[00:13] Rachel: Hey, writers.
[00:14] Emily: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
[00:18] Rachel: I'm Rachel.
[00:19] Emily: And I'm Emily.
[00:20] Rachel: And today we want to talk about when to write or reject a series. This is with a very special guest who we love and we're so excited to have here today Louis Georstadt. We cannot wait to talk about this with you. Lewis. Before we jump in, could you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and why we're here talking about a series?
[00:42] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah. So we're here because I have a book coming out which you've been very adamant that I need to actually promote. I'm sure as people listen to this, they'll notice that I'm a sort of low key, anxious person who doesn't talk about my own work very much, but for the sake of intros, I'm Louis Dorstead. I'm an editor and book coach who works over at the Novelsmithy. I help scrappy genre fiction authors master their craft and find their readers. And I'm a absolute crippling nerd about writing craft and story structure, which I'm really excited to get into with you all.
[01:19] Emily: Lewis is the author of so many writing craft books that are amazing. How many have you written and published? What number is this, do you know?
[01:28] Lewis Jorstad: So this upcoming one is called Beyond Book One, hence series, and it's my 7th book.
[01:35] Rachel: That's amazing.
[01:36] Emily: It's so cool.
[01:37] Rachel: That is amazing. I have to say, whenever I have a craft question, I go to the novelsmithee. I like, look on your website.
[01:46] Lewis Jorstad: Are you serious?
[01:47] Rachel: Yeah, I'm serious.
[01:49] Lewis Jorstad: I do that sometimes with y'all's website. Like, I've been looking for anything on character development. I'm like, let's see what Rachel and Emily to have to say right now.
[01:57] Rachel: This was on your website last week looking at negative character arcs. I was like, I need some examples. What does Louis talk about?
[02:04] Lewis Jorstad: Oh, man, I am a sucker for examples. I have to like my beta reader, bless her heart, going through this book was like, you have got to tone it down. There are 10,000 words that is just examples, and it's too much. In a book that's only 30,000 words, it's too much. That's great.
[02:24] Emily: Examples are so important.
[02:26] Rachel: They are. I love them so good. I think that's what takes really like, okay, this is knowledge that is helpful kind of craft books to craft books that make sense, that actually help writers, is when they have examples that are laid out. Here's how it works. Here's how you should do it. I've read both, and I always find that I have a lot more actionability and it sits a lot better. It absorbs into my brain a lot better when the examples are good, when the examples are there.
[03:00] Emily: So go to Lewis's books for craft examples.
[03:02] Lewis Jorstad: Yes. It's always easy to talk about something in think or at least some of the pushback that I've gotten from writers in the past is, well, yeah, that works in theory, but it doesn't really apply to me. And don't be wrong, there are outliers there are exceptions to every rule. But I will say in all my years as an editor, I have met very few exceptions to the rule. And usually when writers come and I don't mean that as an insult, I was in that place as a young writer too. But usually when writers come to me with like, well, this works in theory, but I don't think it applies to me, they just haven't seen an example that clicked with their brain yet, where they were like, oh, this is kind of what I'm trying to do. I finally see how this works. I see how this makes sense. So, yeah, slightly tangential to the topic of the podcast, but hard agree examples are life.
[04:02] Rachel: Totally the topic of the podcast. Write or reject a series. What does that mean?
[04:09] Lewis Jorstad: Why this so kind of to the point I just made? A lot of writers feel that pushback of like, well, this is what's expected of me, but it's not necessarily how I'm thinking of the story. And part of why I reached out to you all with this topic is a big part of this upcoming book, beyond book one is that there are ways to write a series, but not all series are going to look the same. And that, I think, is an important point because I think there's a lot of pressure out there, especially for anyone listening to this, who's maybe looking towards a career as an author, whether like full time or even just part time. If you're writing to sell books and to get to be read, one of the big pieces of advice I feel like a lot of us get is that, well, you need to write in a series. Like, you can't make money unless you're writing in a series. Standalone novels don't sell standalone novels. You can't advertise them, they don't promote well. And a lot of that, I think, is rooted in truth. But I don't think it's quite as cut and dry as maybe it seems. And so I'm sort of excited about this topic because there are times when it really makes sense to write a series and there are times when the story you think isn't a series might actually be a series underneath the surface, but there are also totally valid times to say, I'm going to honor this story's natural endpoint. Like, I don't need to stretch it into a series. Maybe another idea down the line would fit better as a series for me.
[05:47] Rachel: Yeah, that makes total sense. I think this is a question that a lot of writers have because they want to continue to make money off of their work. And they should. Writers should make money off of their work, which I know we're going to talk about, but then that question muddies, what does the story actually need? So it sounds like getting this book beyond Book One and reading it is going to help them answer this question should this be or does it better serve your book to be a standalone? Or how do we look at planning it into a multiple book series?
[06:24] Lewis Jorstad: It's sort of funny because I actually just finished the final formatting for a chapter that the opening of the chapter is how I ended up naming the book. Yeah, beyond Book One is a very literal interpretation of the content of the book.
[06:40] Rachel: Nice.
