We all have fond memories of books we devoured hungrily in a matter of days, only to be left longing to acquire the next installment … like, yesterday. (Nancy Drew, anyone?) When a character, a setting or a storyline really works, it’s publishing gold.
Publishers Marketplace reports that book series were most popular in certain genres: Romance, mystery/crime, 
young adult, middle grade, science fiction, thrillers, and paranormal topped the list of genres with the highest numbers of multi-book deals.
Book series have always been the Holy Grail for authors and publishers, and the phenomenon has been especially pronounced in recent years with the ascension of Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, 50 Shades of Grey and other popular serial stories. The four books that make up the Twilight series are estimated to have sold more than 100 million copies! Now that’s publishing clout.
And why not? The advantage of serial books is that readers who’ve become attached to your title characters will much more easily warm up to a new book that features the characters they’ve come to love. They will have already discovered they like the genre, the pace, the writing style and other elements that drew them to the first book. From there, is far less of a leap of faith for readers to commit to buying your latest book.
Of course, not every storyline and character is ideally suited for a series. As an author who’s deeply attached to your character and story, how do you know? How do you develop a setting, a protagonist and multiple stories that can sustain readers’ interest from one book to the next?
Stay tuned …
