Sequels and Series Books

I have said in this space that unless the first book is a best seller, writing sequels is for chumps. It is a well known fact that every book in a series sells fewer copies than the book that proceeded it, as readers drop out for various reasons. Thus, one needs a high initial base line in the first book in order to be able to accept the declining sales of the following books. Nevertheless, you often see writers writing, and selling or self-publishing a trilogy before the sales of the first book is known. And if it fails to sell, the remaining two books are dead on arrival. 

I ignore my advice. Of course, I do. None of my books are best sellers, and yet you will find that most of my books are part of one series or another. Three or four depending on how you count them. I wrote the what became the Bright Black Sea with the idea of it being a serial story of novellas back when Amazon was paying Kindle Unlimited books on a per book basis, rather than by the page. I could've released it as three novels, but I didn't want to see that inevitable decline in sales, so I bundled them all up together to avoid that heartbreak. The Lost Star's Sea was similar in size and structure, mostly because I just wanted a companion volume to be of a similar size. All I intended to write was the castaways story, but had to continue to fill the book out with other adventures.  I have since broken those two novels into a six book series on Amazon in order to make them audiobooks - they were too long for there auto-narrated process, and consider the originals now omnibuses. 

The sequels to Sailing to Redoubt were not planned, I just felt like writing more. The same goes for the sequels to The Darval-Mers Dossier they just, well happened. On the other hand, the Nine Star Nebula Mystery/Adventures stories where planned as a series. There was a "commercial" reason for this; they were something of a sequel to my best selling book by far, The Bright Black Sea. They were a return to that setting and featuring a younger version of a character from that book. But, as I said, none of my books are best sellers except relative to the average self-publishing author's sales. And still...

So why have I, and many other writers, written so many series books when it's such an iffy strategy? There are several reasons, chief amongst them, at least for me, is laziness. Subsequent books in a series are half the work, or less, of a new standalone story, since the characters and setting have been invented and developed already. All a writer needs to do for a new story is think of something else for them to do. However, it is also true that many authors have epic stories in mind, that they feel need three fat books to be told. I'm not one of them.

In addition, there is a sense of familiarity, even kinship, with the characters and the world a writer creates. There often is a relationship that develops between the author and the characters they bring to life. Characters develop agency, and with it, a sense of friendship and responsibility, a feeling that you own them more of a life then that one book. That said, many authors are cold blooded murderers of their creations, which I can't understand, but I guess it takes all kinds...

Both of these reasons, the laziness and the relationship between author and characters are independent of sales, and may well explain why a series is a series out of the gate, even prior it is released. Hope springing eternal. Writers hope that readers will buy the books, and love the characters and world as much as they do, and will demand more books. But that is almost always a bird in the bush at the start of a series. There are simply too many books being published for this dream to come true for many writers.

As I said, most of my books are part of one series or another. Of the 20 books (24 when counting The Bright Black Sea and The Lost Star's Sea as a six book series like it is in Amazon and Kobo) I've written, 8 books that can be considered standalone novels. But even then, there are relationships. Some Day Days and A Summer in Amber are set in our world, though perhaps 60 -70 years apart. Keiree, The Girl on the Kerb, and Beneath the Lanterns are all set in the Post-Solar-Age. The "Lorrian novels", Chateau Clare, Glencrow Summer, and the upcoming Some Small Dive, are set within a couple of years of each other and not only share the world, but a few minor characters as well. Plus, only A Night on Isvalar, Some Day Days and A Summer in Amber are books that do not fit into my larger "universe" of star systems settled by slower than light ships set out from Earth's solar system spanning civilization of the Solar-Age. 

But in my defense, my advice about not writing sequels is aimed at writers who hope to make money writing, which is to say, 99.9% of writers. I don't write to make money, I write to entertain myself, and hopefully, any readers who happen upon my stories. So, you see, I don't have to follow my own advice, because I'm not playing the game, as the game is usually played. Plus my sequels do as well as the originals, there is very little fall off, so if I feel that if want to write them, I can, and they will find their modest audience.

Though I said that every book in a series sell fewer copies than the one before, there can be strange exceptions. For instance, the third book in my Nine Star Nebula Mystery/Adventure series, Shadows of an Iron Kingdom, is the bestselling book of that series, and continues to out sell the others, for some unknown reason. Perhaps its title makes it seem associated with a game of that name. Or Gothic novels sell... And then there is the case of Glencrow Summer, which now consistently outsells Chateau Clare, though in this case, they were written to be standalones, so that less surprising that one book outselling any other in such a loose "series". Though why it does, is a mystery to me. Perhaps, once again, it is it's title or perhaps subject, summer being attractive. But I guess that's the business. Random House was named after the business.

