If you are planning to submit your first novel are you prepared?

I know what I’m working on won’t be a series, because reasons. If that’s a deal-killer for a publisher, well, so be it.

As a reader, I’d prefer fewer trilogies, quadrologies, N-ologies, etc. Too many either feel like a single good novel was stretched out, or like the latter works are rougher because they were rushed due to publisher deadline demands.

If you're going through an agent, the two of you should've discussed series potential (or lack thereof) before going on sub. You shouldn't get blindsided by a request for more books.

And I agree with Intro: series are nice, but as a reader I'm fond of standalones as well. As a writer? If you've got series ideas, great, but don't let yourself get pushed in a creative direction that isn't working for you.

RoyalFool said:

I read that often someone pours their heart and soul into their book. They spend months, possibly years, carefully crafting the story, ensuring all the characters are believable and the reader connects with them. The story is close to being an undiscovered gem.

The publisher loves the story - or (more likely these days) it gets snapped up by a literary agent - as it is so great and they sign up the writer and offer them a three book deal... and that's where the wheels fall off.

That person never thought about books two and three. They had their story as a pet project and really it's a one shot deal. They have nothing left inside them because it all went into this one book.

So, you need to think if you are planning to submit your first novel, should it be accepted, you may well be in the same position of being offered a three book deal. Do you really have books two and three in you?

I am trying to write the first in a series of whodunnits, all based around a police detective, and thankfully, although I am only 10,000 words into book one, I already have ideas bubbling away for books two, three and four.

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I really don't believe this is true. I mean, I don't particularly believe the "heart and soul" stuff is universal either, but I am referring to the part in bold, in particular....

I believe people often DO 3-book deals, or other series, for a variety of reasons. What I don't believe is the part where you seem to be implying an agent will expect everything and anything has series potential. And that they just won't want it otherwise.

Some things aren't series. They're standalones. I doubt any agents or houses want you to force-crank a turd out afterwards in the name of series marketing. Or to publish 3, 30K books and split your full, 90K novel. The agents and publishers would get burned just as badly as you if they did that.


series are nice because they suggest you will come back to the same audience, with a known product, and they also suggest you at least HAVE a second book in mind, but there's an awful lot of writers publishing debut non-series….

It will be discussed before you sign.

I made clear when signing that current ms is a standalone. Agent advised writing another book in same genre meanwhile, as publishers like to see more of the same should a deal happen. It doesn't always have to be a series, can just be more in the same vein.

I do have a series I am working on in between these standalones, but I am not going to pitch it to agent until all four are complete.

Does a three book deal always mean series? I'm sure the publisher, if they offer a multiple book deal, will expect more in the same genre for marketing and branding purposes, but I don't think that automatically means "series." Or does it?

I never NEVER read series anymore. There aren't many I've felt were worth the page count, as they were either blowted and artificially divided up, or were "Let's do it again!" money grabs. Obviously this means I've not read enough good ones, but still.

This actually brings up a question I've been wondering about re: author output. Obviously not everything is a series, nor will a series be sprung on an author, but what are the expectations for continuous output? Are there people who get a book published and then decide they are good? Is there an expectation/obligation to write more for the agent or the publisher? If you want to make a living solely as a writer, yes you have to write, but if money isn't a concern, how common are people who publish one or two books, then hang up their hat?

PyriteFool said:

how common are people who publish one or two books, then hang up their hat?

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Pretty common, but I've no idea how many of them hang it up on purpose.

lizmonster said:

Pretty common, but I've no idea how many of them hang it up on purpose.

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I've heard the "sophomore slump" is a real thing, but also there is an ooooold thread here somewhere about the "death spiral." A publisher prints 5000 copies of an author's first book, and let's say it sells only 4000. Therefore, the publisher only prints 3500 copies of the author's second book, and it only sells 2500. If the publisher prints the author's third book, the print run is likely going to be even smaller.

I'll look for the thread and see if I can link it. It says it much better.


