Comments on: The worst things about a Trilogy

By: Glenda Larke

Glenda Larke — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 22:42:00 +0000

It must be tough to win a major prize early in your career. What do you do for an encore?

By: ink paw prints

ink paw prints — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 01:38:00 +0000

was thinking about the prize thing, and I think that the true prize would be being able to say that "[x] number of people read & enjoy my books, and slowly but surely other people are buying them and then buying more. I have a growing career as a writer."

Cos after all, most prize winning authors seem to vanish.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 19:43:00 +0000

Yeah…the publisher cited lackluster sales. ;-( Apparently book 1 was the second of a 2-book contract, so I guess they had no contractual obligation to continue when sales weren’t good enough. (Ironically, the editor has suggested the author do a trilogy! D’oh….)

By: Glenda Larke

Glenda Larke — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 16:21:00 +0000

Simon, I'm jealous. Sf writers have it better when it comes to length and series.

Kendall, you mean they advertised the book as a trilogy and then, after publication, announced there weren't going to be any more? Weird. And not playing fair with readers.

I do know of a NZ fantasy author who abandoned his trilogy after publication had started. He'd decided to do something else and just walked away. He found it easy because the publisher had only been signing him up for one book at a time...

But where's the responsibility to the reader?

I am looking forward to reading the Desai book, Sharon. Sounds like a great read. When i have this darn tome of my finished.....grr

By: bibliobibuli

bibliobibuli — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 07:23:00 +0000

actually kiran desai probably could have split her book into three volumes – there’s so much story there!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 08:31:00 +0000

Not even close, Glenda. ;-) Here's the worst:

I loved a stand-alone SF novel by a new (to me) author. I bought their stand-alone first book. Their upcoming series sounded cool, so I bought book 1 when it came out. (Support the author! Help sales numbers! Don't get burned again!). I finally read their first book & loved it, and started that book 1 of trilogy...only to discover, after 50 pages, that there won't be a book 2 or 3. ;-( (In fairness, Syne Mitchell said she tied most things up in book 1, so perhaps it doesn't count for this purpose. I think it counts, but I stayed out of the semantic discussion of what a trilogy is.)

Second0 worst would be if 2 books came out and then the publisher dropped the trilogy/series.

I think what you describe is a distant third worst, but I think I have more patience than most and I'm used to how it works (isn't everyone? ;-). Del Rey & Naomi Novik are exceptions to the spaced apart releases; they released books 1, 2, & 3 a month apart each in the U.S. I hope it worked out well for them.

I've never planned to wait till all three books come out before starting to read. I have read book 1, bought book 2, not gotten to it, and bought book 3 based on confidence in book 1.

But unless it was a favorite author, I doubt I'd buy more than one book in a series without even reading the first. I've probably done it once; there's always that pesky exception.... ;-)

By: Simon Haynes

Simon Haynes — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 23:26:00 +0000

I was lucky with my first three books – I’d written them all by the time a publisher expressed any interest, and it was ‘only’ a case of 18 months work to bring them up to scratch. The first two came out six months apart while the third has a gap of 10 months.

They’re only series books, though, not a trilogy. I intend to get the first draft of book four out of the way next month, thanks to Nanowrimo (Mine are 80,000 words per title, and I have 40k already.)

At the moment I’m just writing on spec – my contract was for three books, now delivered, and so it’ll be up to my agent to find a home for any others. However, I’m not sitting on my hands while he’s trying to get people interested, and if I have one or two more manuscripts in the bag by then I’ll be looking a lot better than if I only have a notebook with a few ideas in.