[06:40] Lewis Jorstad: Okay. There's a whole chapter on what do you do when you have a story and you want to turn it into a series, but you don't know how to go beyond that initial book? And there are a lot of ways to approach it. Again, kind of like we were saying with examples, not every example will click with every person's brain, not every method will click with every person's brain. But I try to cover at least sort of a spread of ways to sort of mentally attack the issue and sort of find a path, because part of sort of the first section of the book, kind of like how I said, I'm such a nerd about story craft. This book hasn't been in development for like three years now. I went down a multi year rabbit hole.
[07:31] Rachel: Love it.
[07:32] Lewis Jorstad: Of the different sort of types of series because I think a lot. So as a reader, you might not necessarily notice this as much because I find a lot of readers don't read as widely as we do. As authors and writers, they tend to read the genre or the genres, maybe one or two that they like. But for us, we tend to read really widely. Like, almost every writer I know reads in a wide variety of genres. And so you might read The Lord of the Rings. Well, The Lord of the Rings one eight month stretch because it's a very long series. But then after that, you might read The Kiss Quotient, and then you might read A Song of Ice and Fire, and then you might read The Graceling Realm series, and you would look at all those and think, technically, these are all series, but they don't look anything alike, they don't function alike. The story does not unfold in a similar way. And so a big part, sort of the genesis of this book was looking at series and realizing that there are a couple really clear sort of categories that most series fall into. Again, there are always outliers, but as a general rule, like nine out of ten series I found were either a sequential series. So that's like Lord of the Rings, it's one big story. It's told across a handful of sort of large installments episodic series, which are sort of a weird one. And I think they were popular in the past and sort of fell out of favor and are sort of rising in popularity now with like Tapas and Kindlevella and the serialized format that more people are moving into. But an Episodic series is basically it's that same sequential series but told in much smaller installments. So a sequential series might tell one big story across a trilogy. An Episodic series might tell one big story across 20 books, but each of those books is only like 10,000 words. It's like a small little bite. And so you have a lot more room to sort of duck out of the main plot to get into slice of life stuff, to explore side quests, just have some episodes that are mostly character studies. They don't have to be like laser focused on that main plot. There's a balance to strike, but that's sort of the general rule. And then static and anthology series are the ones that I think kind of buck the trend. What a lot of people I say this as a fantasy author, so that's sort of my bias, but buck the trend of what a lot of people think of as series. A static series would be like Jack Reacher or James Bond. Super common in mysteries and thrillers where the plot and the protagonist is know, they don't change a lot from book to book. You just get to have that same setup over and know, you get to solve a clever mystery, you get to go on a daring mission in every book. And little pieces might sort of carry over like, oh, we met this character in book three, and they pop up again in book six. But it's not integral to telling the story. You can kind of jump in wherever. And then anthology series sort of take that to the extreme. That's sort of the realm of romance novels where you can't really like well, I don't want to say you can't. I'm sure there are ways. It's a delicate proposition, it's a little complicated, but usually a romance series isn't going to stretch one protagonist across the whole series because kind of the point of each book is you get that happily ever after. And so instead you end up with an anthology series where it's a different plot and a different protagonist in every book, but they're connected by this sort of larger overarching concept. Like it's the same world, it's the same family, it's the same trope what have you. And so kind of the point of all of that. Why I'm really excited about those different categories and finding sort of terminology to describe them to people is that when I'm thinking of one student in particular, I was teaching a workshop on plot and we were sort of chatting afterwards. And one of the points that I made during that workshop was that the best plots tie together everything that they set up in the beginning, by the end. That's what creates that sort of rush of emotion at the end of a really good story. And that that's true whether you're writing a standalone novel or like a 20 book series. That ending still needs to build off of what you set up at the beginning. And they sort of were chatting with me afterwards and said, I want to write a series. I know that it's the right thing for my career. It fits my goals as an author. I have the stamina for it. They're a very dedicated writer. They're good at sort of getting in the chair and maintaining their momentum, dealing with writer's block. They're like, I can do it, but I can't write the next Game of Thrones. Like, I'm not here to tell this gigantic story that doesn't fit the stories I want to tell, so can I just not be a series author? And I was so excited to finally have the language to explain to them. What you're looking at is probably a static or an anthology series. You don't have to tell this gigantic tale. And they were in the fantasy genre as well, and so they were used to reading these long epics. And I was able to pull out a bunch of examples. I know I mentioned the Graceling Realm series, but there are a lot of ways, even if the norm is one thing in your genre, there are a lot of ways to tell a series. Write a series that can feel true to the story you have in mind and still confer a lot of the same benefits that might make you want to write a series in the first place from a career perspective or a strategic perspective, right?
[13:33] Rachel: Yeah. I love this terminology. I think if you are well read or well watched, even, you start to pick up on the notes. Like, you can get a sense of them. But to have a language to say, oh, I don't want to write this really long epic, I would rather write an anthology series. Once you say that, you can start to prep for that in your head and that becomes really powerful to help you plan for that. Plan for that and decide what are your goals for this series? Where do you want to take it? What does that look like? Knowing the language is so critical. I mean, it seems like so small. But I think we found the same thing in our work. That being able to name it cements the ideas in people's head and gives them a path to forge forward.
[14:28] Emily: Yeah, it also and it gives you permissions. Yeah, permission. That's exactly what I was going to say. Permission. And also the ability to think outside the box. I feel like so often, especially in certain genres, there have been certain trends for what series look like. I feel like for so long, a romance needed to have a happy ending.
[14:46] Rachel: Right.
