With the thousands of new books coming on the market in any given day, I find having a series gives people a reason to go to my website or Amazon page. They might remember something they'd read a year ago, may not be on social media that much and just wonder, by searching the series title, if there are new books out.
Some people say that long strings of series are not a good thing, that reviewers will not review a Book 8, for instance, because they don't want to have to read the first seven. Well, that may be the case for professional book bloggers who have a limited amount of time to review and post their findings. If you have to read seven books to get sufficient background for Book eight, and, especially if all those books must also be read in order, I think that book or series, unless highly recommended, might be skipped.
Early on with my SEAL Brotherhood books, the first four in the Series were better off read in order. After book 5, Cruisin' For A SEAL, I paid more and more attention to a book being stand-alone, and today, that's all I write. I like calling little subseries like Band of Bachelors, or True Navy Blue instead of saying Books 11, #12 or #13. The latter books can be read in any order.
I also weave in characters from previous books. When I have holes in the series, I can write a novella. I can bundle them, add bonus material, change backmatter and do all manner of other things to my books. The hero and heroine in one book is a strong secondary couple in the next one, and so on. This way I achieve a high degree of variety, but the overall story arc is intact. It seems so wrong to destroy or ignore a world I've taken such time to begin.
And I'm just about to add another series: Nashville SEALs. Some of my charactersfrom Band of Bachelors: Lucas, spend half their time on a mission in Nashville, so it's only natural they stop by and watch a young up-and-coming star perform in front of a packed house of ladies. Little did any of them know that fateful night would change all of their lives forever.
Using the same narrator for all the audio books is very smart because, if he's good, he'll draw the readers in who might not have found my print books ever. Having someone, especially someone you can count on to sound the same book after book after book, holds the story together. Your narrator becomes a character in your books, so this thread of consistency will also help strengthen your readership.
Today, we're celebrating Book 1 in my new series, Band of Bachelors: Lucas. Here's the brand new You Tube video trailer, just out today:
https://youtu.be/nrKpKXaq1WE
