book sequels | Rosie Amber

It’s time for challenge 3 in this year long support for book bloggers. Created by the ladies at PagesUnbound I have committed to this because I enjoy being part of a great body of book lovers.

This month the challenge is to leave comments on ten different book blogger’s posts. I decided to make a blog post about this with links to the posts and book bloggers that I visited. This was actually harder than I anticipated because although I might comment on lots of blog posts, the interest is mine, while I wanted to make this post universal for other readers. So I chose posts more carefully to add to this list.

Author Rennie St James runs a monthly book chat post which breaks down a chosen book. Rennie takes a sample of reviews of each book and discusses the book from a reader’s point of view and then from a writer’s point of view. February’s book was urban fantasy Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy
Book blogger Siena, posted about her reasons for quitting Instagram. Any social media platform has got to work for you and be enjoyable. She found it hard to drive traffic to her blog from Instagram. This can be a problem as you can’t have a live link to your blog from each Instagram post (like Twitter).
Becky from Crooks Book Blog ask us about love triangles in books. Do you like them or not?
Damyanti wrote a post that featured avid reader Kacee Jones Pakunpanya, who talks about how she found a way to work with her dyslexia so that she can still enjoy reading.
Saturdays At The Cafe is a round up of the books that Jonetta from Blue Mood Cafe has added to her book shelf. There is always a great selection to tempt me.
Davida wrote a #SixOnSunday post using books covers to show her support for #StandWithUkraine
Sue has been running a month long feature on book sequels. This post is about Tom Williams and his historical fiction series based on a British spy during the Napoleonic wars.
Karen from Booker Talk is joining in with #ReadingIrelandMonth22 her post talks about her 5 favourite Irish writers.
Cathy from 746 books has more Irish themes. Her Six Degrees Of Separation post is Irish themed.
Raging Fluff is also a co-host of Reading Ireland month. Here is an interesting post about two different books written about former slave Tony Small.

Read my introductory post here.

Plus my challenge 1 post: 10 Book Bloggers Whose Posts I Enjoy Reading here.

My challenge 2 post: 10 New-To-Me-book bloggers is here

What about you, do you try to leave comments on blog posts?

Welcome to my feature called Wednesday Wing where I’ll be passing on

observations, tips and information to readers I’ve made a note of.

Today I’m passing on a tip about writing a book series from my own READING experiences.

I seriously believe that with the explosion of self-publishing that the book market is at a saturated state, anyone and everyone can publish a book or five.

There is a saying about there being at least one book in each of us waiting to be written. For many authors writing a book is one of their life’s ambitions and once they’ve written and published their first book there is no stopping them, even before they’ve hit the publish button many authors will be scribbling away with thoughts of their next book.

BUT what should that next book be about? SHOULD you write a sequel or plan a series? Or should you write a one off stand alone novel and then try another completely different style or genre? There is no right or wrong answer, however I do think authors need to think long and hard before diving in with a sequel or a series.

Marketing and selling any new book is hard and unless the book becomes a best seller, selling a sequel WILL be even harder. Readers are put off committing to the sequel if they haven’t read the first book. If your first book had less than a mass of 5* genuine reviews from REAL readers (not your family and friends but a wide selection of reviews across the world), the sequel will be treated cautiously by readers.

So what can you do? The YA Fantasy genre has book series in it’s droves as does the Detective crime genre. I know from my own reading of YA fantasy that the popular series will often have the first book on kindle offered for FREE to capture the reading audience and then it makes them pay for the rest. BUT ANY first book in a series still has to be a smokin’ hot read for readers to be gagging for book 2 and beyond. It still means hours of hard sweat and lots of your hard earned money to make that book a great seller and then you give it away for free in the hope that the next books will bring in the cash.

Cliff hanger or stand-alone? Some series are stand alone books which all have a connection, these are books which finish their storyline with each book. The Cliff-hanger takes the reader on a roller coaster ride and just when things get exciting or it looks like the mystery will be solved, the book ends and the reader is left gagging for the next book. As a reader a cliff-hanger ending is a real pain if you have to wait several months for the next book. The danger for an author is that you’ve then lost the reader who forgets about your book unless you have a really loyal fan base. (Think Harry Potter books)

AS READERS, what are your thoughts about series and sequels? (Many of you are authors, but today I ask you to put your READER hat on and look at things from the other side of the fence)

Here are links to all my other Wednesday Wing Posts.

Checking your WordPress is linked to your Twitter helps others share your posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7L2

Writer’s Craft books by Rayne Hall full of REALLY useful tips http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Ma

Hyperlinks, Short links and Linkys http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Rl

Making your post titles easy to share on Twitter to maximise views. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7SA

Creating Twitter pics that fit http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Y4

Creating a slideshow on WordPress http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Yo

Getting the most out of Google+ posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7YM

Automated Tweets, LOVE ‘EM or HATE ‘EM? make use of them http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Za

What’s Your Book Genre? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84S

Should you write dreams into your work? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84Q

What can I read in the first 10% of your book? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84W