[14:47] Emily: And now we're seeing more and more that romances. Can we're seeing a lot of romance duologies, right, where the first one isn't happy and the second one is and same with fantasy adventure. I so often hear from writers like, well it's ya fantasy. So it has to be a trilogy, right? And it doesn't have to be that doesn't but it also doesn't have to be know George R. Martin's and Robert Jordan's like massive epics either, right? It can be.
[15:21] Lewis Jorstad: You can't all be Brandon Sanderson.
[15:22] Rachel: Oh my gosh.
[15:27] Lewis Jorstad: We can't all manage.
[15:29] Emily: But like I think one of the authors that just came to me is Leigh Bardugo because I think she has really taken this she's done this mixture of series and anthologies in this world where she's got duologies and trilogies all kind of mixed together. And I think that it's a fun way to be able to stay in this world that you've created and market to people who love this world that you've created without that pressure, like you were saying, of needing to know how to wrap up the end before you begin. And that just kind of reminded me. We talked to a writer recently who is nearing the end of her first book and realized she needs another one and she thought it was a standalone but is realizing it's not. She tends to lean on the Panther side of things. She's not a big plotter and I think that that expectation of if you're going to have a series all the stuff at the beginning has to wrap up at the end can be really overwhelming. Especially for people who don't tend to plot very intricately. What I'm looking for because it's so much pressure, you're like I'm making decisions now that have to come back in book seven, right? And I think that can be. There are obviously ways to work around that. And obviously, I think George R. Martin is like a self declared panther.
[16:53] Lewis Jorstad: Oh, he's a very aggressive Panther. Which worries me for.
[17:01] Rachel: A kind way to put it.
[17:03] Lewis Jorstad: So it's funny you mention Labor Dugo. She's actually one of the case studies in the book. So what you were describing is at least what I label in the book as an extended. I feel like that's sort of becoming more part of our lexicon as writers kind of thanks to the comic book world. Because extended universes have been the standard forever in comic books and with MCU becoming just this behemoth, I think more writers are starting to realize what that means. But she know the Grishaverse is a great example of an extended universe because if I'm remembering correctly, she's got the main trilogy and then Shadow and Bone and then two different duologies I believe is King of Scars a duology or trilogy?
[17:53] Emily: I was just going to ask that. I'm not sure.
[17:55] Lewis Jorstad: Either way, she's got three sort of series and a graphic novel and a couple of other smaller things all living in this larger universe. And what's kind of cool about that is that each of those series work as series. Like, if you took them out of the larger universe and just looked at them on a structural level as their own thing, they still hit every beat. They still work, they still tie things up. They're satisfying to read. Like as a reader, you could just read that and be done. But for readers who are really dedicated, who are really excited by this world, that extended universe kind of opens up ways for them to get more of it. Even if the for instance, the Six of Crows duology, I don't believe follows the same protagonist, the Shadow and Bone. No, it's been a while since I read it.
[18:48] Rachel: Yeah.
[18:49] Emily: And we were talking a little bit about market earlier. And obviously you should make the decisions for your story that the story needs.
[18:56] Rachel: Right.
[18:56] Emily: But from a market perspective, it's so interesting because I read Six of Crows first, even though it came out second, because there's very little overlap. And there's no overlap that's critical to understand in order to understand the story that you're dipping into. And I think that that allows for if you have a series, what did you call the series that's like just all one big story?
[19:22] Lewis Jorstad: Sequential.
[19:23] Emily: The sequential. So with a sequential series, people have to read those books in order, which means you have to market to right. Once you sell book one, you have to market to the people who've read book one to read book two. Right. And you're moving in that direction versus, like, Leigh Bardugo or even Bradbent they who does a bunch of romance duologies in the same like you can market an entire duology to people who've never read your other stuff because they're not necessarily connected, which is, like a fun way to bring people into your world without needing them to read something else you've marketed first, which is just kind of I think that's one of the fun perks of the extended universe situation.
[20:06] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah.
[20:07] Rachel: And anthologies like, I've been on a mafia romance kick, and there are two huge mafia romance. This is done frequently, but to call out like, two huge mafia romance authors, michelle Heard and Neva Altaj, their anthology series can be read in any order. So if you pick one up, you're like, oh, this is cool universe, I'm going to go back to book one. Or I can jump ahead to this other one and then I can go back and you don't have to read them in a specific order. But like, the reach that these authors are able to get in marketability because they planned it that way, they really are like, I love your terminology of an anthology series, but these books are standalones. They're just in an extended universe. And because it's romance, it works that way because you're looking for a happily ever after at the end and then you can move on to go back to the first book or move forward to the 8th book. And just fun way to read.
[21:09] Lewis Jorstad: For anthology series in particular, I've been using the Bridgerton series a lot.
[21:13] Emily: I was just going to say that.
[21:15] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, everyone knows it right now because of the Netflix series. I lowkey loved everything except for the ending of book one. The ending of book one was a little dicey, but other than that, ten out of 1019.
[21:29] Emily: 90S.
