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Prequel that's supposed to be read before the final book...

The Second Moon

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I'm not sure if any of this will make any sense, but I need the prequel book to be read before the final book in a series. Particularly read before between book five and six in my 6 book series

How would I even label the prequel so my readers know when to read it? Book 6? (if it bumped up the number of books in the series to 7) Book 5.5? Book 5 and 1/2?

I know I am only on the first draft of the 1st book in the series, but this is seriously bugging me. What should I do?

Thank you.
 

lizmonster

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Short answer: You can label it Book 6 and release it in that sequence. This isn't at all unusual for a series.

Longer answer: You can't control in what order a reader picks up your books. You will have people reading out of order. My series only has three so far, and multiple people have read 2 or 3 without any knowledge they're part of a series at all.

Do a few practical things to make your desired sequence obvious, and try not to agonize over who reads what when. :)
 

Introversion

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To add to lizmonster’s reply: There are published series told out of chronological order. Wikipedia etc will tell you how to read such series in chronological order if you wish to.

So, as she says, just publish it and don’t worry.
 

neandermagnon

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What age range is it aimed at? Previously you've posted about MG stories you've written, as well as YA. If it's MG, then calling it book 5.5 might be a selling point. Crazy numbering happens in MG books, for example the 13-Storey Treehouse series by Andy Griffiths, numbered in multiples of 13 (26-Storey Treehouse, 39-Storey Treehouse... last count they were up to 117-Storey Treehouse...)

For older age groups then I agree with just calling it book 6 and having a series which is not in chronological order. Although I think one of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy books was subtitled as "the fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy" and that's named at adults. This would only work for comedy though.
 

The Second Moon

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It's MG ( I forgot to mention that) Thanks for the reassuring comments !

I think I'll label it Book 6 and bump up the series count.
 

K.S. Crooks

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If you haven't published book one yet then the prequel can be book one or book five. For the seven books of the Narnia series C.S. Lewis wrote The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (book 2) first. He wrote The Magician's Nephew (book 1) sixth. Book one explains why the Wardrobe is magic, how Narnia formed and other details. You can read them in the proper order, but it feels nicer when read in the order written.
 

lizmonster

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If you haven't published book one yet then the prequel can be book one or book five. For the seven books of the Narnia series C.S. Lewis wrote The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (book 2) first. He wrote The Magician's Nephew (book 1) sixth. Book one explains why the Wardrobe is magic, how Narnia formed and other details. You can read them in the proper order, but it feels nicer when read in the order written.

Worth noting that when I was a kid in the 1970s, The Magician's Nephew was published as Book 6 of the series.

Either way, OP: there's absolutely precedent for what you're doing, no matter how you number them.
 

The Second Moon

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So I've decided that there will be 7 books in total; 4 books featuring the present characters and 3 books featuring the prequel characters

It'll go

Book 1: present

Book 2: prequel

Book 3: Present

Book 4: Prequel

Book 5: Present

Book 6: Prequel

Book 7: Present

Is that too confusing or does it work?
 

benbenberi

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As others have mentioned, there are plenty of series out there where the order of publication and the order of internal chronology are completely different. If you explicitly number the books in your desired order, and you actually have them published in that order, there's no problem. (There will inevitably be people who get confused, or people who insist on reading things in a different order, or people who encounter the books in a more-or-less random order that has nothing to do with series or pub order, but all those things would happen anyway, regardless of anything you do, so not worth stressing over.)

By evenly interleaving the present and prequel storylines this way, though, it does probably increase the likelihood that future readers will be tempted to read all the prequels before all the presents. Many readers consider internal chronology the universal governing rule for reading order even when it doesn't make good narrative sense. Nothing you can do about that either, just be aware.