose my audience. ( However small that might be. ).

Lee.

[Jim]

I'm with Wayne. When I decided to do the Port Naain Intelligencer collection I wrote six of them (they're a sort of Fantasy 'who dunnit') and they're novellas rather than full novels.
So when I had six ready I launched them at four month intervals which then gave me two years to
a) see if there was any interest and write some more
b) tackle other projects

[Virginia]

I release my epic fantasy books 1 to 3 years apart (because they are over 100k of dark(ish) material each that I need a break from between installments) but I release my urban fantasy series every 3 months (actually I dropped books 1 - 3 at the same time and now am dropping books 4, 5, and 6 every three months). As everyone has said, there's no right answer, but I felt that since my UF books are a. short (~40k each) and b. end on cliff hangers, I wanted to release them quickly. Also, wanted to see how well dropping three at once worked for read through.

[Kira]

Hi Lee!

There's been lots of discussions over the last nine months to a year, I'd say, about this very question in the various indie writer communities I'm a part of. Personally, I agree with Victoria's one to two years... at a maximum. But even large novels don't necessarily need to take that long between releases. Depending on your own writing schedule, if you think you can knock out an entire book in 3-6 months, then absolutely nothing's stopping you as long as the finished product is good and polished.

Some people, both readers and writers, believe that a single, large book in a series HAS to take years and years to produce, and if it doesn't that means the writer is rushing and sacrificing quality. It certainly CAN take that long, especially if there are other life circumstances at play, but it's absolutely not required. If you get into the writing groove, you can bang out a large amount of words pretty fast, especially if you aren't agonizing constantly over small details and breaking your flow.

Just my 2 cents!