[21:30] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, 1990s, that was a time. But one really cool thing I think about anthology series that I love, that you called out was that they do operate very standalone, but they are still series like, they are still bound together in some way. And I think Bridgerton is a great example because the way they're linked together is kind of obvious. But it's still like when you call it out, it helps to sort of see it because you have that common family. So you're meeting characters in book one who are, like, eight, and by the last book in the series, they're an adult. And now it's their romance. And you've sort of gotten to see and some of them don't appear. For multiple books, and then they come back, or some of them aren't there in the first couple, and then they show up. And sort of to your point about it's scary to have to plan all that, especially as a panther from the beginning, but you don't necessarily have to plan it all from the beginning. It's just sort of being able to look back at what you've written and see what little threads can I sort of carry over? So in that first book of the Bridgerton series, we get to hear a little bit about Anthony. He's the oldest son, he's kind of a man whore. He's living his best life, good for him. But there's a sort of implication of the pressure that's on him. And so it feels really natural in the next book that we then get to pick up with that and we get to see his side of how that's affecting him. And it might be that it's possible she planned it, but it's possible she didn't plan that in the first book. She just when she went to write the second was able to look back and say like, okay, well, what can I draw on? Like what is existing already that I can play with in the.
[23:18] Emily: Like so often I think writers have this pressure to make the perfect or the right choice and that's just like not how creativity works. There is no such thing, right? And I think this is how probably I suspect George RR. Martin writes, where you establish stuff, right? You give Daphne in Bridgerton number one, an older brother who's kind of a jerk and has a lot of pressure on him and then you have that character to draw from. When you get to book two, whether you plan to do that or I think it's hard to trust your gut that decisions you're making in early books will be interesting fodder that you can create into plot points and characters and other things that are happening later in the series. But I have seen it happen over and over and over and over and over again and that's how it works. Your creativity builds on itself. So, yeah, I love that perspective of we're not trying to make all of the decisions about the series before we write it. We would never write.
[24:20] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, and it's also why I really push anyone who's thinking about writing a series to give your secondary characters a little bit of extra love. Like give them some love regardless, because that's fun. But if you're thinking in the back of your head, even if you're not sure if you're thinking, I think I would want this to be a series. Your secondary characters are so powerful as room for those future books, like whether you end up with an anthology series where they become the protagonists of future books, or even if you end up writing a sequential duology that you maybe weren't entirely sure you were planning for at the beginning. I like to use The Hunger Games as an example. And again, I don't know how she planned or did not plan it, but that first book feels very complete. Like you could have kind of left it there. But what she did really well is that that first book was complete. It wrapped it all up. There was a nice bow on it, but there was that sort of simmering undertone of like this will have ripple effects that will continue out into the world and that could have been it. But that gave her sort of an open door to go through to expand it into a longer series, and she was able to build a trilogy from that because that initial there were enough interesting side characters, and there was an interesting sort of world underpinning all of it. So that we end that sort of smaller. Smaller, I say, as they are fighting to the death. But you know what I mean, that smaller conflict of the first book and there's that sort of natural continuation of yes, but how is this going to kick things off in the rest of the world? Like to see these people defy this power structure, what does that mean for the larger world? And yeah, there's so many things you can draw on. There's side characters, there's culture in that way. I also like to talk about prequels because I think prequels sort of follow their own rules. They're not part of the series, but they are. And it can be a little weird, but prequels are a great way for someone who's written a novel that feels very standalone to actually turn it into at least a duology. Because a prequel can be almost anything as long as you are binding it back. A prequel could be you made an offhand comment about like, oh well, that was part of the Spice Wars and you're just like never bring it up again. Prequel time. What were the Spice Wars and suddenly Dune? Any offhand mention can become another story if it sparks ideas for you.
[26:59] Rachel: Yeah, I love that. I feel like we could keep going, but I do know that there are a couple of things we want to touch on. So I want to circle back to something that you mentioned earlier, which was you started to talk about the benefits of writing a series if we haven't touched on I know. I feel like we've danced around them, but what if we dive a little bit deeper into that as people are thinking about, well, what do I want to do? What would be the benefit of writing a series?
[27:30] Lewis Jorstad: So series are purely from just a storytelling perspective. So for anyone who's excited because they have this really big story and they have all these characters they want to explore and they want to talk about the Spice Wars and there's so many things and they're just excited, a series gives you a lot of room to play regardless of what type of series you write. Obviously there are sort of best practices to think about for each different type. But as a general rule, a series gives you a lot of room to just tell the story, to build up to really big moments, to explore different characters, to go to different places. Sometimes that just won't fit in like an 80,000 word standalone novel. Like it just yeah, it just won't comfortably fit. But on sort of the I think the reason a lot of writers are told they should write a series is for career reasons. Not saying that you can't sell a standalone or that standalones can't be very lucrative for their authors because they absolutely can be. But most career authors who are very successful have a long running series that is kind of the base of a lot of that success. Again, there are outliers to every rule, but that is kind of generally true. And so for writers who are really looking to make this a career and to sell books and to sort of make some money, whether that's a full time job or a part time job or whatever it may be, a series is easier to sort of nurture a readership for, because readers who read that first book, no matter what type of series you're writing, if they enjoyed it, if you wrote a good book, which obviously I think all of us are striving for, even just for our own satisfaction, if you wrote a good first book, you have a pretty high likelihood that they'll continue into the next book. And that power of familiarity, that power of that open loop. So The Hunger Games, again, it tied up that story pretty. Nicely. But there was that open question of there's still all this other conflict brewing and what might happen with that. That is a really powerful thing to sort of pull readers through the series with. And because of that, you really only, again, depending on the type of series I know you mentioned the mob romance, you can jump in at any point, you can sort of market any point in the series. But a lot of times authors will really aggressively promote and market and advertise that first book because they're relying on what's called read through. So read through is just a percentage of readers who read book one who make it to the end of the series. And as sort of a really general rule, a well written series will usually have about a 50% read through or higher. If it doesn't, that might be a sign that there are some things to look at, like packaging. Is the COVID really fit for the genre? Is the blurb honestly portraying the book? Is there a weird cliffhanger that readers aren't liking? But generally you're looking at 50%. And so if you have, say, a ten book series, every ten readers who read book one, on average, you'll sell another five books or you'll sell another, what's, nine times five, you'll sell another 45 books on the back of those initial ten. And that's incredibly powerful because spreading your promotion across ten standalones is a lot harder than centralizing it on one first in series.
