Quote:
Originally Posted by davidwfleming
David Munch,
I don't have personal experience on publishing a series but current wisdom seems to advocate putting out a series and making the first book free. (I'm not really a fan of this but I think my reasons are beyond the scope of this discussion).
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Yeah, I've also read that a few times on this site, and I personally don't really like the idea either. Give away the first couple of chapters from the first book, and you'll either hook the reader to buy the book and earn some money, or you won't gain anything anyway.
But what I was thinking was, that if a reader has read the first book in a series and liked it, I would of course assume that they are inclined to pick up the sequel(s) in the series. 3+ books later, they know your writing style and has a more 'personal' feel towards you, and would thus be more inclined to pick up a second random book from you, even though your last name is not Tolkien. And suddenly you have sold 4 books, instead of one.
And personally I feel that a long, epic-ish storyline, sticks better than stand alone stories. So, would having a series out have a bigger sales effect, than having each book contain a widely different background?