I'm happy with my approach, which consists of writing books with open endings that I can add on to, if I care to. Plus,  I like writing a variety of novels in a specific "world" where I don't have to invent everything from scratch again. As I said a couple of weeks ago, inventing new worlds from scratch is a lot of work, work this lazy writer isn't inclined to do these days. Anything is possible, but I'm pretty comfortable in the worlds I've written already. In any event, you should not expect to see rayguns and spaceships in my future books.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 199)

THE SATURDAY MORNING BOOK REPORT

This week we have something different. Again. That's been the story of my reading year to date. I've been trying this and that. Some have worked, others have not. What I haven't found yet is another Brother Cadfael, Emma M Lion, Anne of Green Gables or Georgette Heyer, which is to say entirely reliable books to read.

I've been looking to my booktube to suggest books for me, and this entry is no different. Booktubers have these month-long "events" where followers of their channels are invited to read a certain type of book each month. One of those events is "June on the Range" where one reads westerns. And because I have a nice two month cushion of book reports in the can, it's June for this report.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The End of the Trail by Robert E Howard   C

As I said, for "June on the Range" I decided to read a western. Why not? I've read westerns before -Lonesome Dove and its to prequels, and some Zane Grey westerns years ago. The originator of this reading event is Michael K Vaughan, and since his favorite writer if Robert E Howard, and the library had a copy of this book, I decided to kill two birds with one stone; read a western, and give Howard another chance. I read his Conan novel for another booktube event last fall, I believe.

As the title suggests, this is a collection of some of his western short stories originally published in the western pulps of the 1930's. And as you can see, I found them okay. While they did not exceed my expectations, and I had no great expectations, knowing what to expect, they did meet them, which, these days, is a win. I'm sure the original audience found them to be very exciting reads - cowboys and gunslingers, miners and outlaws, guns blaze away, bodies riddled with bullet holes laying on the barroom floor in a pool of their blood. Cold-hearted fast draw killers meeting faster drawing gunslingers, and their end. Gals that the heroes fall in love with at first sight, and marry a day or two later, after they riddle a few bandits and cruel gunslingers with bullet holes and then ride off into the sunset. In short, the American dream.

Vaughan is a well and widely read person, and I suspect that Howard is his favorite for sentimental reasons, but Howard was a good writer within the limits of the genre and time, and the time he took to write each story. He was making something of a living writing, in the middle of the Great Depression as an author of all sorts of pulp stories. So, if you like fast, deadly action, fearless gunmen in desperate straights, and don't care all that much about the inner lives of the characters, you may well enjoy these stories. And well, they are short stories, after all, so one can't expect deep characters. He does, however, sketch something of the driving motives of his characters for each of the main ones. And being a Texan himself, the Texans are always the good guys, the best of the best, bravest of the brave, and the fastest gunslingers in the west. It is said that in Westerns Howard found his true interest and genre.

You know me. I won't waste my time on books that don't appeal to me. I wouldn't have finished this if there wasn't an authentic feeling for the time and place in these stories. The time and place being the depression years, the dirty 30's when they were written rather than when they were set. I found enough interest in these stories to read them all. Not great, but not all that bad.

Some Small Dive - The Cover

 

Above is a quick sketch of my first idea for a cover. I "pictured" it vaguely painted in a very loose, moody, and impressionist style, like some old painting of a jazz pianist. The painting would have wrapped around to the  back cover of the paperback book, with the front cover on the right. However, in sketching it to size, I found it difficult to fit the piano player on the front cover without making him, and all the other figures, very small.

Eventually, I turned the  mind's "camera" 90 degrees, and adopted a sort of Von Gogh style of painting - lots of sketchy color and some black lines. I'd seen pictures of painting he'd done in rooms and I believe a bar. The result is below.

It had the elements I was looking for, and I went with it for a while, though for the cover, it was cropped to eliminated the ceiling. I did feel that the black outlines were too thick. I could thin them out on the painting, or on the computer. Since, as you can see, I left way too much space on top for the title box, the painting did not work as a piece of art. It was out of balance. Given that, I decided to narrow the black lines on the digital copy, which resulted in a minor improvement for the cover. However by then, I had a growing conviction that the art did not really reflect my idea of the Bleu Moon, that some small dive. With the original as a digital copy in hand, I decided that I had nothing to lose by repainting the original piece of art, since it wasn't good art anyway.  Below is the revised version.

