Questions: on writing series, on royalty statements

Two for one today:

Celeste asks:

*Eh-hem* Suppose I’m writing a series (which I hope to be), however I have other stories niggling around in my head. (I’m sweating with Sven, as well – my he’s popular.) I have finished Book 1 of said series, and now have a fabulous idea for Book 2, BUT Book 1 is on submission and is likely to be tied up for a while in that stage… What the heck do I write next? The proposal for Book 2 or the Book I promised Sven?

Celeste and I actually got the opportunity to discuss this in detail last night. Her situation has changed somewhat, from the time she left this message, and so my advice changed as well. However, in general, this is an interesting conundrum. There are positive and negative aspects to each choice.

Established party line on this subject: “you should write something different in case book one doesn’t fly and then you won’t be able to sell book two,” or “you should make sure it stands alone…”
Pros: If book one doesn’t fly, you do have something else in progress/ready should someone want to see “something else.”
Cons: If you can’t rev yourself up to write something, it doesn’t matter if it’s different or not.

Another outlook: Write to your passion, even if that means doing a sequel of an unpublished book.
Pros: If you love what you’re writing, your writing will reflect that. Also, you can often make it stand alone if you really need to.
Cons: You may have the same problems with the sequel as you did with the original, if the reason for the pass is tone or subject matter.

There’s a lot of freedom before you’re under contract. You can write what you want, unconcerned about brand or whatnot. Write whatever you feel drawn to and see what sticks. Write different things, write the same things, write write write.

Story time: In 2003, I started my fourth manuscript, which was a single title romance sequel to an unpublished category romance I never did end up finishing. I had a secondary character in that story I liked a lot. I liked her story better than the main characters. So, following the Joss Whedonesque advice of “If you like a secondary character enough, make them a main character,” I decided to center a story around her, and that became my fourth manuscript. It finalled in the Jasmine, won the Molly, got 18 agent rejections (and two publisher rejections), and may have gotten an offer eventually. I don’t know. It was still with two agents when I started querying SSG. (I think the last time my agent and I were drinking together Marley was trying to talk her into reading it.)

(Really funny aside, I’ve bogarted more than a little of the setting of that book for SSG3. They are both set on tiny private islands in Florida. The difference is that Cavador Key isn’t haunted…)

If I had listened to that “don’t write sequels” advice back in 2003 and 2004, I wouldn’t have written that book, which I think was pretty essential to my development as a writer. I sold my first book about four months later.

and then Patrick asks:

I’m assuming that since it has been over a year since the first publication that you have seen some sort of royalty statement(The statement, maybe or maybe not money). Does the statement give much information? If so, has SSG done better or worse than you expected? And how much credit do you give to My Cover Photo for UTR?

Yep, I got one last spring. I’d been led to think my royalty statement would be this huge shock, as well as this completely byzantine document. It was neither. It was exactly what I expected, and was very straightforward and easy to read. (Perhaps it will get more complex when we start looking at multiple books?) The statement included the usual info of royalty statements everywhere: number of copies shipped, sold, returned, in what format, etc. (Sadly, Patrick, I don’t think we can give you any credit, since it dealt with a period well before you made your photo. Maybe the next one?)

And, on the topic, I just found out this week that the paperback of my first book is in its fifth printing! Thanks guys, for buying books, reading, telling your friends… you rock!

Back to wrapping up Rites of Spring (Break)…