Once More With Feeling A Stand

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING: A STAND-ALONE WITH SERIES POTENTIAL For a very long time now I’ve been telling anyone who will hear that every query letter you send out should have the title of the guide you’re making an attempt to sell plus these six phrases emblazoned throughout it: . . . is a stand-alone with collection potential. And I actually, really mean it. But then why does it seem as if no one is listening? Related in many ways to last week’s publish about word depend and the possibly-possibly not demise of the so-known as “fats fantasy,” we now have to additionally start to have a look at the fat-fantasy’s twin sibling: “the infinite collection.” Some authors will think about themselves lucky if they find yourself able where a publisher is clambering for the following e-book in the collection, yearly, year after yr for many years. Who would wish to say no to that type of predictable revenue in a enterprise the place revenue is anything but predictable? The endless or a minimum of seemingly endless collection is a staple of the style mostly as a result of fantasy (and to a slightly lesser diploma science fiction) readers maintain buying them, so it could nicely seem that, like the >200,000-word magnum opus, starting with a sequence concept is simply good enterprise. You’re giving the folks what they need! Okay, possibly, but . . . For what it’s value I love a fantastic SF or fantasy sequence. Not only have read quite a lot of up to now, like Frederick Pohl’s sequence of sequels to Gateway (I’ve read them all), Isaac Asimov’s Lucky Starr (read them all) or Foundation series (learn virtually all), however I’ve written a trilogy, and one e-book in a six-part collection, and edited more collection and trilogies than I may even rely. In reality, I’m always studying one guide in a collection, alternating now between Robert Silverberg’s Majipoor series, Frank Herbert’s Dune collection which can then swap to Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s expanded Dune collection, and Ian Fleming’s James Bond books. Please believe me, then, when I say that I’m not anti-collection in any way, shape, or form. But I am practical in regards to the publishing business as it stands right now, and if you’re writing with an eye fixed on making a profession out of it, you need to be too. And proper nowâ€"and really doubtless endlessly extraâ€"the publishing enterprise is skittish about dedication. Think of the publishing business as a person in his twenties. They love us authors, and desperately want to meet new authors, they fantasize in regards to the perfect author . . . however they don’t wish to go on a blind date with the assumption that we’ll transfer in collectively the next morning. Think of your first novel sale as a “safe lunch.” The advance might be low, as will expectations, and also you’re going to have to show up trying your greatest and really work onerous to maintain the dialog going. If that goes properly, a second date might be proffered, however the j ury’s nonetheless out. The essential third date will both seal the deal or ship you packing. But these dates won't be scheduled prematurely. I desperately hope that your work-in-progress novel has a satisfying starting, middle, and end. If it doesn’tâ€"if it ends with a cliffhanger then “to be continued in . . .”â€"rethink that ending whereas it’s nonetheless “in progress” and never “on submission.” If you are not already a profitable, published author with a confirmed gross sales observe record, please don’t even strive pitching your sequence, or even your trilogy. No one desires to commit to more than one guide to start: to see if there’s a readership, to see when you’re on trend, to be sure to gained’t blow up your profession by stepping into bizarre online political fights or say something absurd at a convention, or in any completely harmless means write one of many ninety% of books revealed in America in a given year that fail to make a revenue. If Boo k One of your twenty-six book series tanks, the few readers who got here with you for the blind date and like you'll now find you failing to return their cellphone calls when the writer kills the second book within the series. Then that one e-book will disappear from retailer shelves for a similar purpose, and your profession now turns into: Guy Who Failed to Get That Series off the Ground. Always up for an excellent sequence, however… And on this fear- and money-driven enterprise you’re solely pretty much as good as your final book’s BookScan numbers. Even then, the biz will give you a second likelihood, however not with a sequel to a failed guide. They’ll need a recent begin. I know nobody desires to see these genres we love lowered to the mercenary level of sales and forecasts and P&Ls, but that’s the reality. It is a enterprise, and all of us need to approach it as such . . . once the book is finished. Pour every little thing you could have into that book: your hopes a nd dreams and politics and spirituality . . . every scant ounce of creativity . . . and wrap it up so that if that’s the one guide anyone ever sees from you it remains eternally as a satisfying read. Then if it sells write a sequel, and if the sequel sells write another sequel. This concept that scaredy-cat New York publishing goes at hand out three-e-book offers to unpublished, unknown authors . . . just not going to occur. But they’d love to search out the following perennial vendor, the subsequent Terry Brooks or R.A Salvatore. And readers are lining up to read these series. But neither Brooks nor Salvatore signed a twenty-guide deal primarily based on the first manuscript. As fans we all voted with our wallets to keep them going. To me, this simply seems terribly apparent, but I nonetheless keep getting questions from people who find themselves engaged on a trilogy and the second book is already written, and . . . I hope I don’t outwardly cringe. How about this for an inst ance. When Star Wars was launched in 1977 it had a really satisfying starting, center, and endâ€"literally capped off with a ceremony by which the heroes obtain shiny gold medalsâ€"it was a stand-alone. But Darth Vader’s TIE fighter spun off into space after the Death Star was destroyed, so the villain remains to be on the marketâ€"it had collection potential. If no different movie had ever been made, no e-book or comic guide written, Star Wars would have stood as a great, enjoyable, strong, full film. As a rabid Star Wars fan, age thirteen, I hung on each word reported about that movie, which I beloved all out of proportion. And it was solely after Star Wars proved to be an immensely in style worldwide blockbuster that I head George Lucas speaking about how he’d at all times deliberate on Star Wars as a nine-half trilogy of trilogies with Star Wars (and no, I is not going to discuss with it as A New Hope) inexplicably inhabiting the fourth slot. I believed him then, but now . . . sorry, Mr. Lucas, but no. Star Wars was a stand-alone with collection potential. And what a profitable series it continues to be. So maybe you actually do have plans for a thirty-e-book mega collection to be offered as ten trilogies spanning millennia of story in your created world. Okay! But if that’s in the question letter for the first book, and if that first e-book ends with a cliffhanger, the world won't ever know. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Where is the line between leaving a e-book with a cliffhanger and leaving it open for future stories? If I leave information out of the background of a personality in my first book, it may be irrelevant for the present story, but nonetheless be fascinating in future stores. I wish to think each e-book in a series ought to stand on its own. That is, you shouldn’t have to have learn the first guide earlier than studying the second. Each ought to stand by itself. I see sound recommendation on this!!