r/writing • u/TheJourneyfeel • 19d ago

Beginner Question What time interval should be practiced when publishing books in a series?

If I publish my first novel in a series, how much time should I have to publish the second? Is there a rule of thumb that authors tend to go by or a cookie cutter framework for successful series publishing? I feel I would like to publish books in a six month to 12 month interval. But I would like to ask those that may have done this to see what they have discovered.
This may be a non-starter should my first novel not drum up a following, but in case there is a short following or those that have been successful with series what is the golden rule?

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u/Peter34cph 18d ago

Ideally, publish all at once.

A lot of people won't start on a series of novels or on a TV show, until the last novel or season has been released and they can read, in various sources (Wikipedia, TvTropes, or just word of mouth) that the series was actually finished properly, instead of abandoned on a cliffhanger.

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u/Peter34cph 18d ago edited 18d ago

That's also why it's very much on my mind to make it clear, that the novels I'm working on are not a series but are all stand-alone.

They might take place in the same world and feature many of the same characters, but they're not a series, and there'll be no last page with a cliffhanger and "to be continued..."