Author of two series, Jennifer Alvarez on writing and selling your series (plural)
In my work as an editor and writing coach, I often come across writers who want from the outset to author a series. I then have the unpleasant task of telling them that it’s a tough thing to do — and to sell. Not because the market doesn’t want a series. Complex worlds and chain-linked plots patently do well, and now that TV (if that’s what we still call streaming multiple episodes) is hungry for content, agents and publishers alike have an eye on the media-rights game. No, the hurdle is in the initial writing and selling of the books themselves. The first book has to stand on its own feet, complete unto itself, and yet with enough unanswered that if the book does well, the series can go on. It’s a very delicate balance, and writers tend to leave too much unanswered, hoping to hook their reader into another book, but leaving the current book unfinished. Unsatisfying. Ultimately, unsold.
How do you strike that balance, then? And how do you pitch the single book and the world or premise that can carry on?
Jennifer Alvarez is in the middle of writing her third series. She already has seventeen books under her belt — two MG series, and then a major pivot to a YA mystery series. I’ll be asking her the questions above. I’ll also be asking her what kind of pace you have to maintain to write and sell seventeen novels before the age of 139. At the rate I write novels, it would take me eighty five years. There has to be a trick to getting and keeping Jen’s rhythm. I want some insight into how she maintains her enormous productivity. If you’d like a ringside seat for this conversation, scheduled for 5pm next Thursday, October 1, please complete and submit the form below. I hope many of you will join us, as this chat will be the last in our social un-distancing happy hours.
CHECK OUT THE VIDEO OF THIS CONVERSATION, BELOW.
Also, for those of you who missed the conversation with Amy Novesky and me about being authors and editors, and our author-editor relationship, here’s the video. Thank you to those of you who attended, and the many who ordered books. I appreciate the show of support.
Happy writing,
Shirin