Do you read multi-author series?
Most book series are the work of a single author, and were relatively short with trilogies being probably the most common length.
But the rise in the popularity of ebooks, the resulting increase in the number of self-published authors, and the introduction of the Kindle Unlimited subscription programme has meant an increase in the number of fiction series on the market, and an increase in the number of books in a series.
After all, we are now the Netflix generation.
Netflix viewers are used to bingeing an entire season of their favourite series in just a couple of days (helped by Netflix often “dropping” an entire series at once, rather than forcing viewers to wait a whole week for the next episode).
In the same way, prolific readers will bingeread (or is that binge-read?) a whole series … especially if that series is available through their monthly Kindle Unlimited subscription.
The result is that many self-published authors are putting their efforts into writing series. But even the fastest writer can’t keep up with the prolific readers, so authors are working together to find creative ways to keep their readers happy.
One way is through the creation of multi-author series.
The idea of multi-author series isn’t new. The first Hardy Boys book was published in 1927, and the same team introduced Nancy Drew in the 1930s. While readers may have thought Franklin W Dixon and Caroline Keane were incredibly prolific writers, both were actually a team of ghostwriters writing under a common pseudonym. In 1983, Francine Pascal published her first Sweet Valley High novel, and these were soon passed over to a team of ghostwriters.
Some modern writers still use ghostwriters or cowriters. Some are upfront about the practice (such as James Patterson). Others are not (which is why Nora Roberts is suing Brazilian “author” Cristiane Serruya).
A more modern take is for groups of authors to team up and write a series set around a common location, common characters, and/or a common theme. Here are some multi-author series I’ve seen:
First Street Church
The First Street Church series was created by Melissa Storm. Storm was involved in the Kindle Worlds programme which ran from 2013 to 2018, and allowed authors to publish licensed fan-fiction for brands such as Gossip Girl or Pretty Little Liars. Successful self-published authors like Storm licensed their own “worlds”, allowing newer authors to piggyback on their success by writing in their world, in return for a percentage of the royalties.
When Kindle Worlds closed, Storm created her own imprint, Sweet Promise Press, which now specialises in multi-author romance and mystery series. Some are Christian, and the others are sweet and wholesome. Their tagline is “books you can believe in” and they publish a book a week across a range of series—great for binge readers!
Sweet Promise Press often have open submissions for authors wanting to write in one of their shared series or worlds, and their terms look fair. Check their submissions page for details.
The Potter’s House
The Potter’s House series features books from seven Christian authors, T.K. Chapin, Juliette Duncan, Mary Manners, Brenda S. Anderson, Alexa Verde, Marion Ueckermann, and Kristen M. Fraser.
The books are described as “stories of hope, redemption, and second chances.” Each book is a standalone romance, so the series can be read in any order.
http://pottershousebooks.com/our-books/
The Pinkerton Matchmakers
The Pinkerton Matchmakers books are set in post-Civil War America. The Pinkerton Detective Agency has decided to hire female agents, but those female agents must be trained by existing agents, who are all male. Their solution is to temporarily marry each female agent to their male trainer. No, that’s not exactly believable, but it’s fun (and anyone who can’t believe the premise won’t get past the first chapter). As these are romance novels, we know what’s going to happen.
There are now over thirty books in the Pinkerton series, with a new book being released every week or so and individual Pinkerton authors publishing every three months. The Pinkerton books I’ve read are all standalone novels that don’t relate to the others in the Pinkerton series, but which do have links back to the author’s other books.
Multi-Author Series and Kindle Unlimited
All the multi-author series I’ve seen have been enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (which pays authors by pages read). This attracts the prolific readers, as they are essentially reading each book for free.
It’s a great model for authors, as they can benefit from the combined marketing initiatives of all the authors in the series. And it’s a great model for readers, who get more of the books they love.
There’s a multi-author Biblical fiction series with 3 books by Mesu Andrews, Carole Towriss, and Brennan McPherson (The Psalm Series) that I’ve particularly enjoyed.
I’ve heard of Mesu Andrews, but not the other two. I wonder if that affects sales – do people read all the books, or only the books from the author they know of?
I haven’t and I’m not sure I’d like them – although that Pinkerton idea sounds fun. I usually like authors because of the way they write not just what they write. You can have a common plot type but the style of one author will be different from another.
Susan, James Patterson’s Book Shots novellas were a bit like that. They were all co-written with other authors. I absolutely loved the first one I picked up, so went back for more. But after starting several other ones, the style just didn’t grab me and I abandoned them.
That is one of the dangers of a multi-author series.
That is true. I must admit that while I keep meaning to read more of the Pinkerton books, I’ve only read the ones by Nerys Leigh (because she’s kind enough to keep sending me review copies).
I can’t think of any Christian ones offhand, but in children’s books there’s the popular Rainbow Magic series written by Daisy Meadows (who is actually four different writers). There have been dozens of books in that series, all about different fairies who overcome the naughty goblins in each adventure. I do volunteer work with the Pyjama Foundation and read to a girl in foster care once a week. When she was round 8 or 9, she loved those books.