ETA: Lengthy 14-year old post on the death spiral. The description begins about 40% down the post.

Chris P said:

I'll look for the thread and see if I can link it. It says it much better.

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I think I remember this death spiral thread you speak of. That was some pretty sobering stuff.

Chris P said:

I've heard the "sophomore slump" is a real thing, but also there is an ooooold thread here somewhere about the "death spiral." A publisher prints 5000 copies of an author's first book, and let's say it sells only 4000. Therefore, the publisher only prints 3500 copies of the author's second book, and it only sells 2500. If the publisher prints the author's third book, the print run is likely going to be even smaller.

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It is very much a for-real thing that if a book doesn't sell to expectations, you can't sell another one. Some people find ways around this, but not everyone.

I can't speak from experience, not being in the position to have an agent yet (said hopefully), but I would fully expect to have a conversation with my future agent about the standalone versus series nature of my various novels. I'm not going to pop out a sequel to my UF, for example, because it was conceived as a standalone. Would I write other books in that genre? Sure! But I already have too many series ideas to want to turn something else into one. Nor do I get the sense that authors are pressured into doing this?

As for being prepared for books 2, 3, whatever if you're going into this planning that Book 1 is part of a series, uh, yeah, one should probably be thinking out how the later books might go. This is me speaking as a reader, but I detest inconsistencies in a later series book that make it clear the author didn't lay the ground work for said problematic plot shifts in the preceding books. So, as a writer, I personally make darn sure I know the over-arching series plot arch and plan world-building elements accordingly. JMHO.

PyriteFool said:

This actually brings up a question I've been wondering about re: author output. Obviously not everything is a series, nor will a series be sprung on an author, but what are the expectations for continuous output? Are there people who get a book published and then decide they are good? Is there an expectation/obligation to write more for the agent or the publisher? If you want to make a living solely as a writer, yes you have to write, but if money isn't a concern, how common are people who publish one or two books, then hang up their hat?

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Some agents sign you for a specific book. If t doesnt sell, they drop you. If t does and they dont like your other work, perhaps they would drop you.

Some agents want to rep your career and that means they will talk to you about future books, etc.

About 60% of trade published writers stop st one or two? I believe? Someone double check me.

Some of that will be people who publish autobiographies or memoirs I imagine, which rarely have scope for a sequel. The rest never quite take off, or lose interest.

KJ Bishop published the Etched City to critical acclaim and never really produced much else. Mockingbird lady was similar.

RoyalFool said:

That person never thought about books two and three. They had their story as a pet project and really it's a one shot deal. They have nothing left inside them because it all went into this one book.

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You know, it always feels--when you start a new project--like you're a hack who could never write and who's already used up all the good ideas they've ever had.

And it is never true. If you keep pouring your heart into it, the creativity keeps flowing out, and even if it's only flowing in a dribble, the book is the dam that saves up every drop of it until you have a vast and shining lake before you. You're never out of talent, or ideas, or writing ability. The more you use them, the more capacity for them you build.

The work always feels like hard work. But as long as you keep working hard on it, the finished product will always be the best thing you've ever made.

Which will fool you into thinking it wasn't so bad after all, just in time for you to feel whammied anew when you try to write the next thing.

Multiple-book deals don't have to involve series.

A two-book deal is much more common than a three-book deal, unless you're an established author with a good history of writing best-selling books. Publishers don't usually want to commit to new authors beyond one or two books, just in case they don't sell as well as they could. But it seems to me that agents are moving away from multiple-book deals, especially for new writers, as it can be difficult to deal with the joint accounting which is so often insisted upon by the publishers (this means that both books have to earn out their advances before further royalties are paid); and because if a first book does exceptionally well the second book then becomes a much hotter property, and can be sold for a much higher advance.

It's something you would discuss. Honestly, plans for future books and whether you have written anything else is often the first question to come up in a call. Most agents would, I am guessing, be reluctant to rep someone who has no more ideas at all.

