Established series or one-time award?

Series, all the way. 100%. The worst possible feeling for a reader is falling in love with a group of characters and then you hit the end of the book and that's it. No more adventures. No more development. Your best bet is just hoping someone writes a good fanfic or something. As a reader I just hate that. If I had the chance I'd spin a series out until they nail my coffin shut.

A series. I remember relentlessly devouring every single installment; or the feeling of excitement to see a new release; or the feeling of happiness that *this* library had *those* missing volumes that the *other* library lacked. I would love to be someone's go-to author, because they loved vol. 1-78, and they know they'll love vol. 79, too. It's sort of like being comfort food... it's not necessarily glamorous, but it's enjoyable and fulfilling in its own way to be that reliable someone that people turn to when they know exactly what they want.

I'll be the exception here and say I'd prefer to do the Roald Dahl route, single books that tell complete stories, but all kind of in a similar tone and world. This is of course ironic for me to say as I am currently working on a series, but this series is really like one long story, not so much multiple stories about the same characters.

It's I think the same thing as with my acting. I always wanted to play the guest star or supporting roles, or do movies/plays, instead of getting a recurring thing on one series. I wanted to play as much as possible, so getting the chance to be different characters was way more exciting for me. Ditto with writing, writing different people and places and stories excites me more than writing about the same characters all the time.

That being said, working on a series now has shown me how fun really getting to know your characters can be and I do think I'll be sad to say goodbye to everyone when the time comes. But I'll also look forward to meeting new characters and seeing what they get up to.

I'm a bit confused, are you suggesting Louis Sachar is a literary one-hit wonder, and that Holes - as brilliant it is - is his only successful book? Because he has quite a handful of bestsellers including Small Steps, which is actually tied into the Holes world. But I also enjoyed There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom.

As for your question, I think I'd definitely rather have a successful series over a one-time masterpiece (though I'd be loathe to let my hypothetical series succumb to becoming formulaic - not that it's done RL Stine any harm, lol!) as like others have said there's a great joy and comfort in sharing more adventures with familiar characters. Whereas coming off of a hugely successful solo novel you're forever expected to meet that level or even exceed it. That would just be too much pressure for me, and take all the fun out of creating and writing my next novel, and the one expected to surpass that, and so on and so forth.

Seeing as how I'm already working on a series I have to say that had my vote.

I love the idea of crafting a large ongoing narrative that stretches far beyond the confines of any one book. Also, the ability to develop characters at your leisure is appealing. Otherwise is seems like you'd be stuck wondering if the growth you want them to go through seems rushed because of a page limit you have to keep under.

Yes, a series.