When you know you're writing for a limited readership
Sequels, series drop off, and all the feelings
There’s a weird feeling that comes along with writing a series: the sense that you’re writing for a smaller and smaller audience with every book. And if you think about it too much, it can feel really bleak. You might start to ask yourself . . . why am I working so hard? Should I bother? Who the heck is even going to know this book exists?1
I think we all know about series drop off — the fact that sales on newer books in a series will always be lower, because readers who took a chance on book 1 will have decided whether or not they want to continue reading.2 And no matter how good the book is, no matter how popular it becomes, there will always be some readers who decide not to continue.
How much drop off you see depends on the series, of course. But it always happens.
And so, when you sit down to write a sequel, you know you’re writing for a limited audience.
What we hope, of course, is that readers who weren’t aware of our first book will find the new one, decide they simply must read the whole series, and make the effort to acquire book 1 to start at the beginning. That’s why you’ll often see paperback releases (of books that were previously hardcover) about a month before the new book is released — because it’s likely to be on the shelves when the new book drops. That’s why the ebooks often go on sale, too.
Because of that fresh discoverability, you’ll probably get a bump on book 1. New sales. New fans. New readers who will — hopefully! — follow you all the way to the series conclusion.
It’s a nice boost in morale!
Ultimately, though, no one is going to read book 2 or 3 (or beyond) in isolation. The audience for sequels is made up of readers who liked book 1 enough to keep going.
And — particularly if book 1 didn’t become a massive blockbuster3 — that can be an incredibly sobering realization.
Once you see sales numbers on your first book, you might find yourself tempted to do the math. If whatever fraction of those people stick around, that’s x readers who will read this book. . . .
I know I’ve made the joke often enough that — by the time I get to the third book in a trilogy — I’m writing the finale for the five people who will actually bother to notice it exists.
But that’s not exactly true, is it?
How to deal with the feelings and write your darn book anyway
1. Remember, you started writing this series for a reason.
Hopefully that reason is because you love the story, the characters, the world!
This is where having good early notes can help. Maybe it’s a query letter that you can refer back to, a few lines about what drew you to the story in the first place, or music that reels you back into the story any time you hear it.
I use touchstones like this when I start to feel lost while writing — when the story starts to feel unfocused, or when I’m not sure what happens next. And I use them remind myself about why I’m writing the story.
For example, THE MIRROR KING was a tough book for me to write! I had to start over multiple times and throw away entire drafts. I felt overwhelmed for a lot of that book. But it helped to think about those first seeds of inspiration. I found why I’d started the story: the relationship between Wilhelmina and Black Knife, what they knew about each other, what they didn’t know about each other, and what bound them together. Remembering that allowed me to focus on what mattered to me — and write that. (Side note: as tough as that book was, it also got me my first starred review. It was definitely worth the effort.)
When you’re writing a sequel and find yourself thinking about audience size, you can use the same strategy to pull yourself back into the story.
This is what I did with both INFINITE and WHEN SHE REIGNS. By the time I was writing those third books, the first books were already out. The sales numbers were what they were. And — particularly with WHEN SHE REIGNS, since I had more experience by then — I had an idea of what size of readership (and publisher support) I’d have for the third book.
Compared to the hope/excitement of starting a new series, feeling like there’s all this potential for a bigger audience and success . . . well, going into those third books wasn’t the same. There was a lot more reality intruding on my fantasy.
But I went back. I thought about why I started those trilogies. A girl struggling to find meaning for herself in a world where she’s not wanted. A girl who loves her dragons so much she would do anything to save them, even things she didn’t believe she was capable of doing.
And it was in that yearning from the characters that I found the stories again — and the reason why I needed to finish writing them. I had to see that through to the end.
I started those stories.
They deserved to be finished.
And so does yours.
Also, I’m not the only one who thinks that.
2. There are readers who want it.
Numbers aside, there are readers who connected with your story. They love it. It’s their personality now. Whether or not those readers ever reach out to you and tell you how much your story means to them — they still exist.
It can be so easy to get caught up in how many people won’t read our sequels. I get it. Oh boy do I get it. But don’t worry about the people who won’t read the book.
Think about the readers who will.
