Happy July! I hope yours has been a good one, whether sweltering in summer or wrapping-up-warm in winter. Or somewhere in the middle like England, where the weather doesn’t seem able to make its mind up about the season!
I realized recently that all my new books this year will be in multi-author series. Oops! Much as I love these, I’m hoping next year to get some books weitten for my neglected other series, too! Must. Write. Faster.
A few readers have asked what we need to do differently as authors when writing for a multi-author series. Answer – plenty! The most important things are to be willing to work together, compromise, and especially to let God lead. Multiply that by 10 when it’s a closely linked series!
I’m currently involved in three, Billionaire Protectors with Alexa Verde, Chapel Cove Romances with Marion Ueckermann and Alexa, and A Tuscan Legacy including other Inspy Romance authors, Elizabeth Maddrey, Heather Gray, and Narelle Atkins.
A Tuscan Legacy started with a comment to Marion that we should do a multi-author series. Loads of Facebook messages and emails later, we had a setting, a family, an outline for the series plot, and five other authors to each write a book for the series! Each author “owned” her characters and as long as one main element was included and the family background matched,she could do what she wanted with her story. Each book ended up very different, but like a patchwork, they all fitted together to create a unified whole. A real God thing!
In A Tuscan Legacy, books 2-8 were written spread across the world and there could be very little interaction with other series characters. For Chapel Cove Romances, Marion, Alexa, and I worked together more closely. The stories are all set in the same community and use each others’ characters. Coordinating this has taken many hours of Facebook messaging, sometimes daily! Our biggest challenge has been getting the timelines straight. Thankfully none of the other stories will happen concurrently. Phew! And to keep the settings straight, Marion made a wonderful town map. Can’t wait to see how much Chapel Cove changes by Book 12!
With our Billionaire Protectors trilogy, Alexa and I are co-authoring. Alexa prefers the creative rush of writing first draft. I prefer the revision process, seeing the true story emerge. So we brainstorm, she drafts, then I revise the drafts and get them publish-ready. It’s been a big challenge, and a satisfying one!
What happens to books written for a multi-author themed project when the project ends? Books don’t usually disappear, but to work when republished separately, they’ll usually need some changes. Maybe a lot of changes, as I discovered when the Kindle Worlds ended. My book, set in a small Texas town and including many of the lead author’s settings and characters, moved across country to Oregon, changed season from spring to winter, lost several characters and places, and gained 15,000 extra words to become His Healing Touch.
Alexa Verde, Liwen Ho, and Jackie Castle also republished their books from the same series, with varying changes required, from hardly any (Liwen) to rewrites (Alexa and me).
The Arcardia Valley Romances series had stronger links between each authors’ series-within-a-series that to other authors’ books, so when the boxed set of series starters unpublished, the individual authors released them as solo books. Like Valeries’s Garden Grown Romance series and Elizabeth’s Baxter Family Bakery.
Ginger Solomon’s Christmas in July novella for the Love in Mistletoe Springs boxed set, where all the stories centered on a small town animal shelter, needed only minor changes to launch as a solo, Mr. Christmas & Miss Scrooge. And talking of Christmas in July books, Valerie is hosting a page of Christmas-themed Christian romances, all either free, free-with-sign-up, or 99c, until July 25th only.
I hope I haven’t missed any other books by Inspy Romance authors that are or were part of a linked multi-author series.
How do you see multi-author series as a reader? What do you especially like or dislike about them? One comment made on this post by July 30 will be randomly chosen to win the commenter’s choice of my ebooks.