As you can see, I didn't really touch the figures, except for adding one in the foreground, along with two new tables. I also extended the lighted shelving higher and created a narrow strip with the paintings before reaching the ceiling. And then, after using it on the cover for a while, I decided the shelves were too high, so I did some work in Gimp to move the ceiling down again, reverting to the two shelves in the digital version. I had painted everything a little darker and more uniform, trusting the illuminated liquor shelves to keep the cover from getting too dark. In the end I really had to blow out the shelves to give the painting more "pop" since it will certainly print darker than what it looks like on this glowing screen. I shortened my usual box for the blurb on the back so it doesn't cover up the piano player. I didn't have much to say about the story anyway. I also did a fair amount in "post" adjustments with the painting. Working in Gimp I once more cleaned up and narrowed the black lines, added a missing barstool and fixing a figure, and as I mentioned, eliminated the third tier of the shelving in back. 

As of now, it's still in layers so I can still shift the painting around in the frame, and I can change the color of the title and blurb boxes, as well as change the size of the background image, but I think it's as good as it's going to get where it's at now. 

As I have mentioned in the past, I really can't "see" images in my mind. I can get a sort of muddy impression of what I would like to do, but no more. And it usually falls apart on contact with reality. That makes creating an image from the story rather difficult, as I have nothing more than an impression to go on. I think this cover, while not even close to my impression of the Bleu Moon, does, at least, suggest it, and that's about as close as I can expect to get.

Below is the ebook cover. I shifted the art a slightly upwards since I did not have to worry about covering up the piano player.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 198)

 

THE SATURDAY MORNING BOOK REPORT

This week we have another suggestion from Jen's Reading Life channel. This one is a novel about gardening.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell  B

This a short "Novel of the Garden." It is the life story of Bert Pinnegar, who, as a newborn, was left on the doorstep of the Mrs Pinnegar, a kindly soul and a cowman's wife. She, with six children of her own figured, "one more didn't matter," and took him in. 

He grew up loving and learning all about wild flowers at the side of the local teacher, Mary Brain, who would fearlessly cross farmer's fields in a quest for wildflowers while Bert, on the other hand, was terrified of farmers, since they would yell at him from across a ten acre field if they found him looking for wildflowers on their land. Thus, he collected most of his flowers along the disused canal. One year, at the Annual Flower Show he was awarded first prize by the young fiancée of the Manor house for his wild flower arrangement submission, because he picked waterflowers, instead of any old flowers put together in any old way. Several years later, when it came time for the local vicar to assign the students their jobs for the rest of their lives - mostly in farm work because that was all they had been educated to do, Bert refused farm work. He still hated farmers and farm work. Luckily that young fiancée, now Mrs Charteris, the lady of the manor, was present when the vicar was interviewing him, and remembering him from the show, offered him the chance to work in her garden. And thus began a lifelong relationship with the lady of the manor and her garden.

In the early years she taught him the Latin names of all the flowers, while he, under the tutelage of the head gardener, learned the trade from the ground up. Because he loved the work, he often worked after hours, which impressed Mrs Charteris, who, when the old gardener retired, promoted him to head gardener. 

This short novel tells stories of his life as he mastered his craft and built a garden that was the showpiece of the district over the course of nearly 80 years, from the 1870's to 1950. In addition, it chronicled the wider changes in society from the age of Victoria to the Cold war. The author was about the same age as his character, so that he too traveled through those days, and the story no doubt reflects his authentic reactions to those changes.

All in all, it is a quiet, lovely little story, told with humor, some sadness, and an enduring passion for the garden.

What Next?

 

What am I going to write next? Am I going to write anything next? Two interesting questions. Two questions without answers at the moment.

I certainly would like to be writing my next story. I love to write, and I have a 15+ year habit of writing for an hour or two, every morning, and sometimes at night as well. A habit that I have no desire to break.

However... It takes more than a desire and a habit to produce a story. It also takes more than a story idea to produce a story. You may first need a story idea, but then you need to be able to hang incidents and episodes on that idea to fill it out and arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Which is to say, you need a plot to go with the idea. At the moment, I am entertaining two story ideas, but alas, both of them have issues. Issues that may or may not be able to be resolved. I may very well need to come up with something else altogether.

