TO FINISH writing a SERIES or NOT?

My PUBLISHING vs PASSION purpose

DECIDING when to Shelve A Series 

These are the two hats I tend to wear often. My passion is my writing. It is. However, being a business owner, I have to make powerful decisions about both where I cultivate my passion and where I grow my business.

A SERIES and GENRE publishing change

My career started with a Middle Grade Series book. I've written two of the five planned books of the series. However, during my merging of author and business owner my viewpoint of what to spend my time producing has seriously changed.

WHEN TO DECIDE TO SHELVE or DROP A SERIES

Our formula was based on the current sales, the cost benefit of the sales, the mode of sales, the type of sale and the maintenance cost. Also, the opportunity cost of the product.

Here's some considerations we made before shelving a series from a BUSINESS VIEW

1) Our Middle Grade books sold better in print form.
2) Supporting printing cost meant either, moving our printed copies to POD, dropping our distributor's role to maintain the print copies.
3) Touring worked best to sell our print copies and Middle Grade books. They just sold better when I was selling them in person.
4) The profits made for this series was good, but not at the amount needed to completely cover the (a) touring cost and (b)  printing cost (c) promotional cost
5) Recent fans of the series have grown up. We would have to find a new group to read. Harder with Middle Grade since YA tends to also garner a large number of adult readers compared to MG.

Decisions Made Going Forward

Shelve the MG series and write YA. 
We did this because at the time, YA was doing so much better on electronic media format that our sales could be better realized producing and selling ebooks. At the time YA did better in ebook format than MG books. The series will be finished, but with a POD and ebook focus.

Shorten the MG series
I didn't want to completely shelve the series, but we didn't think it would carry for five books. Therefore we are shortening it from a five part series to a three part series.

Product Novella's in YA Contemporary Romance Category
We had a request from my YA readers to see some contempory romance novels. My confidence in being able to finish an entire novel was skeptical. Therefore, we 'tested' the market with three novella's around the same theme of a 'Summer Romance'.

It worked well and we plan to put that in some of our future releases.

No Bringing On New Authors
Originally, my partner and I wanted to have at least four other strong authors in various genre. After trying out a few, we realized that the bandwidth needed to support those authors in the manner we felt was fair and profitable to all parties was not possible for us at the time.

I've got my eye on another partnering author that I plan to see some exciting stories coming soon.

So, have you seen series you've liked shelved?

Pre-Release Sneak Peek #1 At Motley Education by SA Larsen

   

Well, I found out from the grapevine that Motley Education releases less than 7 days!

Here is SA Larsen's teaser that I snagged from SA Larsen's blog. I couldn't help myself.

I can't wait to read this~ Motley Education by SA Larsen. On AMAZON Pre-ORDER today!

Meet Ebony 'Jade' Charmed: One of her exciting new characters

 Drop in and say Hi!  

  S.A. Larsen, author of the MG fantasy adventure Motley Education (Leap Books Seek, Oct. 2016) & the YA paranormal romance Marked Beauty (Ellysian Press, 2017).  S.A. Larsen's blog: http://writersally.blogspot.com/

My Dark Characters

CREATING THE MOOD FOR DARK CHARACTERS

Is sometimes difficult when your mind isn't 'dark'.

So sometimes setting the MOOD

with 

Music is a good start.

GANGSTA from SUICIDE SQUAD

and HEATHENs

Helped me this version

Wha

What do you use to deal with DARK MOODS

DARK CHARACTERS

DARK...places?

Wrestling with Characters

Yep, I feel like this sometimes. The development of a character is a give and take. Authors come up with various ways in which they are 'introduced' to their characters.

By dreaming about a character at night.

Day dreaming about a character.

Inspiration from a person in daily life.

An event.

An alter ego.

What ever the means is that a character is introduced. Sometimes development of the character is difficult.

HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR CHARACTERS

Since I am a visual person, I may go about this differently than most authors.

1) I find a picture and likeness of my character
2) I paste them on my screen or wall
3) I jot down three good qualities about them
4) I jot down three negative qualities about them
5) I write out what I want to improve in their personality
6) I play with their dialogue
7) I note their major moods
8) I list their 'ticks' or habit, repeated words they like to say

Once I've built this, I dive into writing. When I get stuck, I go to my picture and list of qualities for inspiration.

The Writer's Addiction

There are many many passionate people in the world. However, a Writer's passion sometimes boarders on obsession.

There are many kinds of writers. Some you've probably met or heard about.

The author that never finishes a peice of work, only to write a bit, until they get another idea, then write some more.

The author that almost finishes that piece of work but can't seem to stop tweaking and correcting it.

The author that actually finishes their first draft and are done with the darn thing because it's in so bad of shape.

The author that likes to write little stories here and there.

The author that is a story machine, writing and writing new manuscripts that never get edited or see the light of day.

Well there are those authors above and more out there.

At different times, I represented several of these types of authors.

The ONE thing that stands firm is MY WRITING and STORY TELLING obsession.

I simply can't stop.

WHAT ARE YOU PASSIONATE about? Is it WRITING? ART? SHOPPING?

A New Year - New Dreams

What a way to start my year! See that picture up there? My daughter drew that for me.

Humbling for sure.

2015 was a great year. But 2016 will be better.

I plan on finishing up the Purgatory Reign Series and creating a boxed set of my Summer Luv series.

The rest of the year will be planning for a tour.

Stay tuned! There is more to come.