: Re: Do new writers stand a chance at a career without ambitions to write series? Simply put, I've been noticing a general truth in bookstores: Nearly every new book on the shelf is part of a

@Chiappetta298

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In the SF and fantasy genres, there has been a clear market trend over about the last 30 years toward both longer books and series. You can see this pretty clearly if you walk into a bricks-and-mortar used book store. Short standalone books are common only up until about the 1970s.

One reason for the change in length may be because of the gradual slide of the magazines into irrelevance. E.g., when Robert Heinlein was at the top of his form ca. 1965-1970, he would publish his best work first as a serialized novel in a magazine, and then as a book. That only works for books up to a certain length.

Robert Sawyer is an unusual example of a successful SF novelist working today who publishes mostly relatively short standalone books. Several of his novels, including some standalones and some of the first installments of his trilogies, were originally serialized in Analog. Sawyer's example shows that it is still possible to sell standalone SF novels. His first novel was a standalone.

It's hard to say whether the trend toward series is an evil moneygrubbing thing by the publishers. It may be partly that, but I suspect there are also a lot of genre readers who actually enjoy reading series. (I'm not one of them.) The trend toward greater lengths would seem easier to explain as arising from the preferences of most readers. I don't see the commercial advantage to a publisher in selling a thicker book rather than a thinner book.

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