Three Book Minimum?

[Kim]

As a reader, I don't really mind if a book is a stand alone or the first in a serie, although I might not buy a book that is from a series that contains more than three books, before I read something about it that made me really, really curious.

As a writer, my first novel is a stand alone. That is also the story that will be translated in English first. My second story is a trilogy. I didn't plan it that way, it just was what the story needed. At this point I think my new story will be a duology (which might end as a series of six books, as every story so far became three times longer then I thought... help...)
I like the idea of publishing a stand alone first, so people can get to know the kind of stories I write, without having to wait on a sequel to know how the story ends.

 

[glutton]

My main series is going to be 8-9 books long plus at least one short story collection. I'm dead serious as most of these books are already written in draft form... the first one is published, second is set for official release on 4/3, third is near final draft, and fourth is halfway edited.

My other books so far are standalones though, but some of them may get a sequel.

 

[glutton]

And reading wise I prefer books that stand alone even if they are part of a series... what happened to the edit function.

 

[skip.knox]

True about LoTR. And the Gormenghast books date from about the same time (early 1950s).

 

[wildjlady]

In my opinion, if you've got a very detailed and expansive world, then coming up with multiple stories should not cause a problem. If you only have a limited world, then you do have a problem. My particular situation is I have a expansive world, but most of my stories are short-story length and I have to work on them to fill them out to book length, or otherwise see if I can get them published as a collection.

 

[Addison]

i think what a writer writes, and how many, depends equally on them (do they see it as a series? Or solo?) and the publisher. I believe that when a publisher signs a publishing contract for the presented book the author, in turn, signs a book contract that includes future books. Some contracts say two books, three, four, five....it's up to them.