I’ve read all the books in my Kindle, again (except the one I don’t like; I see no reason to call it out by name), so I went looking for more. Amazon’s “Customers Also Bought” list included Primal Ascension: Book 1. in the Primal Ascendant Series (The Primal Ascendent Series).
Before anything else, the title:
- I love “Book 1” near the front like that. It doesn’t get chopped off when the titles are truncated causing one to see a list of books without knowing in what order to read them.
- “(The Primal Ascendent Series)” seems redundant, but it’s at the end and will get chopped off in Kindles, so whatever.
- That period after “Book 1” seems as if it’s a typo. The capital “S” in series, too.
In that format, my title would be: You Asked For It: Book 1 in the Pack Rising series. I was thinking You Asked For It: Pack Rising Book 1, which puts the book number at the end, which I don’t like. Flipping it completely results in Pack Rising Book 1: You Asked For It.
I’ve probably already been through this, but I like that last one best. In sorted list, they’ll all be together. The book number is not going to be truncated.
Anyway, the publishing schedule. I noticed that book two was published while book one had only 2 reviews and 20 star ratings (4.2 average). Since that’s what I expect to happen to me, I was curious when they were published. Amazon says book 1 was published on 27 Aug and book 2 was published on 30 Aug (no reviews; only 1 star rating (rated three)).
I’m definitely going to have both books 1 and 2 one click away from publishing at the same time – the entire time I’m writing book 3. I am not going to publish them that close together.
However, I do see the point: One can grab the series reader who checks if the series is continuing before reading book 1. I have been that reader.
On the other paw: That just means one has two books sitting out there, undiscovered.
On the other paw: That means that when someone discovers book one – and likes it – he will immediately proceed to book two, which raises the possibility of two reviews at once or at least a review on the second book.
On the other paw: It’s unsustainable. Even if cash flow is not an issue, writing an entire series so one can publish them one-per-week is a lot of up-front investment in something that may crash and burn.
What I’m considering, having seen this, is perhaps splitting the difference with a doubling interval. Assume it takes me four months to write a book and get it publication ready. That means that when I catch up to myself, the next book is four months out. Halving that is two months. Halving that is one month. Halving that is two weeks. That creates a publishing schedule of:
- Month 0: Book 1 goes live. Books 2 and 3 are done. Book 4 is due in 2.5 months, so it needs to be 1/2 done, at least.
- Month 0.5: Book 2 goes live. Book 3 is done. Book 4 hasn’t changed much. Let’s call it 2/3 done.
- Month 1.5: Book 3 goes live. Book four is done. Book 5 is started.
- Month 2.5: Book 4 goes live. Book 5 is 1/4 done.
- Month 4.5: Screwed. Book 5 is only 3/4 done.
Let’s try it again starting with a 1 month interval…
- Month 0: Book 1 goes live. Books 2 and 3 are done. Book 4 is due in 2.5 months, so it needs to be 1/2 done, at least.
- Month 1: Book 2 goes live. Book 3 is done. Book 4 is 3/4 done.
- Month 3: Book 3 goes live. Book four is done. Book 5 is 1/4 done.
- Month 7: Book 4 goes live. Book 5 is done. Book 6 is 1/4 done.
- Month 11: Book 5 goes live. Book 6 is done. Book 7 is 1/4 done.
That’s sustainable – assuming I can write a book in four months. That should be doable. We’ll find out with book two.
Book one is taking forever. Let me check the timestamp on the meta-series directory (LitRPGWerewolves)… That’s not a useful starting point: 16 Nov 2021. That’s when I first had the idea. The series directory (PackRising) was created on 26 Apr 2026. The book one directory (01YouAskedForIt) was created the same day. That seems fair. Six months ago.
I doubt it will be publish-ready before the end of the year. Let’s say that’s a Christmas present to myself and it’s ready on 26 Dec 2026. That’s eight months, but I’ve hardly been diligently writing (with some notable exceptions). I think cutting that in half – especially since I can tell that I am getting better/faster at this – is reasonable.
This is not TOO much drift from my first attempt at a publishing schedule. It has definitely slid, but the concept still seems sound.
Note that this puts the “does Earth get blown up?” question at Month 4 after initial publication. Primal Ascension was published not quite two months ago.
Two reviews on book one and none on book two doesn’t seem that bad for two months, given that book one has 20 star ratings (4.2 average). Let’s say that I double that in four months. Four reviews of book one with 40 star ratings (4.2 average), two reviews of book two with 20 star ratings (4.0 average), one review of book three with 5 star ratings (4.5 average; this one has more action).
One assumes that not everyone rates the book, but I’ll still get the revenue (although I don’t know how much value that information has after only four months).
I doubt the review content will affect me either way. That’s only seven reviews. Unless they are universally “buy this just so you can burn it; it’s that bad”, the opinions of seven people don’t seem sufficient to make an informed decision.
Would I end the world or would I continue the series? I honestly can’t say.
As long as I’m picking on this poor book, which I haven’t even downloaded, yet, I want to comment on the Amazon page. There are five (16×9 aspect ratio; so movie-still shaped) images on the page. It looks like one of my “prompt skillz” posts with the aspect ratio flipped. I don’t like it.
I found the pretty pictures, AI generated no doubt, to be in the way. The only reason I even saw them is because I wanted to read the reviews for this post and had to scroll past them. I rarely read reviews. Sometimes I pay attention to the star average, but not often. With KU it’s easy enough to download it, start it, then decide if I want to finish it or not. There is no cost to me for picking a book I don’t like.
I believe that KU is the norm for LitRPG readers. There is so much of it and the quality is mediocre (I don’t expect that I will raise that bar). I find it hard to believe that all those books are being purchased.
I’ve added it to my Kindle.