Those readers took a chance on the first book. Now, they’re trusting you to deliver a good sequel.
They stuck with you. The least you can do is make it worth it.
3. It’s good for your career to do your best.
Let’s put feelings aside for a moment and think about it like professionals. It is in your best interest — long term — to write a good book, to finish the series with all the skill and attention you began it with.
For one thing, you never know who’s going to read to the end and tell thousands of new readers about your series. Yeah, there’s still going to be series drop off, but now you’re likely to have a lot more people reading all the way through.
Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if you’d just phoned that last one in?
Also, you are a professional. Being an author involves a lot of feelings, it’s true, but your agent, editor, and publisher all took you on expecting a certain quality of work. Maybe this series isn’t performing like you hoped (although I bet it’s doing better than you think it is), but don’t let your team lose faith in your ability to write a great book. At some point, you’ll probably want to sell another book — or series — and now is when you show them you are committed to telling a good story the whole way through. And that you can stick that ending.
Okay, so you’ve written the very best book possible. For yourself, for the five people who will read it, and to prove to your publisher that you are a professional, darn it. Now what?
Well, you give it the best chance you can.
Remember what we talked about earlier? With sequels getting new attention for the first book? Yep. It’s time to use the release of your new book as an excuse to talk about the first one again. Only now, you have a partial/whole series to add to it.
When you pitch your book to someone — whether it’s at a signing, a conference, or on an airplane — start with the first book, the setup and conflict there. When you’ve got them interested in the first one, you can say something like, “The second book just came out,” or “The third book really explores the consequences of the main character’s choices.” You don’t have to share everything about it, though. Just note that the sequel(s) exist(s) and the story builds in interesting ways.
And if your series is finished, absolutely mention it’s a finished series. Every time. There are readers who won’t pick up a book if the series isn’t finished, so now is your opportunity to get those readers to take a chance on you.
If there’s a new format being released for the previous book, give that some attention! I’m really guilty of not doing this, honestly. I haven’t used my paperbacks nearly enough. (In fact, I have been known to forget about them until a box arrives or, in one case, I found myself wondering when the paperback was coming out and checked online to realize it had released a week prior. Oops. Do better than me.)
This is also a great time for the digital edition for the first book to go on sale. You can ask your editor about it! Just make sure you promote it: Read the first book super cheap before the sequel comes out!
I know this is a hard topic to think about. Our careers depend on our creativity and passion. But our creativity and passion can feel drained pretty quickly once numbers are applied.
This is why it’s so, so important to write for yourself, first. Shut out things that don’t help you write the best book possible. Does that mean not checking Goodreads? Or BookScan? Does it mean putting your social media on hold? (We’ve talked about social media!)
If that’s what it takes, then do it. (I mean, shower regularly and feed your cat, but you know what I mean.) Authors control so few things. But it is within our power to write a great book — no matter what size audience it might have.
How do you deal with the series-drop off feelings? What do you do to give your sequel its very best shot?
In this post, I’m speaking about series sold under one contract. Series sold as individual books can face similar problems, but the major one is: does the author even get to write the later books? If a publisher doesn’t see a large enough audience for the followups, the author may face getting a smaller advance for those books — or no offer at all.
That’s a post of its own — one I don’t think I’m qualified to write. So again, for this post, assume a multi-book contract that contains the entire series.
And, of course, the folks who haven’t decided if they want to read the rest of the series because they haven’t read the first one yet. It’s on their shelves, waiting. They’ll figure out whether they want to get the next books whenever they get to the first one. Some day.
This is nothing to be mad about. We’ve all have books we’ll get to one day.
Okay, so most of us.
I adored this post and have had these bleak/sobering thoughts myself many a time. You have so much great advice in this post.
This may be why I love companion novels so much. They reward the fans with more of the same world and/or certain characters while also delivering a stand-alone novel that NEW readers can enjoy. I often wonder why pubs tend to treat companions just like sequels. Because in my mind they’re not. (Also worth noting that my experience could be coloring this. I’ve written a grand total of one companion in my career and it was treated like a sequel.)
Thank you so much for sharing, Jodi! Are those your books in that beautiful photo with the book spines out? I'll take a look online now :)