[31:10] Rachel: Yeah. So I have a question here, and this has been mulling in my head. Do you think one's intended publishing path should play a role in their decision here? So, for example, like those mafia romances that I was talking about in Michelle Heard's universe, she has three series of five books and they're all in the same universe. So it's 15 books, basically, and they're all standalones, they're all in the same universe and they kind of follow different generations of mafia people anyway. But she is a self published author and she is super popular on Instagram, Reels and TikTok. So her marketing, the way that she markets is like she can market any book and if you find one, you're hooked, you're hooked in because of the way that she's planned it and her publishing path and her author business. But I don't see that potentially working the exact same if you were writing a sequential series or if you were going to go like a traditional publishing path where you're releasing in a different I guess maybe that's probably my question. Do you think it makes a difference in what your intended publishing path is?
[32:33] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, I definitely think it does. What I shared just before this was sort of the general principle of why series sort of generally work, right? But the specifics of every series will be different. So marketing a fantasy duology is going to be different than a five book romance anthology series. Or than a ten book Sci-Fi episodic series, or then marketing Jack Reacher, which is like 25 books, I think, at this point, somewhere in that range, what that looks like will always be a little bit different depending on the specifics of your series. And is one place where I really recommend looking to the other authors who are doing something similar to you. So, again, part of why I think it's really helpful to have language to sort of define these is that you can say, okay, well, now I understand that I'm writing a static series. And so I know that I can look to Jack Reacher and James Bond and Nancy Drew and all these other static series and see, well, how do they market those books? What does that look like? And you can look, how do the traditional authors tend to market it? How do the self published authors tend to market it? Where do you fit on that spectrum? That's something that I really encourage people to not just look at other books in your genre, but talk to other authors in your genre. If you can network with people that is more meaningful than any promotion, like any advertising you might buy, is to actually meet and work with other people who are in a similar place, but to kind of speak to the traditional versus self publishing issue. My work is primarily focused to self published authors. And so for anyone who ends up picking up the book, you'll see that sort of perspective there. I'm mostly talking to self published authors when we get into promotion and things of that nature, all of the sort of structural points, the different types of series, like, what do you need to think about in terms of your plot or your characters that should apply regardless. Yeah, but my understanding is that for traditionally published authors, the way you write your series, the practical act of writing it is a little bit different because a lot of traditional publishing houses don't really want you putting the cart before the horse. Like, if you roll up at their doorstep with like, look, I wrote this five book mafia romance series and it's all done and I'm ready to publish it, they might be like, Hold up, we don't even know if book one will sell. And they might be more skittish about that. Whereas if you come to them and say, hey, I have a really good first book and plans for four more, that might work a little bit better. Whereas if you're self published, it's really what fits your risk tolerance. When we talk about writing style in the book, that's a big part of it, is like, what is your risk tolerance? Are you comfortable risking the time it takes to write five books all at once? Or are you comfortable risking the chance that you might write yourself into a corner by publishing as you go, like it's a trade off in either direction.
[35:48] Rachel: Right.
[35:49] Lewis Jorstad: Because if you do write them all at once and you get to the last book and you're like, crap, I made a whole mess of this for myself. I did a George R. Martin and I don't know how to wrap this up. You can go back to not to pick on yeah, exactly. It happens to the best of us. But that allows you to go back and say, okay, well, I guess I'm revising book one so that I can pull off book five. But if you've already published books one through four, you're kind of locked in and you got to figure out how you're going to deal with that, even for those of us who are Panthers. That's why I do sort of encourage at least a little bit of planning. Even if you don't know how you're going to get there, having some sense of how you want the story to end makes it a little easier not to write yourself into a hole, even if it's a very vague sense, like, you know, roughly, this is where this character is going to end up. Everything else can sort of happen organically, but having a little bit of an idea makes a really big difference.
[36:48] Emily: Yeah, I think it's one of the downsides of the traditional, how they do things in traditional is one of the common things I'll hear is your first book needs to stand by itself. And I think from a business perspective, from a traditional publishing business perspective, I see why they like you said earlier, it's like they don't want to put the cart before the horse. They want to know it's going to sell before they sell more. But I think that that harms sequels, and I think we've seen that in the past. So I don't know if this is for sure, but I feel like it's heading in a slightly different direction. But I do think that is one of the benefits of self publishing is you can give some more thought to that. I still just like I always think about Michael J. Sullivan saying that he wrote his huge, massive, epic fantasy series, the whole thing, before he published the first. And like, that's valid. So but I think it's an important question. Like, you like, how much are you willing to know or not know before you jump in? And there's no right answer.