USA Today bestselling author Autumn Macarthur writes romances full of faith and hope, celebrating God's love as well as a man and a woman finding their happily ever after. She prays they’ll warm your heart and make you smile. An Australian transplanted to Britain, Autumn lives just north of London with her lovely English husband and three demanding cats, in a very small house with a teensy tiny garden. She loves talking to readers, so please get in touch! And get a free Christian romance novella when you sign up for her reader newsletter at http://bit.ly/Autumnsubscribe
Hi Autumn:) I thoroughly enjoy multi author series- I love the continuity of characters/not having to say ‘goodbye’ to characters and their world. Hearing/reading about how much coordination it takes to make the series work is amazing- consistency of character/setting etc. I love that Marion made a map- I would totally need that, and character webs, and photos of the locations….. you guys are awesome! I had also not thought of what happens when the series is unpublished.
Blessings:)
I adore the multi author series, I get to read my favorite authors and maybe find a few new ones!❤️
I have enjoyed reading multi author series because I have found new authors to follow and some great stories to read!
I haven’t read many of them but the few I’ve read I really enjoyed. One comes to mind, it all centered around an upcoming wedding and the first book was about the wedding planner falling in love with the caterer, the next book was about the cellist falling in love with the best man, etc. Cute!
I love getting to read multi author series. I am introduced to new authors at times, and I love reading more about the setting and series. Several of my favorite authors participate in these, so I am fortunate to have read more than a few.
All the multiple authors series I’ve reader I have love and found some wonderful new authors.
I love series by different authors! I like when they keep the settings the same. One of my favorites is the Tales of the Grace Chapel Inn. There are a lot of different authors for that one, but the setting and main characters stayed the same throughout the 46 books!! Each author brought out a different aspect of the main characters, and especially all of the different guests that stayed at the Inn!! What I don’t like is when the series doesn’t have an “end.” It just leaves me wanting more! I like it better when it feels like the series ended like a good book does. Like everything has come together, which is how I felt with Tuscan Legacy. Everything was kinda wrapped up.
I enjoy them! Whether books are released in a box set or in a progressive collection, it’s fun to see the patchwork come together in a unique way.
I love multi-author series, but you already know that. Thank you so much for the mentions!
I enjoy them! Whether books are released in a box set or in a progressive collection, it’s fun to see the patchwork come together in a unique way.
I guess I’m the odd woman out. ;) I’m not a fan of multi-author series. I often don’t like the writing style of some of the authors, so I end up reading books by only one or two of the authors, and I’ve ended up feeling like I missed something overall. Like reading only a few scattered books in a regular, single-author series. By and large, I tend to just avoid them now and stick with single-author series, no matter how much I may like one or two of the authors in the multi-author series.
I really enjoyed A Tuscan Legacy and the Arcadia Valley series. Those worked really well! I’ve read some others (not mentioned by you) in which my favorite authors’ contributions were good, but some of the others in the collection were pretty weak.
Is there a way to get a .pdf of that map of Chapel Cove??
As a reader, I enjoy multi-author series! As a fellow author, I’m always impressed at the coordination!
We had a lot of shared resources for all the multi-author series I’ve been involved in, Wendy. Maps, photos, character descriptions, timelines, author Facebook groups. I love the results, and love working together with other authors, but it’s definitely far more of a process than staying in our own personal storyworlds!
That’s a fun part for readers, right! Getting to discover new authors. :)
I’m glad, Lori! :)
Love it, Laurie! What a fun idea. I adore wedding stories. :)
That’s one of the best things about multi-author series, being able to explore the settings and characters. Thanks for commenting, Marcia!
I’m glad, Brenda! :)
I hadn’t heard of that one, Trudy, I needed to look it up on Amazon. Wow, that’s a LOT of stories for a series!
Series not having an end is a tricky one! For A Tuscan Legacy, we knew right from the start it would be just the 9 books, because we already had a “series story”. Then Isabella wanted her own story, but that was more giving her the happy-ever-after a few readers asked for!
I imagine with the Grace Chapel Inn, and possibly with our Chapel Cove Romances, we may have problems tying it all up neatly, because we didn’t start with a series story in mind. We’re finding a few develop as we write, but we don’t know yet when they’ll all get tied up neatly.
