I decided to write five novella series to kick start my self-publishing business. Each series will start with five books so I can see if they will sell. But I am trying to decide how I should write the first books. Should the first five be one series or should they be different separate stories? As a reader, what would you choose?
Personally, as a reader, I hate series's and would prefer one 300,000 word tome to five 60,000 word books that tell the same story. I feel it's the literary equivalent to making three movies to from one book (I'm looking at you The Hobbit). Now if each book was written to have a self enclosed story that built off the ones before, but didn't necessitate you having had read them, then yeah, I'd cool with that as long as there's not setup for the next book, or at least the set up's not overly obvious.
Follow through with your series. If I get caught up in your story, rush to the end, and then discover that you're juggling 4 other series that I might not care about at all, then I'm going to be pissed. Especially if that means I might to wait a year or so for the next part; by then I'll probably have forgotten about you and moved on
My advice is to just cram your novellas together into novel format instead of making a series of short stories out of it, that's what I'm doing with a few of my projects.
I did plan to do that after I publish five short books. Kind of like how most comic book companies published four to seven issues and turn them into a graphic novel.
Yes, agree with the others here, doesn't seem to be much point in a three parter if they are only novellas. If they were only loosely linked you might get away with it but not otherwise. I know of an online magazine that allows you to post three shorts if they are linked but can also stand on their own.
Fantasy? There is a 90 minute category for Fantasy and SciFi on Amazon (in case you didn't know): https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-90-Minute-Science-Fiction-Fantasy-Short-Reads/zgbs/digital-text/8624222011 As far as series versus stand alone...I've heard series are the better option from a marketing point of view. Fantasy commonly has a series. If you look at that link you'll see how many are part of a series and how many are standalone. Not all are fantasy, and not all are strict fantasy (I see paranormal romance and paranormal mystery)...so whatever flavor you're doing will effect your market research. You could do a series of novelettes/short stories, publish them and then bundle to be all one book. Overall, I'd think a series would be more worth your while. Figure out what readers in your intended market (amazon?) want though, not us. Market research will help you decide the best action to take.
Yes. It's a very popular length in romance and mystery and looks like it does alright in SciFi/Fantasy. As far as those details, this is what I found:
I know there are few out there that are only publishing a chapter at a time, which seems to be working for them, granted they are well known authors. Seems serials are quite popular since many new authors are writing series over standalone novels or trilogies. While I am not a fan of long running serials, since they exhaust their ability to add anything new at a certain point (novel wise). I don't see much of a point in paying a few bucks for a mere 3k-5k words once a month or so. However, I have been sold an entire book from a trilogy that was only 11k in length. Which was an expensive short story too me at $3. But a novella is a bigger chunk of the story, 35k-50k words, which I would still see as a long short, but a much better attempt at calling it a book. So marketing wise it if you can get content out regularly and keep it fresh on the new books list, then your chances are higher of getting more sales. So while I don't like content bombarding or series, it is a popular way to go at the moment. And it would make sense to have most of it written prelaunch, that way you can put out each chunk of your story on a monthly or so schedule to get your self-pubb ball rolling.
Didn't Hugh Howey write the Wool series in kind of a serial format at first; not sure where but I'm sure it was in that format.
Thank you for showing that information. I figure a novella series would sell better than a standalone one. Novel series are the same, except they have more content. And Huge Howey did that method. He posted one shorty story Wool till he decided to publish more. Andy Weir did the same thing for his The Martain series, except he posted each chapter for free on his blog.
I was sure Howey did that but didn't know about Weir. It's an interestinig idea, what we in the engineering business call a 'loss leader'.
People don't need to pay for a short story though. If it's enrolled in Kindle unlimited (which it should be) it's free for everyone with Kindle Unlimited subscriptions. He'd make most his money there being paid by the page read.
That is true, suppose I am just more familiar with the single purchase method, like in the days before e-books became a thing.
There is also patron which some authors post their chapters for their readers to read for one dollar each. But that only works if they already established a fanbase.
It does seem popular, for such a diverse number of projects. How genuine some of them are is hard to judge.
What do you think of web novels? I could do that with my novellas, but I might end up writing them into novels because web fiction is usually long to gain more readers.
Ah, well that is something I can't advise you on, I've neaver read a web novel, wasn't sure that was actually a thing to be honest.
When world building for example, it makes sense to utilise the format for other books in a series. Presuming that one may have spent years inventing it all. If the world that you have built is credible and interesting then I do not see the problem with using multiple times. So to recap reusing the format is fine as long as they stories are different. LOTR, The Hobbit and Harry Potter are all extremely succesful examples. I see why people do not like them but the commercial oppurtunity they offer is huge. I am working on using the above models but with a range of different books aimed at children, teenage, romance, mythical etc. I am not painting any red lines as that will constrict me. If some are novellas, shorts or novels. They will be what they will be. The most important thing is the story itself is told well and is not destroyed by the process of writing, pandering to peoples whims or any number of other things. I would say go for it Milestro. Just be mindful not to paint yourself into a corner and just let the creativity flow. Even if the work is a master peice it will need an awful lot of work and a fair wind to gain commercial success. I personally try and make mine an artistic success and if the money comes rolling in thats fine.