[37:58] Lewis Jorstad: No. Yeah. It's so personal. And I don't know. I try to approach this with a little bit of caution just because I have not been traditionally published. And so I'm saying this as an outsider to traditional publishing, but I have a lot of issues with traditional publishing, and that's one of them is that would that first because a lot of readers will not start a series if it's not done because series get cut off. All the, um, part of this is like a very personal bitterness. But I have an author. I follow who I adore her books. Adore her books. And she started out as an indie author and was picked up by Harper Collins. They said, hey, we want to acquire your books. She was halfway through a series and we want to repackage and republish them under our brand. Are you fine with that? And she was thrilled. I mean, that's the dream. She absolutely leapt at it, and they repackaged and republished them. They did a really bad job. They did not do those books justice. And they said, oh, well, they didn't sell well, so we're not going to greenlight the last two books. And it's like so because two books that had already been published for like, five years didn't sell well, when you repackaged them, you're not going to greenlight the next two books. How was that not part of your calculation when you acquired these books? Because what they said to her was, well, we own the rights, you can't continue the series. Yeah, that boggles my mind. Don't get me wrong, traditional publishing has its place, but I'm sort of of the mindset that for 90% of authors, self publishing will always be the better option. Traditional publishing can be very validating, but I would argue you shouldn't seek validation from you should seek validation from the readers who read and love your book. You're going to do the same amount of marketing and yourself. Yeah, don't wrong. You should love your books for yourself. But if you are seeking I mean, if you are looking for outside validation, look for it from readers, not from an agent. You're going to have to do all the marketing yourself. You're going to still have to write, basically a finished book before you hand it into them. They don't workshop your books like they used to. This is not the is not the that sucks and is hard. And I don't mean that as an insult by any means to any traditionally published author or anyone who's looking towards it. But I do think that that should be a really serious thing you think about for yourself. Like, if you are approaching this as a business or as a potential career, how much are you willing to put that control in someone else's hands who doesn't necessarily understand your series or your readers as well as you do? If you're doing the work, you probably know better. But I don't know that's my hot take express for the day.
[40:56] Rachel: It's helpful because I do think there's a different consideration. Not that any consideration is better than the other, but if you are thinking about going the traditional path, there are different roadblocks, there are different barriers to getting those books out there that are hurdles all the same as different hurdles you find in self publishing, but they're just a little different. So if you're considering the traditional path, it sounds like you need to have your fingers on the pulse of the traditional path and like, what are agents looking for right now? What is selling? How can you go into this knowing that there are numbers on the line where people that are not you make decisions about the futures of your book and if you're comfortable with all that, great. But I do think you need to be aware that if a trend right now is to only purchase standalones with an option to write a sequel, but that's not the type of book you're writing, then maybe traditional isn't the path for this book. If you're writing a very open ended cliffhanger that would be difficult for a traditional publisher to pick up and sell, maybe self publishing is better option for you in this case. And just because you go down one path at one point doesn't mean you can't switch paths at another point. But it's an important question to ask yourself what are the goals for this series or standalone?
[42:19] Emily: I feel like for those of us who are writing with the intention of making money, there's a point at which your piece of art becomes a business, right? And it's a question of who do you want involved in that business? Because there are paths in which you get to have more control over that than others. But before you get to that business question, you have to write a book, right? I'm curious, Lewis, could you maybe I know we're going long, but I really want to give people some actionable. If they don't know whether they want to they're working on book one, right? They're unsure if they want to write a series, how long they want the series to be, what kind of series they want it to be. What are some questions that people can start to ask themselves about am I.
[43:15] Rachel: Writing a standalone or is it a series?
[43:17] Emily: What kind of series? How do we start to answer those questions for ourselves when we are still in the sort of the mire of book one?
[43:29] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, sorry for my ramble. I have a tendency rabbit hole.
[43:33] Rachel: We love talking about our podcast.
[43:39] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, man. The magic of having a brain that just like hops onto different train tracks and just goes is such a joy. But no. So I'm really glad you asked that. I would say that the first thing that I would consider if you're thinking you might want to write a series but you're not quite sure, is what is your goals as an author? And that sounds weird because obviously we just talked about like, well, your different publishing path and what that means and how you market and you do need to write the story first. But I do think that your goals should inform the decisions you make. Like if you're unsure what path to take if you're looking at your story and like, yes, I want to write a trilogy. I've known I wanted to write a trilogy from the get go. I'm going to write a trilogy. Great. Knock it out of the park, have an absolute blast. You will love it. Buy my book. But if you're sitting there truly uncertain of what you want to do, I do think it makes a lot of sense to think about what your goals for the series are. And that doesn't have to be set in stone yet. But where are you leaning? Like, where are you sort of being pulled to? And then based on that, I would really drill into the overarching concept of the series. So I mentioned it sort of briefly at the beginning, talking about anthology series in particular. But every type of series, every series you read, every series you write needs to have some kind of overarching concept because that's what makes it a series. For a sequential series, that'll be an overarching plot. You're telling one big story across multiple books. But for a static series, that might be sort of an overarching setup, like, well, it's the same protagonist, but we're solving a different mystery in every book, or we're tackling a different monster of the week in every book. And then for anthology, it's going to literally be a concept. It's like, is this a family? Is this a common world? It'll be more nebulous, but you still need that. And so if you're looking at your story thinking like, well, should this be a standalone or should this be a series, think about what that overarching concept might be for you and what feels natural. Like if you're looking at it like, well, the plot of this book is really strong and it is something that I could probably expand on, maybe that's the path you take. But if you're looking at it and thinking like, I've got nothing here, this story has reached its natural endpoint, then I think that's something to respect. Authors and readers. I think you as an author will be able to tell when you are stretching the story in a way that feels artificial. And your readers will definitely be able to tell if you are forcing the story to limp along to hit a book count. It's not serving you or the story. And so if you're looking at this thing, well, I know I want to write a series, it's important to me for whatever reason. There's no shame in writing a shorter series, like writing a duology where it's that initial book and then maybe a prequel, or it's that initial book and then an anthology sequel that follows a different character or retelling that first book from a different perspective that's really interesting and offers a whole new look at the world. Or there's a lot of ways you can stretch a story into a series, but it shouldn't feel like you're stretching it. It should feel like you're just pulling out little puzzle pieces and kind of stringing them into this bigger thing. So I don't know if that really cohesively answered the question, but I hope it was at least coherent train of thought.