LOL, we don’t even know yet how many books there will be! God willing, we have story ideas to do 12. But more ideas are popping, so I can’t help feeling it could be a similar long-running series!
It’s fun for authors, too, because we never know what each of us will add to the story!
I prefer the single author series. It is much easier to follow and keep up with when the next book will be out. It is easier to store on my kindle app. I love when I feel like reading a book, heading to that author’s collection and finding it. Now, I have to search for what collection it could be and who wrote it. I liked it in the beginning when we were introduced to a new author, but let’s be honest, those same authors are still the ones writing together now. Also, I have missed so many books in the multi-author series, because I don’t like how each and every author and author friend has been posting on facebook or sending the same book release email. I scroll past them and have unfollowed on Facebook and I am unsubscribing on email because it has started to feel like spam.
You are not alone. I feel the same.
We’re definitely having fun with ours! Loving the process with you and Marion!
:)
I can understand that feeling, Dawn and Elizabeth. Unless you enjoy all the authors in the series, it’s either pay for and slog through books you don’t enjoy, or feel like there are pieces missing from the patchwork. No fun either way. :(
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the two series with most Inspy Romance authors involved, Margaret!
We don’t have a pdf available yet, but I can easily make one for you. Only takes a couple of minutes to do.
Here it is: https://www.inspyromance.com/chapel-cove-map/ It should be possible to download by right-clicking the image.
Edited to add – this is the best quality one I can set up. :)
There’s definitely a lot of coordination involved, Sally!
With Chapel Cove, you may not have to do an end! With Grace Chapel, they didn’t really do an end, and it’s fine. I think it’s more like each book was it’s own story, you didn’t have to read the whole series. With Chapel Cove, as long as we know each couple gets together, that’s the best way for them to end! And, we do!! But, I don’t want it to end yet!! I’m looking forward to however many y’all decide to do!! I guess for “end” I mean not showing up in future books, where you’d have to have read the series, but then the series comes back in other books. I’m thinking of one specific author, who started with a group of about 6 books, but the same family kept cropping up in all of her subsequent books, to where that story just keeps going like the Energizer bunny!!
I’m so sorry, Elizabeth, especially that the book promotion feels spammy. :(
Looks like one of the things needing more coordination may be the promotion and how and where we share books.
LOLing at that, Trudy! Yeah, some series are like that. Honestly, at times I’m sure authors wish they could remove the batteries from some of their series when more and more characters start demanding their own series or spin-off series! Maybe that’s just me, but I don’t think so. I have a huge line of characters jumping up and down shouting, “Me next!”
As long as there isn’t conflicting information or plot lines, I like multi author series. It brings a variety to the reading, while it still feeling connected to other books.
That’s so important, Melynda, for sure. And sometimes tricky to avoid!
I think the challenge of a multi-author series would be loads of fun – they’re definitely fun to read! Thanks for sharing Autumn.
They’re fun to write as well, Carolyn! But definitely need more time that writing a solo book!
I think it takes a lot of trust in the other authors to be able to create a co-authored series. Obviously you girls know each other really well and share the same ethos. Your multi- authored series are great and I’m so glad you took the plunge! ❤️
I love multi-author series!! :)
Me, too!
I love multi author series! I think the only ones that I have read so far are some of the books in a few of the Love Inspired Suspense continuity series, which are great! I have copies of A Tuscan Legacy, and Brett, Billionaire Bodyguard on my Kindle and I very much look forward to reading them! ?
:)
It does take trust, so true, Margaret!
I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the books so far. We have no regrets about taking the plunge. :)
Me too, Cathie! Thanks for commenting!
Love Inspired and Love Inspired Suspense continuities are wonderful examples of multi-author series, Caitlyn. I’ve read some fabulous ones. I think the main difference there (according to a friend who writes for Harlequin) is that the editors come up with the idea for the series and the core characters, and also ensure that there’s no conflicting information or plotlines in the books.