Birth of a Series

Why a series?

Once I knew that writing was the controlling factor in my life and was not going to release me, I began to experiment with different kinds of writing. I read widely on advice for authors, subscribed to Writers’ Digest and The Writer, and went to seminars, conferences, and book signings.

My early writing attempts were diverse—from poetry to a bilingual compilation of terms for dairymen to use with their Spanish-speaking hands. Although I became engaged in each of these projects at the time, the only type of writing I felt compelled to dedicate my life to was fiction.

In the advice I gleaned, I ran across the suggestion that writing short stories was good preparation for writing novels. Obligingly, I started drafting my first story. It was a children’s story, and turned out to be my first professional publication. (That’s the kind you get paid for.)

But, even though I loved the short story format, I longed to get involved in a full-length work. Since selling a book is a completely different process from selling a story, I returned to my resources, notably Writer’s Market. At this point I was setting the course for my career, so I looked at industry statistics and trends to help with my decision.

Bottom line—I discovered that readers of novels are particularly drawn to series. Human beings seem to derive comfort from connecting with a series character. I guess it’s the same reason we watch weekly programs on television and sit in the same place every time we go to a class or attend church.

Ultimately, my choice was a marketing decision. I decided that if I were going to go to all the trouble of writing something, I needed to choose a format that people were buying, whether it was editors or readers. At the time I began writing, it was easier to sell a series than a single book. Generally speaking, no one makes money on the first novel—its role is to build a name and a readership. The idea is that if someone discovers a writer he or she enjoys, that reader will go back and find the first books in the series and read the ones that were missed.

I then determined that writing novels would be my “retirement plan.” I thought once I got into a routine, I would be able to write a book a year, maybe even two, and I could retire comfortably in a cabin in the woods, like Thoreau, my high school idol, and live happily ever after.

Reality struck when the first two novels took four years each to write and self-publish. So I am in the process of developing other plans that I hope will provide more security. In the meantime, I have been teaching to support my writing habit.

NEXT: Watch for a post on how to plot a series.