Some agents do indeed rep an author for a single book, but I wouldn't want an agent like that. Mine is very much a career builder, which is IMO far more useful. The flipside is, as Harlequin says, if you really are a one-book author, career agents won't be interested.

If you think you only have one book in you, you should have already discussed that with your agent. (Chances are, by the time you have a novel on submission you'd have some idea of whether you had more ideas or not anyway since it's rare for the querying process to be successful overnight.) And, assuming that you were not already working on some sort of second novel by the time you got an offer for the first (possibly only) book, your agent would negotiate a single book deal for you.

Just because the publisher offers you a two or three book deal doesn't mean you just have to take that offer. And, if you and your agent are actually working together the way you should be, they would promptly negotiate out any multi-book expectations in the offered contract.

I'd imagine that for most folks (not all, but most) the issue is not so much that they only have that one good idea, but that they decide the amount of work involved in writing a book is either not interesting enough to keep doing it, or too much for them to handle on a regular basis.

But the odds of writing a single novel and having that be the MS that gets both and agent and a publisher are... steeper than you might think. For most folks these they don't pick up an agent 'til a second/third/eighth novel. (I found an agent for my first novel. It also took me six years, eight rounds of front-to-back revisions, and several other novels written/started during that timespan to get something worth querying and then secure an agent.)

I dunno. I feel like your question is predicated on ideas about writing and publishing that are less than accurate assumptions about the average timeframe/experience of writing a novel and finding an agent/publisher.

Yeah, as others are basically saying, if you don't have three books in you, or if don't want the pressure of a contractual obligation, then don't have that provision in the contract. If you do produce more books, great. Negotiate then. But no one is going to FORCE a three-book deal on you (they can't). No one can force you to be a multi-book author. If you're not in it for a long-term career, then you're just not.

everyone is different, but I'm not sure how common it is for a writer to "only have one book in them"

writing is, after all, story-telling, or outright bullshitting....

again, everyone is different, but this is a bit like the flip side of a thread that gets started every couple months somewhere on AW basically called "I have a super-cool story idea, but don't want to actually write it, anyone want to collaborate" and the general gist of the replies in those threads tends to be that having an actual story, or three, is one of the cheapest parts of the process.....everyone has ideas, its the actual sitting and writing them, and making them good enough to publish, that's the work.


none of this disputes that some folks DO have a single story, or that they should discuss this, or that it still isn't likely to be the end of the world.....I'm just not sure how common the one-story-in-me author is

Chris P said:

Does a three book deal always mean series? I'm sure the publisher, if they offer a multiple book deal, will expect more in the same genre for marketing and branding purposes, but I don't think that automatically means "series." Or does it?

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No. I've heard of authors getting deals for the first book (already written) plus a second and possibly a third unspecified (i.e., not part of a series).

quicklime said:

everyone is different, but I'm not sure how common it is for a writer to "only have one book in them"

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Tangentially related...

I've read authors that produced what I thought were brilliant first novels, who went on to be successful and write and sell many more. Only, I didn't think the followups measured up to the first. I suspect there's an aspect of care and attention lavished on first efforts that publisher deadline pressure doesn't allow for subsequent works?

As for what publishers prefer, my (totally experience-free) suspicion is that they do prefer series books. A successful first book automatically creates audience for sequels. And marketing must be easier when you can just say, "The latest sequel to the smash hit, Hangry Corporate Beavers Move To Europe", or whatever?

Introversion said:

As for what publishers prefer, my (totally experience-free) suspicion is that they do prefer series books. A successful first book automatically creates audience for sequels. And marketing must be easier when you can just say, "The latest sequel to the smash hit, Hangry Corporate Beavers Move To Europe", or whatever?

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It completely depends on the genre. Character-based action thrillers like Jack Reacher and detective stories like Rebus lend themselves to long on-going series, fantasy tends to trilogies, psychological thrillers / "grip-lit" are usually stand-alones, etc.