[47:32] Emily: Yeah, no, I think that's know, one of the standalones that I've loved in the last couple years is V e. Schwab's the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. And she gets asked all of the time, all of the time, will there be another Addie book? Right? Are we going to get more Addie? And she says, no, because to her, as the author, that book served its purpose. It has told the story, it's delivered its message, addie has told her story. And so I think that's an instance in which she could right, Addie's hundreds of years use. I'm sure she has tons of content and stories she could tell about Addie's life. But that's not the point of Addie, right? It's not the point of the story that she was trying to tell. And so to do that would be to stretch it in a way that wouldn't feel natural to Victoria. And so I think yeah, I love that. Really thinking about is it what do you want out of it, right? Both from a market perspective, what are you trying to do with your books, but also what do you want? Are you someone who wants to live in the fantasy world you've created for as long as you possibly can, right? Or is that going to bore you? Do you need to create a new world in order to stay excited? And I think those are equally important to the marketing questions as to what is the story you're trying to tell and how many books do you need to tell it, and then how much do you want to stay in this thing that you've created?
[49:04] Rachel: Yeah, I was writing a fantasy romance, and it's currently in revisions right now and a little bit on pause. But I had planned that book to be a standalone, and I had plotted it to be a standalone. I had ideas. That's all I wanted. I didn't want to take on the burden of a series. I just was like, can I just write a standalone for once? And then I got into it, and I think it was about Act Two, where I was like, man, shoot. This is not a standalone.
[49:39] Emily: This is not it.
[49:40] Lewis Jorstad: Hello, new series. Hello, five more years of my life.
[49:46] Rachel: But I had that instinctual feeling of, like, this story is becoming bigger than I thought I wanted it to be. So I know it is a duology. It will be a duology. And I wrote the first book, and I got to the Act Three, and I wrote Act Three, and I was like, there's definitely room here for I could have ended it, I could have tied it up on a little bow. But I saw an opening for like, no, there's more to be told in this direction. Let me explore that and see what happens. And now I'm like, no, it's a duology. And then that felt right. That felt good. It will be a duology, period. I did not want a trilogy. I entertained thoughts of a trilogy for a couple of weeks and then was like, no, that doesn't feel right. So my author instincts were very much landing on, okay, it's a duology. I haven't written book two, so, like, knock on wood, we're able to end it there. But once I got into the writing of the story and I started to see how as my panther brain developed the story, that I needed more room, it did become obvious to shut it down, or I mean, to let it go. And if I would have shut it down, it's not that I couldn't have made that work, but it wasn't going to be the story that I wanted it to be. And that answered that question for me. And I think if I would have gotten to a different version of me, alternate universe, rachel might have written a standalone version of that and felt good about it and then just decided, this is where it ends. But my point was that I had the natural amount of story to spill over into a second book where I didn't feel like I had to make shit up to get there. I knew it was not going to just be let me stretch this out. I'm overflowing with story right now, so it's going to be at two books, not one.
[51:42] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, I like that you describe it as an instinct because I think that's really true. There is structure and craft and frameworks and all of that, but all of that is just a tool to help you articulate your instinct as a writer. It is a valuable tool, and it's a tool that I think writers should really learn and master so that they can break it if they choose. But it is still just a tool to help you take your concept in your head and put it on paper in a way that feels aligned with your vision. And so if you're getting into your story and you're like, yeah, it's spilling over, then that is a series. But if you're looking at it thinking like, I have to make this a series and it feels artificial, it feels fake, then yeah, there's nothing wrong with just honoring the fact that this story has reached its natural endpoint. I've told the story I want to tell, and I'm ready to move on. The kind of funny asterisk on all of this is that I'm a standalone writer. This book came about because I was trying to force myself to write series, and that's just not how my brain works. I've sort of turned some things into duologies that I'm happy with, but it was always a fight, and that sort of sparked this book initially because I literally personally was going beyond book one. I had that first concept, and I was like, I feel like I'm just clawing at the edges of this story, trying to rip it into something bigger, and it just felt artificial. And in contrast, I've worked with writers like you who had a story they thought was just a standalone. And the one person I'm thinking of is now two trilogies deep into an extended universe that they have no plans of leaving anytime soon. So it's never a linear path, and there's nothing wrong with that.
