A New Series
I’ve started kicking around the idea of releasing the first book in a new series. I have this fear that if I put out the last two books in the Peachville High Demons series without starting something new first, people will write me off. Forget me. There won’t be anything for my growing fan-base to look forward to and I’m worried I might lose momentum.
Here’s where the tough part of the decision comes in. I don’t want to postpone my last two books in the PHD series just to get another book out. Pushing back the release dates would only make me go crazy and would possibly upset some fans who are looking forward to the next books in the series. Of course, the only option that leaves is for me to work harder. And to be honest, I’m already working extremely hard to get these books out every couple of months as it is.
If I did start a new series, it would be my PANDEMIC series. That’s the zombie/witch book I wrote last year. It’s currently somewhere around 90,000 words long and parts of it are more polished than others. The good news is that the rough draft is already finished. I wouldn’t have to start from scratch or anything. The bad news is that it still needs work to make it shine. I was thinking I could possibly cut the book in half and then expand the first part to make it longer – right around 60,000 words, which is about how long BITTER DEMONS turned out to be. If I could release the first book in the PANDEMIC series before I released the last book in the DEMONS series, maybe I could bring in new readers and also give my current readers something to look forward to with Book 2.
It’s definitely a lot to think about. I have some very personal reasons for wanting to take the month of August off. I doubt I’ll stop writing completely, but I am going to take it super easy and not stress about any deadlines. That means if I want to start a new series, I would have to get three books published before August. Yikes! Part of me says go for it! It would mean more hours and working a lot harder for a few months, but it might pay off in a big way. Plus, it would be a lot of fun to start working on PANDEMIC again. I loved writing that book and still find myself thinking about that story all of the time. I need a new name for it, but other than that, it’s actually in pretty good shape as far as rough drafts go.
Any thoughts about whether starting a new series is a good idea? Do you like for writers to have a new series already started before they end the other series? Or would you rather see them wrap things up before starting something new? I’d love to hear any ideas you guys might have about this.
I'm enjoying your Peachville series greatly. Why not keep going with that, and include a teaser at the back end of the new series. You'll give readers a taste of what's next while still fulfilling the need for demon cheerleaders. 🙂
Whatever you do it's going to be wonderful, but if you have a fan base…hmmmm, that's a hard question, I'd definetly be interested in reading a zombie/witch book though
My only favorite author who has written a second series at the same time as a first one is Patricia Briggs. And yet the second series was an offshoot of the main one.
But I would LOVE it if my favorite authors were publishing other series as well – but this is based on traditional publishing standards where you might wait a whole year or more for the next book to come out in a series. But it is definately a good way to get a reader into a new series – as while I'm waiting for the next in a series I am definately bound to at least try a different series an author might write.