Can I consider this a series?

[stevenmnedeau]

Lately I've been writing picture books for children. I've published two and I have a third with an illustrator right now. Speaking on the published books, one has nothing to do with the other. I have different characters, a vastly different word count, and even different illustrators. The third book, the one in the works, uses the same illustrator as the first book and the main character of the first book will make a cameo appearance.

My question is: will it confuse people if I create a KDP series at amazon for my children's books? It is not a continuous series.

Why I ask:

1. As a child I used to read the Little Golden Books and, though the stories had nothing to do with each other, I (in my little child mind) considered it a series.
2. It might make it easier for people buying one of my children's book to be able to find more.

 

[Maryn]

What you enjoyed as a kid was a brand, rather than a series. I don't think the book you have with the illustrator now qualifies as book two of a series (along with the first book) if the MC from the first book has only a cameo.

That said, parents shopping for books learn what authors their kids like, so maybe becoming an author-brand is a good goal. (We certainly shop for Stephen King books, even if they don't look like one another, right?) If you nearly always use the same illustrator and their style is distinctive, that adds to the brand-ness of your books.

To qualify as a series, it seems to me you need to feature the same MC at a minimum, ideally with the same setting and some of the same secondary characters.

 

[frimble3]

Or, do what Little Golden Books did: have something really distinctive along the spine, a bright, unusual colour, or stripes, or a line of something(s). Tiger stripes? Bubbles? Leaves?
Talk to your illustrator. Something that will make your books noticeable on a shelf or in a pile of books.

 

[Sage]

I don’t think it’s a series, unless you have a unifying thing between the books, and a cameo alone isn’t enough. But it’ll be fun for your fans to find the Easter Egg in the second book.