12-07-2011, 10:53 AM | #181 |
affordable chipmunk
Posts: 1,290
Karma: 9863855
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Brazil
Device: Sony XPeria ZL, Kindle Paperwhite
|
too much speculation about speculation to me. I prefer just scifi and fantasy. It's all fiction anyway.
|
12-07-2011, 11:04 AM | #182 |
Readaholic
Posts: 5,199
Karma: 90000000
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: South Georgia
Device: Surface Pro 6 / Galaxy Tab A 8"
|
If I like it, I read it. If I don't like it, I don't read it.
Apache |
12-07-2011, 12:36 PM | #183 | |
Guru
Posts: 902
Karma: 1660722
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Maryland
Device: PRS-650, PRS-600, PRS-350
|
Quote:
Of course, one could look to the torrents to find that one book. |
|
12-07-2011, 12:39 PM | #184 | |
Guru
Posts: 902
Karma: 1660722
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Maryland
Device: PRS-650, PRS-600, PRS-350
|
Quote:
|
|
12-07-2011, 01:08 PM | #185 | |
Chasing Butterflies
Posts: 3,132
Karma: 5074169
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: American Southwest
Device: Uses batteries.
|
Quote:
To be honest, I think it's sort of The Changing Face Of The Business. We've had a few series do mega-well for themselves -- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Twilight, Harry Potter, Hunger Games -- and so in standard business logic, this is the new thing. And, of course, I think publishers have always liked series in the sense that they're a sort of "guaranteed" income -- I keep buying Deathlands even though they're up to 102 now and I've read only about 30. Heck, some READERS like series, as long as it's done in the right way. I'm nearer completion of my stand-alone novel right now, and at least 3 of my beta readers have cheerfully demanded spin-off books for the dark-horse characters in the book. Tellingly, they all three demanded different books for different characters. If their desires were indicative of my hypothetical readership at large, I could have a series there, IF I had the inclination to follow it and did the work to do it properly. Those are tricky, but as a wanna-be self-publisher, I could make that decision with a little more freedom than if I'd signed on a dotted line promising three more books already. So there's that. But also there's a tendency in the publishing world to shove people into boxes and series do that very handily. It's not just "your first book was sci-fi, now you're a sci-fi author", it's full on "your first book was His Dark Potter Files, now you're that series from now on." |
|
12-07-2011, 01:13 PM | #186 | |
Loves Ellipsis...
Posts: 1,554
Karma: 7899232
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Device: Kobo Wifi (broken), nook STR (returned), Kobo Touch, Sony T1
|
Quote:
Andre Norton's Witch World is great for this. She used a great deal of an entire world...not in a "quest" but in multiple different stories and characters on different continents - some of whom know absolutely nothing about the other people, lands, etc. Mercedes Lackey used to do this but seems to have started to go the route of others now. |
|
12-07-2011, 02:25 PM | #187 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,552
Karma: 3799999
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Foristell, Missouri, USA
Device: Nokia N800, PRS-505, Nook STR Glowlight, Kindle 3, Kobo Libra 2
|
I don't think it is the changing face of the business, but rather the face that the business has had for a long time. I mean, Hardy Boys, Boxcar Children, etc? They've had long dragging series for decades.
|
12-07-2011, 03:43 PM | #188 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,016
Karma: 2838487
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Device: Ipad, IPhone
|
There really have been series for a long time. Often they start as stand alone novels that because of fan interest in the characters that prompt publishers and authors in writing series. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a standalone novel called a "A study in Scarlet" and people liked the main character so much that he began writing other Sherlock Holmes stories. When he grew tired of the character and killed him off, fans demanded that he come back and so the series revived and continued. ACD then had a complete other series with Professor Challenger.
Isaac Asimov did conceive his Foundation Series as a series of stories but then he extended it beyond its original end due to fan demand as well. |
12-07-2011, 04:07 PM | #189 | |
Guru
Posts: 977
Karma: 43409226
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Bay Area, CA
Device: Kindle 3
|
Quote:
|
|
12-08-2011, 01:56 AM | #190 |
Junior Member
Posts: 1
Karma: 10
Join Date: Dec 2011
Device: Kindle Fire
|
Hello, this is my first post so I will make this brief. I am a sucker for series...good series that is. I blame all of this on David Eddings who was my first great literary love with his 10 book epic Opus of the Belgariad and Mallorean. That being said a lot of the newer ones I think they could tell in one book without having to drag the plot out so long.
|
12-08-2011, 02:24 AM | #191 | |
Groupie
Posts: 150
Karma: 1087916
Join Date: Mar 2010
Device: PRS-500 and PRS-650
|
Quote:
|
|
12-09-2011, 12:03 AM | #192 | |
Loves Ellipsis...
Posts: 1,554
Karma: 7899232
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Device: Kobo Wifi (broken), nook STR (returned), Kobo Touch, Sony T1
|
Quote:
I'll get that one from the library. |
|
12-09-2011, 11:22 AM | #193 |
Freebie finder
Posts: 907
Karma: 2046472
Join Date: Jul 2009
Device: Sony, Kindle
|
The most annoying things about series for me are local libraries. Row after row of books on the shelf in genre fiction are book 3 or 13 of a series. The first is never in - sometimes the library doesn't actually have it at all.
|
12-10-2011, 07:20 AM | #194 | |
intelligent posterior
Posts: 1,562
Karma: 21295618
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Ohiopolis
Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2, Samsung S8, Lenovo Tab 3 Pro
|
Quote:
I'm with the OP; I don't mind a series here and there, but I've been feeling series fatigue for a while now. |
|
12-11-2011, 02:33 PM | #195 |
Junior Member
Posts: 4
Karma: 10
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Texas
Device: nook
|
I love discovering a series I like and realizing I don't have to wait for the next 5 books to be released because they are already available.
On the other hand..Sometimes I find myself finishing a series I have lost interest in because I have to know how it ends! |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Show series number but not if they aren't in a series? | M4cc45 | Library Management | 10 | 09-03-2011 07:35 PM |
Command Line problems: ebook-convert, ebook-meta with tags: --series, --series-index | omnivorous | Calibre | 4 | 11-07-2010 02:42 PM |
Different export filenames for series / non-series books? | HarryT | Calibre | 3 | 08-18-2010 12:30 PM |
Author, Series, Series #, Books | diokdin | Calibre | 19 | 05-14-2010 05:36 AM |
Pet peeve: series authors who introduce things in non-series books! | ficbot | Reading Recommendations | 12 | 02-06-2010 02:14 AM |