One of the Daisy Meadows authors also writes the Heartland series of books (and I think there’s another author on those too).
It’s a good way to keep books coming quick and fast in a popular series, but I do wonder if the downside is that the quality isn’t always up to scratch. I guess it depends on the series.
Daisy Meadows was four writers? No! My daughter loved those, and I loved anything that got her reading 🙂
Didn’t know that about the Sweet Valley High books but makes sense seeing as there was at least one a month. (Yes I read them all!)
The pickerton books sound interesting.
I have read series of books with multiple authors on the same subject. One comes to mind is orphan train brides, Another is on the Harvey Girls (not sure that’s the whole name but they worked for restaurants along the train routes).
Guideposts have a few of these series with a book coming out each month. While I can’t get most of them I have had a few sent to me by authors and its really cool getting to know the people as while they can be read alone they also have recurring characters
I didn’t read them all, but I think I read every one in the school library and public library!
The Harvey Girls is a good example – I read one of those. Now I think about it, Barbour Publishing have a new multi-author series of true crimes – The Pink Bonnet by Liz Tolsma is on my to-read pile. But they don’t have recurring characters – that’s a great idea.
Hi Jenny, I read all the Sweet Valley High books and, at the time, I did notice the differences in the writing styles between the books. Later I learned they were ghostwritten like the Nancy Drew series.
And I’ve just remembered one multi-author series where I did read all the books – The Tuscan Legacy series, which featured Solo Tu from our own Narelle Atkins. Perhaps we can get Narelle to write a blog post about the experience.
Hi Iola, A Tuscan Legacy was a lot of fun to write!
In 2018 we did rapid release the first eight A Tuscan Legacy books in a weekly release schedule. Book 9 was released a month after book 8. When Autumn Macarthur wrote book 10, at the request of our readers who wanted to see Nonna have her own romance story, we decided to box the ebooks together in Kindle Unlimited. We released the box set at the end of March 2019. To date, A Tuscan Legacy box set has had more than 1 million page reads in Kindle Unlimited.
Another contemporary romance series I enjoyed was the Arcadia Valley Romances. Six authors – Valerie Comer, Elizabeth Maddrey, Danica Favorite, Lee Tobin McClain, Mary Jane Hathaway and Annalisa Daughety – wrote three books each and set up a monthly release schedule over eighteen months. The original series was released wide, but I believe most of the books are now exclusive to Amazon and available in Kindle Unlimited.
My Tuscan Legacy author friends Autumn Macarthur, Marion Ueckermann and Alexa Verde have recently released a romance series called Chapel Cove Romances.
Thanks for mentioning Chapel Cove, Narelle. Yes, we’re loving our small town. So far we hope to launch twelve books, but I can’t help feeling there will be more! Our series is more tightly interwoven, or at least, the first three books were. Our starting point is three childhood friends returning to their small town for their 40th birthday, only a few days apart. So the three happened simultaneous. That took a LOT of work to keep the timeline straight and the characters consistent, but it was great fun! We’re making things easier by spacing launches now, so the books will share the setting and the secondary characters, but thankfully not the time!
Chapel Cove sounds like a lot of fun! There isn’t a lot of Christian fiction about “older” people, so it’s great to see Chapel Cove is filling this gap.
One million page reads – that’s amazing! I guess that shows the power of Kindle Unlimited.
I did check out the Arcadia Valley romances for this post, but couldn’t find them so thought they’d been taken down. I’m pleased to hear they’re still available.
I think the Arcadia Valley books are still available, Iola, but AFAIK, each author is now publishing her books separately, not under the series branding.
And yes, KU can definitely help boost an author’s earnings. I imagine it varies a lot with genre, but my KU earnings are currently around 78% of my book income. A little concerning to be totally dependent on one income source, of course!
Thanks for the mention, Iola! We had a lot of fun writing that series, and Narelle’s Aussie contribution is a wonderful story!
The amazing part, and this has to be a God thing, is that even though we had the core concept of eight cousins, each author very much wrote their book independently. And yet at the end, it just felt like they meshed together so well. Ten very different family members and seven different authors, yet it worked as a whole, like a patchwork quilt.
That Pinkerton series looks great fun. Wowee, thirty four books!
I’m surprised to hear you all wrote the books independently – as a reader, it certainly felt like they’d been planned in a lot more detail. Great to hear God was at work there!
Books 1 and 9 needed far more co-ordination, but basically the guidelines for authors about their books weren’t too detailed. Marion and I did the main series arc planning before we started gathering authors for the series. Each author had a fair bit of flexibility about her characters and what she did with them. One main character with Isabella as their grandmother, right age. That was about it. The story had to be a complete romance, had to include the cousin receiving their painting somewhere in there, and had to be completed before the end of the summer. I think apart from that, authors could take their story wherever and however they wanted, have their character interact as little or as much with other series characters as they wanted, have the painting mean more or less to them.
I hope the authors didn’t feel we were too controlling! 😉