That is what I am saying about human nature, if the reader has the author / editor standing next to them, they will ask a whole bunch of questions whilst they have the chance. I know I would, wouldn't you? The way I look at it is if people are interested enough to ask questions then they are interested period. Its what we used to call in the sales industry, buying signals. That's about as close too 'can I please find out more about your story,' as they can get before handing over their hard earned cash for the privelege. And lets not forget we authors may own the rights to our work but readers own the sole rights to interpretation, and its different every time.
Each story should stand on its own enough for the reader to not be too confused. I am guilty of reading a book series out of order: Guardians of Gahoole, I read the second book, then the first one. I believe that there should be a recap of the previous book, maybe sprinkled throughout the story.
Not to completely repeat the same points as others, while yes every book should stand on its own and there is a merit to 'episodic writing,' whatever you might attribute that to being, I think there's also a merit to referencing to prior works in a series, sometimes even to the point of over-reference. Of course, there has to be a personal line, since you don't want to travel into the realm of over-indulgence. Salutations, fellow Guardians of Ga'Hoole fan.
I can definitely imagine stand-alone within a series. Look at what Dan Brown did with his Robert Langdon books. Each one by itself makes sense without you having to read the others.
A series to me is a story across however many books are in it. There's one main one and along the way are the subplots, or the stories that happen underneath but are directly linked to the main story somehow. I think sometimes a recap may be useful, but done with subtlety so it's not a "previously on NCIS," or whatever. Like someone else said, just a throwback to the last major event that still holds relevance in the current book. An example of this is the first two books of the Green Rider series. I started with the second one (accidentally), and I thought the first book was the second one. The story made more sense when I realized I'd read them out of order, but it still made sense because the author put small reminders of what had already happened. The main character rode into court in just her nightgown, a story made famous by the second book, so now it's a way to tie things together.
Personally, I don't mind a series that has a separate preface that's 'the story so far' which contains a synopsis of what's happened previously. That way, if I want to refresh my memory, I can. But if I just want to get on with 'what happens next,' I can just dive in to Chapter One, and not be diverted by re-caps.
I intend to do just that. Somehow I found myself writing out of order standalones, but I'll still list all the previous published books, not by publication date, but by the order they play in the action. I've seen it done by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Anne Rice. If not in the books themselves, on their websites. But these authors are so famous their fans do it for them too. A "From the same author" page is also good to promote your previous books, series or not.