[53:40] Emily: Yeah, you got to trust your gut. You are the artist. And if I hear a lot people asking, like, should I write a series? Is this a series that I'm writing? Those questions. And it's like, only you can truly answer that because you got to be 100% behind whatever you're doing. And if you feel like you're stretching it, then you're not going to enjoy writing it, and that's going to seep into the process. And if you feel like you're not done and you're trying to force yourself to be done, it's not going to feel complete. Right? And then you turn once you kind of know what you want to explore, you turn to books like Lewis's to find the craft for how to pull it.
[54:24] Rachel: I like as pants or brain? Just have to say again that I plotted, I tried, I planned to stand alone, and that was my goal and my intention. But then the instinct came in after, and I think you can continually check in and you can change your mind. It is okay to change your mind. If you get started, you're like, oh, I wanted to plan a series. I have a trilogy in mind. Amazing. And then you write the first book and you're like, actually, I feel like that might be it. Great. That's it. You can change your mind. You're not fully committing to writing 200,000 words or more. If you decide you're going to write a series and just like me, you could get into it and decide or learn that the story you're telling is longer than you originally anticipated.
[55:13] Lewis Jorstad: Yeah, I warn a lot of my writers exactly that there are some things you'll only learn in your first draft.
[55:22] Rachel: Yeah.
[55:24] Lewis Jorstad: I'm the biggest plotter in the world. My outlines. You could kill a man with that thing, but there's still things where you'll get halfway through your first draft and be like, well, guess we're taking a detour. Guess I'm changing that. And yeah, there's no shame in that. I think that's important regardless of where you fall on the plotter. Panther spectrum to give yourself permission to be flexible.
[55:48] Emily: Yeah. Louis, can you tell us a little? Know your little pitch for your, like get into what's give us a title again, what it's about, how people can find it when it comes out, all of that.
[56:02] Lewis Jorstad: So Beyond Book One came out on September twelveTH, so very recently, and it is actually my shortest book yet, which is sort of horrifying to think about, but it is a sort of really laser focused look at how to plan, write, and publish a successful fictional series. So we talked a lot about some of the concepts in the book here, but to kind of give you the broad overview, it'll help you figure out your series type. We talked about the four types briefly, but it'll sort of go in deeper with case studies and sort of graphs, depending on how you learn to help you see what that looks like, examples, and then it'll help you sort of walk through, like, okay, based on your vision of the story, what type fits what you want to do? Or are you looking at a standalone? And depending on what you decide, what does that mean for your plot, what does that mean for your characters? There are two kind of fun chapters on how to write a prequel, specifically because it has some little quirks and nuances, and how to write a trilogy specifically because it also has some quirks and nuances that are kind of fun. And then once you sort of have gotten into the writing part of the whole process, it also helps guide you through. Okay, if you already have you've written a standalone novel, you want to expand it. How can you approach that? If you're halfway through a series that's dying on you, how can you revive it? What do you do? How do you manage the practical aspects of writing? Again, back to that idea of risk tolerance. Like, what is your risk tolerance as you write? And then at the end it sort of wraps up with you now have this series. Here's how you can think about the publishing process, like, here's how you can think about launching the books and different tricks you can use to help get it in front of the right readers and leverage. The fact that you have these multiple books and the way you market that is probably going to be slightly different than how you would for maybe a standalone. So it kind of takes you through the whole process, hopefully in a relatively concise package for anyone watching. I'm sure you noticed I am not the type who says anything with one word when I could say it with ten. But thanks to my editors and beta readers, we've kept this one a little more concise than I normally am. So hopefully it'll be a really great resource for everyone.
[58:32] Rachel: It will.
[58:32] Emily: So actionable.
[58:33] Rachel: Yeah.
[58:35] Emily: So excited for people to get their hands on it.
[58:37] Rachel: Yay.
[58:38] Lewis Jorstad: Every chapter ends with prompts. That's like the one thing I'm most excited about, and that's true for all of my books. Every chapter ends with three or four prompts and I will regularly just go pick up one of my books and flip through and be, huh, okay, that question that helps. And I'll go off and do stuff. So if anyone here you love a. Good prompt. Yeah. That's hopefully will be a fun tool for you.
[59:03] Rachel: Check it out. We'll put links in our show notes and I can also speak to Lewis's other books, have them, love them, go get them. Very helpful. And I love revisiting your characterized book. Very helpful. So go check out Lewis's books on Amazon beyond book one just came out. You can grab it now and we will put a link in the show notes for you and then go get on Lewis's email list too on his website thenovelsmithy.com.
[59:33] Emily: So good. We'll put that in the show notes as well.
[59:36] Rachel: Yes.
[59:37] Emily: Thank you so much, Lewis. Good luck with your launch. It's going to be amazing and we're so glad you could come on and chat with us.
[59:45] Lewis Jorstad: I really appreciate this is always such a tremendous joy. I really appreciate y'all having me on.
[59:50] Rachel: Of course we'll have you on again.
[59:52] Lewis Jorstad: Sure.
[59:53] Rachel: Don't you worry.
[59:56] Emily: If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
[01:00:02] Rachel: Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
[01:00:10] Emily: Link in the show notes, we'll see you there.
[01:00:12] Rachel: Thanks so much.
[01:00:14] Lewis Jorstad: Thank you.
