I'd say generally no.
The real question is "can I sustain the reader's interest
after the initial 'ending'?" If you're just moving characters around to "tidy up" then my advice is don't do that. The test should be "is the reader left wanting to know what happened to Character X?" not "Let's get X to planet Y because that's where the next set of books are set."
I'd say - and tastes vary - it's OK to leave some doubt over the state of a character but avoid a total cliff-hanger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lake
But then there's another 3-4 chapters of cleanup I need to do after that with the main characters in order to setup for the followon sequel, "Ember Chronicles", which will lead to essentially two, possibly three endings to the book. I don't want to do all of that as an epilogue as that's too big for something like that. So I plan to keep it in the main body of the story.
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The phrase "cleanup I need to do... setup for the follow on" worries me. It doesn't sound like fun to read. It sounds like narrative legwork. And 3-4 chapters? That sounds like a lot.
I'd challenge you to ask yourself how much of those 3-4 chapters "need" to exist at all. And if they do, are they part of this book? Start the next book where that story starts and if there's a 'gap' in the situation between the start of that story and the end of this one then close it from the other end. If this book ends with Sam signing up to join the Space Marines, then next book can start with Sam as a fry-cook in an out of the way spaceport diner. You can answer the question of how he got there in that story. Also you'll start off with the reader intrigued.