The Benefits of Writing a Whole Series…Before Publishing Book 1

Now that I’ve done this not once, but (if I count my current series project) three times, I have enough to write an actual blog post about the topic. Many authors write series, and I think a significant proportion of us write the series “as we go,” meaning earlier books are being published while later ones are written.

I don’t do it that way. It wasn’t planned for the first two series, or really with the current one, either. It’s just what happened. But I’ve found some unexpected benefits to doing it this way.

Some back story…

My Relics of War trilogy was something borne of my hobby. I never planned to officially publish it (until I had some major prompting. Thanks, husband.) So by the time I decided to publish it, it was complete.

With The Caein Legacy, I was querying the first book (Exile) while I wrote the remainder of the series. All four books were complete before I decided to take the leap and indie publish that series too.

Since The Caein Legacy won’t be fully released until late November 2024, and there is no way I can mentally handle more than 3 book releases in a single year (which is what is going on in 2024), it’s will be a bit before the current project (The Mage War Chronicles) starts to publish. So yeah, I’ve done this writing-a-whole-series-before-publishing-book-1 thing a few times now.

The Unexpected Benefits

First, and this is probably the one I like the most, is if I need to alter something from an earlier book slightly to mesh with a later one, I can do it without republishing the earlier book. I didn’t run into this issue much with my first two series, but with The Mage War Chronicles, I’ve had to go back a few times to adjust things.

Side Note: Each book in The Mage War Chronicles is told from a different character’s perspective. Some scenes overlap slightly between books, so I have to go back to reference certain sections to make sure the details are the same. And keeping track of timelines between books has been something of a chore at times. For instance, there’s an event mentioned in books 1 and 2, but you don’t see it until book 5. I had to make sure the same number of days passed between scenes x and y so the timelines match up. (What did I get myself into with this one??)

The second surprise benefit was the cover art. Some illustrators will offer a package deal if you commission more than one cover at the same time. And it also ensures that all of the books have a similar look to them (if that’s something you’re concerned about for a series.)

With The Mage War Chronicles, I’m definitely going to be looking for one of those package deals, because I think it’s going to be at least 8 books long. I’m currently writing #6. And that’s a lot of artwork.

One final benefit I’ve noticed comes about during the editing/revision phases. It’s easier to ensure the character’s voice(s) is consistent between books if you edit the entire series in one go. I found it especially important with The Caein Legacy, since it’s written in first-person. I wanted to make sure Andrew’s voice didn’t change significantly between Exile and Legend, despite the inevitable character development. (Confession: editing four books in a row turned my brain to mush, but I think it was worth it in the end.)

I know not every author follows the same path that I have toward publishing, but I figured I’d share my insights. And as I said, I didn’t plan to do it this way, but that’s what happened. So far, it has worked out okay.