Series vs Standalones in Fantasy

I've seen this discussion in the novel writing forum, but thought I'd bring it up in the context of fantasy specifically. How important is it for a first fantasy novel to be a standalone? The majority of the fantasy I've read has come in serial form, from 3-5 books. Robert Jordan turned me into the type of reader who waits for the whole thing to be published before starting a series, but multi-volume works are still my preference. I think one of the reasons is because I read very quickly, and single volumes are over too soon. I also have a strong preference for gradual character development and time to really explore the author's world.

That said, I didn't really intend to write a series. I worked on a standalone for fifteen years without ever getting a completed draft, then finished the first volume of a series in four months. So, whatever your answers are to this question, I'm writing the series first. I have excessive numbers of ideas for novels set in the history of this world which could be sold as standalones before or after the series is finished, and shouldn't depend on the series or each other to make sense, but they aren't what I have inspiration for right now. But would it be more realistic for me to attempt to write one of those when I'm finished polishing volume one, and then shop that around while I finish the series? Or just go ahead and start sending out Volume one when I finish revising it and see what happens? I lean toward the latter just for experience in sending things out, really, even if being the start of a five volume series works against it. I can always submit the standalones later and hope that I can sell the series based on the popularity of my other works sometime later in life.

Hmmm. So, though apparently I have already made up my mind, I'm still curious what people think. Is it easier for a first time author to sell a series in fantasy than in other genres, given the popularity of multi-volume works in the genre? And I do specifically mean series that are more like one book broken up into pieces. In mine, the first volume ends with the specific threat dealt with, but knowledge that it was only part of what is coming and the fact that the character arcs are still up in the air at the end mean that the readers will not likely be satisfied if they don't get the sequels.

I never intended to write high fantasy, or a series with more than two volumes, or about dragons, or wolfmen, or people with wings, or overtly deal with racism or sexism. But the darn thing insists on being written anyway.

I'm thinking more along the lines of High Fantasy, where people are on a quest to save the world. I started to say I don't recall ever reading any that were standalones but now I can't remember if the first Shannara books were. (I read those after Tolkein and also after a few other coming of age fantasy novels and they bored me more than they probably would have otherwise.) Generally, because that kind of plot is epic in scope, they don't tend to be standalones in my experience. And it's also difficult to find a stopping place in that kind of plot to make the first volume a true standalone. They can have closure for each volume, but since you know the plot is a lot bigger, you have to read the next one. I guess when I said that serials were popular in fantasy I was thinking more specifically of that category, rather than the genre as a whole. I tend to read (and write, apparently) either multi-volume epic types or single novels about more localized conflicts.

I think mine might be okay, in that the POV characters are not entirely convinced by the end of this volume that the whole world is really in danger, and they do deal with the threat in their immediate territory, so it almost works as a standalone. It just leaves a lot of loose threads, such as what happens to the one group of characters who have to flee the country to avoid execution. It has closure, but as a reader I'd be disappointed if a publisher didn't buy the rest of a series when book one ended that way.

Interesting replies. I'm pretty much getting the answer I expected. I'm still going to finish this one because I've made more progress than on any previous project, and will probably send it around anyway just for the experience, but won't hold out high expectations. And I'll make one of my single volume ideas the project I work on while I'm sending volume one of my series around. I've tried to figure out how to make this work as a standalone, but aside from cutting out one of the plotlines entirely I don't think it's possible. Half of the plot comes to a nice conclusion, but I don't know if I can make escaping out of the country into exile come across as a satisfactory ending for the rest of the characters.

So I'll hope to get the other ideas published and for them to sell well enough that I can convince people to buy this series later. Which gives me a bit more time to work out the details of volume two anyway.