Amazon’s New Series Pages

amazon book series
Is this really a useful tool?

Last year, Smashwords introduced a neat tool called Series Manager which allows authors to link books in the same series together for better discoverability. Well guess what? Amazon has now done the same thing. Supposedly. But not quite. Frankly – not at all.

To be perfectly honest, Smashwords outguns Amazon with this feature – by a longshot. I’ll explain why in a minute. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty first.

Unfortunately, there is a catch, the same as with Smashwords. If you have books that are in a series which are both self-published and published through a press (which uses a different KDP account), you cannot link those together yourself. You can only link the books under your control through your KDP account. To do that, go to your KDP Bookshelf (dashboard) Continue reading “Amazon’s New Series Pages”

Series vs. Serials

What is the real difference between a series and a serial? Is one merely a subset of the other? Perhaps the difference is largely semantic. Or maybe the lines have blurred a bit.

I like to try to make the distinction that a series is a set of books with the same main character or characters, with each book representing a self-contained story. With a series, it doesn’t matter much whether you read the books in order. There is no over-arching story. Nothing carries from one book to the next. The characters may not even age. My favorite example of a series is the Doc Savage books. Continue reading “Series vs. Serials”

Rapid Fire Releases

As a reader, I really don’t like having to wait for a continuing book in a series, especially if it’s a year or so. I get frustrated for two reasons: one – I’m usually desperate to know what’s going to happen and I can’t find out. And two – by the time the second book does come out, I’ve totally forgotten what’s happened in the first. I either have to re-read the first book or I just give up on the series altogether. More often than not, I chose the latter.

One of the beautiful things about being an indie author is that I get to choose when and how I will produce my work. For the two reasons above, I decided that I would go for rapid-fire releases for The Elements Trilogy. I didn’t want readers to have to wait and I thought it would be an intelligent marketing strategy. I made the commitment to release the books June, July and August of 2013, saving up my big marketing campaign for September. I decided it was a wise move to save up the marketing budget of three books and throw it all into one big trilogy campaign. Hopefully my plan will work. Continue reading “Rapid Fire Releases”

Character Arcs — Or, Where Were You Going With That Series?

What happens when you write a book and either people like the characters so much they ask you to continue writing about them, or the story’s too big for just one book and it turns into more than one? Well that, my friend, is what’s called a series.

Writing a series is a good way for a writer to establish him or herself in the heart and mind of a reader. If readers like the first book, then they’re more apt to purchase the second and so on. Plus, the writer begins to know and understand the main character (or characters) and is able to delve further into what makes them tick, bringing a depth to them that wouldn’t be possible in the length of one book.

Which brings us to the concept of character arc. In fiction, readers expect the character to change in some way by the end of the book. Change in protagonist = character arc. For example, if the protagonist starts out shy and insecure, then by the end of the story they should have at least given that character more confidence. But how do you handle character arc across an entire series?

That’s a bit tricky. Continue reading “Character Arcs — Or, Where Were You Going With That Series?”