Over the last 15+ years I've managed to come up with enough story ideas and plots to write 20 novels and 6 novellas. And these were not cookie-cutter formulaic 50K generic genre novels. It seems that, without really trying, I've actually been a rather prolific novelist, especially given that all these stories were written since I turned 60 years old. But it has always been touch and go when it comes to stories... I don't have an abundance of ideas like some writers. And then there is the fact that I'm not getting any younger. At 76 I might be forgiven in slowing down, though to be honest, I don't see any physical reason for doing so... knock on wood. But on the other hand, with 26 published stories, I don't feel like I have to prove anything to myself. It's have a legacy already. For what it's worth.

So, where does all this leaves us. To be honest, it leaves us still wondering what I'm going to write next, and when. 

Currently, I am exploring two ideas for novels, and have been for some time. However, neither of them are clicking. 

I've already mentioned one of the ideas some time ago. Back in April, which you can find a blog post entitled  A Bird in the Bush in which I discuss it. 

However, there is a big problem with this story idea. It's not the story. It's me. 

Blame it on my lack of youth, but at the age of 76, I find the scope of that story idea, Beyond the Iron Gate, and the prospect of writing it, daunting. It would involve inventing a whole new world, teeming with hundreds of different societies, and a quest that would take our characters through at least half a dozen of them, with even more suggested one way or another. As a fantasy I think it would have to run 150K words, a story length I could easily do ten years ago, but today... I far from sure I have the patience to invent and write a story that long. Or, honestly, care to. I've been writing novellas recently, and have come to enjoy that length. Their relative simplicity may've spoiled me.

A post or two ago, I said that every story presents a challenge, which is part of the fun of writing it. And this story would be a challenge. But I also need to be excited by the challenge, and in this case, I'm not. 

And then we come to story idea two, one which I have only hinted at. In this case, the challenge has been to come up with a satisfactory plot. While I have the first several chapters in mind, the premise is undercooked, so the opening chapters, it just peters out. I haven't been able to figure out where it goes and what my characters can do that would be fun and interesting. Though I've been trying every day, nothing brilliant as resulted. 

I'm beginning to think that I'm going to have to come up with an entirely new story idea.

Still, it isn't time to panic.

My plan has always been to have my next story fixed in mind by the beginning of October, ready to put down in words. The first draft takes me three to four months and three or so more to get it out the door. Ideally if I started writing my next novel in October, I could release it by late spring/early summer 2027. Which is well ahead of my goal of a novel a year. So, if it takes longer, oh well. There is no hard deadline to meet. As I said at the top, I like to write. My sense of urgency is really a desire to just have something to sit down and write every day. We'll just have to see if I can come up with something to do so. All I can say is, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I'm gong to have to come up with a new story. Somehow. Hopefully soon.

The Saturday Morning Post (No.197)

 

THE SATURDAY MORNING BOOK REPORT

These days I find books to read from watching the various booktube channels I look in on. My book this time is another book recommended by Jen's Reading Life as a summer read.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The Narrowboat Summer (AKLA Three Women and a Boat) by Anne Youngson  B

As I mentioned in the lede, this was proposed as a summer's read, and it is. I believe that Jen mentioned that not a lot goes on, that it is a fictional account of life on the cannels of Britain with a lot of little events and quiet drama. I enjoyed reading it.

The premise is that Sally has just left her husband of some 25 years. She doesn't know what she wants to do, but she does know she doesn't want to go on living with Duncan, a nice guy, but she wants something different. Then we have Eve, a senior engineer who was  just elected the scapegoat of the less than expected performance of the engineering company she had worked for, and which had been purchased by an American firm and has been let go. Both of them are walking down the tow path when they encounter a longboat from which a mournful sound is coming from. They stop to discover what's the matter. It proves to be a dog, that escapes when they try to help it, and before they decided what to do, the owner, Anastasia, and gruff elderly lady shows up. She tells them the dog will come back, and invites them aboard for a cup of tea. It turns out she has to get her boat to Chester by August, but she has to have some serious medical treatment, and can't get away. She proposes that the Sally and Eve take her boat up to Chester for her. Both Sally and Eve have left, or been pushed out of their old lives, so they decide to give it a go, with Anastasia staying in Eve's flat while she has treatment. All, slightly implausible, but if you run with it, you will be treated to a leisurely trip north through the network of cannels, meeting all sorts of people along the way, as Sally and Eve attempt to sort out what they want to do with their life, once the deliver the long boat to a boatbuilder in Chester.

Give the age of the characters, it would fall into the "cozy" category of books, but from what I've read in that general category, I think the writing is a step above the run of the mill cozy whatever, more thoughtful than most.

