How to Write A Series: A Guide to Series Types and Structure plus Troubleshooting Tips and Marketing Tactics (Genre Fiction How To) Paperback – January 17, 2020

I bought this not thinking I'd ever be writing a series, but I loved the author with her other book I decided to buy a copy. Now I'm reading it because I am writing a series.This books is chalk full of amazing information given by the author in a way that even I, a woman with learning disabilities, can understand. Very well written and I will be keeping this one close and reread it again for sure.

Author Sara Rosett has written a thorough and thoughtful book on how to create a series for authors. Whether you're starting the plotting and organizing, or you've written book three and only now realized you have a series, this book can help.I liked most of the information inside. I would have given the book 5 stars, but her prose were not enthusiastic. I felt no excitement as I read. The book was mechanical in many ways. (Which, I must admit, might be helpful to some authors attempting the series.)For me, it grew stale.Did I mention that many of these ideas other authors have presented before?Don't get me wrong, this is a good craft book that will help many authors and writers. It just didn't help me.

I have enjoyed working through the book for the novel I'm writing. Is it basic? Sure - it's basically EVERYTHING you need to outline a cozy mystery. It explains the genre tropes and requirements, reader expectations and mindset and offers a structure and exercises to follow in order to plot your own novel. Explanations are brief but enough to get you started and preface the exercises with space allotted to "fill-in the blanks," as is requisite for a workbook.This book is exactly what new authors like me need. Frankly, many of the cozy authors I've read recently could have benefitted from working through these exercises before they hit publish. This book helped me to think about my protagonist and antagonist struggles, subplot, setting, etc. I carry it around in my purse and work through questions during work breaks. I've even used the questions as prompts for sprints.Yes. I'd buy it again [sigh] and will probably will for other books I have in mind.

How To Write A Series is a short (128p), concise book that focuses on novel-writing (not tv). The author explains different types of series, and gives examples of each. She goes through various options for planning a series, noting differences between genres. Her writing is clear and to-the-point, which I appreciate. There’s enough information to be useful without being overwhelming. As I am new to novel-writing, I found a lot of good information in this book.

At this point in my writing career, I sort of think that a book in which I find anything of use is worthwhile -- I did with this book. There is nothing deep or surprising, but running through the exercises while I had a list of nine series that I've liked to ask the question about for each of them was surprisingly useful, and there were a couple of useful ideas.I liked it. My experience level is that I've written 15 romance stand alones and lived off my writing for six years, but the times I tried writing an actual series so far it sputtered out.

The author of this book is right. It's hard to find resources specifically about writing a series. Most advice says to just plot it as you would a single book which isn't exactly wrong but an oversimplification. This book is a great starting off point that can help jar loose some ideas. It certainly gave me some new ways to look at writing a series and confirmed some things I'd figured out through tough trial and error. It is a bit short and doesn't always go into a lot of detail but feels like an introduction that might help one figure out what they need to be reading for more in-depth information on a given topic. I hesitated buying this for a while since I write Fantasy and science fiction and it being in a series of books that looked to be focused on cozy mysteries or related, I was worried it could be genre specific. I'm happy to read it was something that would be useful to any genre and even had examples in scifi and fantasy. All in all, I would recommend this book for anyone writing a series.

I wish I’d had this when I wrote my first series. It would’ve saved me a lot of trial and error.This is a very thorough guide to series writing. I used this book as an idea started for the first three books in a new series. Then I dove in again for more ideas about extending the series and marketing the first three books.The questions at the end of each chapter are not to be missed. Poor planning at the start of a series creates lots of problems as you go, as I learned the hard way. Tackling the questions will force you to think through so many issues you may have missed.I highly recommend!

I struggled deciding on a rating. The book has useful information and some good questions to help a writer think about a new or current series. If you are a new writer or new to planning a series, you’ll find the strategies helpful, but general. The book is short, and I was expecting more details, which is why I finally decided on three stars. Most of the information is basic, which might be the better option for some. I’m currently working on a series outline and will use her questions. So, if during the process I change my evaluation, I’ll update this review.

Sara makes it simple to see the potential in writing a series and offers easy to understand reasoning. I found this book very helpful.

I have not written a series, and am slowly learning how to move from 'pantsing' to plotting my single books, so I wasn't sure I would get a lot of use from this book right away. I am so glad that I got it early on in my journey as so much was useful right now. I also liked how this author was honest about things tried in the past that didn't work out so well and what she does differently now. To me that gave this book credibility.There are sections on areas I expected (story arcs) and then things I wouldn't have thought of and that helps me so much more. I really did underline a lot of this book and intend to read it again in a month but more slowly next time, with a series idea of my own to work through.Some of the other things that give credibility are the speficifity of information. The author gives a clear indication of where information varies by genre (for example romance Vs cozy mystery). I found this very useful. She also sets out some writing techniques that can help give a series that important feeling of cohesion and promote read-through.This book may also be of use if you're someone who has written a series and it isn't working - you couls use this for some trouble shooting insights. I am glad to have come across this book and have already recommended it to other writers in my group. I'm sure they too will underline a lot of it.

This is a brief read, but well worth a look for anyone thinking of writing a series, or for that matter anyone who has decided not to, because there are lots of ideas here for how series writing can be made to work. Some things are easier about writing in a series and other things are more difficult. Questions arise that just aren't relevant to stand-alone books, such as how or whether the main characters develop over the course of the series. Given the importance of series writing, particularly for e-books and self-publishing, resources like these are very useful.

Good information to help plan out a series. Useful guidelines to plan everything from a duet to a connected universe of multiple books. I like the lists of questions after each chapter to help me solidfy my plans.

I've written a trilogy but wasn't sure how to tackle a series. This book has given me lots of inspiration and I can't wait to get started. I would recommend to writers at any stage in their journey, no matter how experienced you can always learn something new.