McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
A Series of One
svb1972:
--- Quote from: neurovore on June 11, 2010, 04:05:29 PM ---Only if they are successful.
--- End quote ---
Publishers have a good idea on the success level of a particular series when they buy it. Usually within an order of magnitude. It is after all their job.
They sometimes get surprises, sometimes they mess up. But I suspect that their overall estimates are fairly spot on.
prophet224:
--- Quote from: neurovore on June 11, 2010, 03:54:45 PM ---Series are perceived as easy to market.
--- End quote ---
Why is that though? I mean, svb gives a good reason, but it wasn't too long ago that an aspiring author would be told "Go write a good single novel that sells well, then we'll look at your series." Now there does seem to be a trend towards series. Even though the market is more competitive than ever, and the risk of backing a new author is greater than ever, publishers do seem willing to throw in on a series.
I will say that I think if you have a few books written already, they are more likely to run with it. Even novel submission sizes are growing, which is another potential money sink for a publisher. Baen (who does the Ringo's various series and Weber's Honor Harrington series) asks for a minimum of 100k words, up to about 130k. Wow. :)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: svb1972 on June 11, 2010, 04:07:32 PM ---Publishers have a good idea on the success level of a particular series when they buy it. Usually within an order of magnitude. It is after all their job.
They sometimes get surprises, sometimes they mess up. But I suspect that their overall estimates are fairly spot on.
--- End quote ---
Not really; or at least, everyone in the business I have talked to at any length sooner or later comes back to: Nobody Knows Anything.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: prophet224 on June 11, 2010, 04:08:05 PM ---Why is that though? I mean, svb gives a good reason, but it wasn't too long ago that an aspiring author would be told "Go write a good single novel that sells well, then we'll look at your series." Now there does seem to be a trend towards series. Even though the market is more competitive than ever, and the risk of backing a new author is greater than ever, publishers do seem willing to throw in on a series.
--- End quote ---
The thing is, as I understand it, a series is seen as building an audience base in ways a set of non-related books from the same author are not.
Emphasis on "seen as". Marketing is an opaque form of black magic.
svb1972:
I suspect they have some financial information that backs that up.
What it could be is that they've noticed that on the ROI when they invest in Series their ROI is on average better than when they invest in single book stories.
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