Interestingly enough, I suspect there is a little autobiographical input in this story as well. Youngson, with an English degree, when to work with the motor company, Rover, as a junior copywriter, but seeing that all the excitement was in the engineering department, so she not only worked her way into the engineering department, but up through the engineering ranks to become a managing director of a major line of vehicles as an engineer. Like Eve in the story she worked in a mostly male environment, like Eve she played an active role in ongoing projects, including working with Honda. And like Eve, Ford acquired Rover when she was 56, though unlike Eve, she was offered early retirement, which she took it. She, however, had been writing for herself all along. And so, after a few years, she went back to university, in part to broaden her circle of friends, earning a MA and then a Ph.D. in creative writing from Oxford University. After co-writing some books on the auto industry, published her first novel at the age of 70, And has has published two more since then. 

Some Thoughts on Some Small Dive

I know I promised the next entry in the long tease would be the cover reveal, but this quick sketch of my initial idea of the cover will have to do for today, since I want to talk about the story itself instead. 

First of all, I've signed off on the story, save for any inputs from my various beta readers. My wife is now proofreading it... but hey, she signed up for "for better or worse". You sometimes have to take the rough with the smooth. Once I've corrected the mistakes she finds I'll sent it along to any beta reader brave enough to tackle it. 

As for the story itself, the first draft came in a just under 80,000 words. The final draft came in at just over 84,000 words, for a 5% increase. This is half of my customary 10% (plus) word count inflation as I always add words through the second and third drafts. This less exuberant result is due, at least in part, to a concerted effort on my part to rein in my customary wordiness. The narrator of the story is a newspaper editor, and I wanted the narration to be sparse. Not quite telegraphic, but lean, or at least leaner than my usual fare. Though the word count still grew...

Eighty-four thousand words is a rather short novel for me. I generally shot for 100,000 words and end up longer. I want to give my customers their money's worth. My two shorter novels are Someday Days which comes out at 79.5K words and the Prisoner of Cimlye comes in a little short of 55K words. However, I believe that 80K words is considered a standard novel, if there is such thing. And since this is my version of a standard novel, eighty thousand words was my goal, so I pretty much nailed it.

For me, every story has a challenge. That's what makes it worth doing. My challenge for Some Small Dive was to write a story only filled with mundane events. This not what genre fiction is all about. It's about extraordinary things happening. As a result, I believe my usual audience will find this story boring. But boring was what I was going for. I think I nailed it. Why a boring story? Well, why not? That's what self-publishing is all about; doing something real publishers are afraid to do. Or are too smart to do. This approach is only viable when you're not doing it for money, like all publishers and most self-publishing authors. When you're not trying to get rich, you've got nothing to lose, no matter what you do.

The main question I was exploring in writing this story was; can I write a story without an antagonist, and in which everything that does happen in it is something mundane? A story in which everything that happens could happen to any of the readers without raising an eyebrow. And in doing so, can I keep them reading? And incidentally, can I keep writing it? That last question was touch and go. It took me a year and a half to do it. The former question is still an open one.

As I said in an earlier post, I can now see how literary fiction writers are so admired. Trying to make the ordinary seem interesting is quite a challenge.

I consider this story to be my literary novel. Well, literary-lite novel. I had no agenda, no great insights into human nature to get off my chest. All I really wanted to do was to bring these two lines to life; "I'll live a lush life, in some small dive." A story about a cozy refuge of good friends.

However, I find that it does has a theme running through it, as all literary novels must have. Mine, however, is emergent, which is to say, it originated not by design, but by the story as it developed. This theme is change. Everyone in the story faces the opportunity to change. Will they take it or pass? 

Boring or not, I know that there will be an audience for it. However, it is unlikely to be a large one. But there will be one. I read books like this one all the time. Some of the books I've been reading recently are as every bit as mundane as mine. And I've enjoyed them, though part of their charm is that they offer a glimpse of everyday life twenty, thirty years before I was born. That said, I also know that there will be people who find it terrible. To deal with this, I'm cutting them off at the past. My whole blurb is going to celebrate just how boring the book is in the name of honesty. Thus, the worst they can do is agree with me.

As I said, this project is close to being done. About all that remains is to inflict it upon the unsuspecting world. Despite the fact that I only released a novella in July, I see no reason to hold it back once all my beta readers read it or bailed, so I expect to set a release date in late September 2026 or early October. Life is too short to put off things. At my age, anyway.