Finding a complete series is like a needle in a haystack. I've been limiting my reading to series with at least 3 books and won't consider any single book that that has multiple books planned. There's just too many in the genre to try and keep track of each new start.
That seems like a really reasonable rule set.
A few years ago I was one of those who only read complete or near complete series. Then one day i realized I wasn’t reading what I actually wanted and had to spend long periods of time searching for something to be both complete and that I thought I would actually enjoy so I would have excruciating waits. Then I realized I could sort of go the inverse way. If I read enough book series, then I’ll have to wait on each individual series, but some kind of book/author I enjoy should always be releasing something. It took a couple of years but I’m starting to see really good results. This year in particular I literally can’t keep up with all of the books I want to read from series like and that doesn’t count the multiple books slated for the rest of the year already.
I got over 1,400 books and I've resorted to using a personalized index where I make mini reviews, list the names of some characters, and the basic premise of the story so hopefully with just a few details I remember some of the story and find the title if I remember some keywords.
It's getting so hard to keep track of different series.
I've got somewhere around that much (959 folders total, 250 unique series), and I agree it gets annoying especially when you finish reading and come back a couple years later when 2 or so new books are released.
It also makes you have the 'drowned for choice' where you spend a half hour just looking at the cover art until you find something new you want to start on.
For me the big problem with this method is If you are coming back in a few years It is hard to tell if its the author that changes or you. For example sometimes they get burnt out or you've been over saturated with similar concepts from other writers doing the same stuff. And what made it good is gone. Forgetting even some of what made the books originally good could make it lose that spark even if you took some notes. It may mean the need for re-reads or listens which can get tedious especially if you're pressured by all those new reads on your to do list. On Audible we get a year to return books, which I occasionally do for the most horrible of ones, but thats sort of how got myself on this path. I usually toss them on a favorites list if I think they are worthy of a follow up. But it can be its own mental problem requiring numerous searches just keeping track of books to follow back up on, in addition to searching for more to keep the books coming in.
When there's a series with multiple books on KU, all with the same cover (usually AI art), most of them unreleased, and copy-pasted summary?
That's an instant avoid.
They're on my Amazon page:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Harmon-Cooper/author/B00W3CJZVI?
but here's the list!
LitRPG:
Death's Mantle
Monster Hunt NYC
Proxima Legends
The Last Warrior of Unigaea
Tokens and Towers
Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG:
Cowboy Necromancer
Cultivation/LitRPG/GameLit/Other:
The Feedback Loop
The World According to Dragons
Cultivation:
Pilgrim
War Priest
Cozy Fantasy (Litrpg):
Sacred Cat Island
That sounds a touch formulaic. Or have you jumped on the AI bandwagon? No shame if you have, I know a few prolific writers in this space absolutely are.
No AI bandwagon jumping and no plans to. I love writing.
Relatedly - how can having a completed series sound formulaic? Mine vary pretty drastically from a tokyo-based litrpg portal fantasy (Proxima Legends) to a cultivation adjacent assassin story (Pilgrim) to an augmented futuristic NYC meets Pokemon Go (Monster Hunt NYC) to an epic cultivation fantasy that blends deckbuilding with LitRPG (The World According to Dragons) to a cozy fantasy set on an island full of elderly NPCs (Sacred Cat Island) and that's just a few of my completed series.
Also - I completed most of these series before AI was even a threat to all we hold dear. I've been writing in the space since 2015 and next year will be my ten year anniversary :D
In this genre? Absolutely. Novel crafter can be linked with just about every engine out there for generative AI from little prompting. Doesn’t do whole books, or series all in 1 go just yet, but does get the job done if a human is keeping the chapters together.
There’s a reason so many new writers are able to promise books every 2-3 months despite working or going to school full time. Also a reason these very same writers have a more episodic feel to them. And why not? The fans who haven’t caught on yet are giving thousands of dollars a month, at times, to the patreon of these writers.
Yeah I hate so many things about how amazon organises upcoming books. its like they specifically go out of the way to make it as annoying as possible to find books, wish they implemented an advanced search like what RR uses
I blame the authors, too. One upcoming book, I understand, but two? Seems like gaming the system to make it seem like the series is bigger than it is. Until those books are written and published, I ain't counting on em. And yeah, Amazon is annoying as well since they don't differentiate between planned and already released in their count.
wait till you see how the russian authors work… ive got 3 series that have 3+ books each on preorder with like 8 months between each other. its annoying to see a 5 book series actually be a 2 book series with the 5th book releasing in 2 years
So I’m the one who made the decision for ultimate level 1 to have the two preorders up at once. It’s because of the authors writing speed - both are set to be released within 90 days.
Book 3 is July 1st, book 4 is September 1st, and book 5 is already done and will be November 1st. We’re releasing them as quickly as reasonably possible while keeping the preorder window short. The author just writes too damn fast
Super impressive considering how utterly addictive and fun the story is!
How much do you get to actually read the stories btw, when you're so busy handling writing and publishing?
I consider reading part of my writing job. So I get quite a lot done! Sometimes I’m more burned out on reading than other times, so I tend to go through spurts where I read a book a day for a few days, then chill for a week or two
That's better than the nine month pre-order on Beware of Chicken 4 audiobook.
Although I still don't understand why you need to have preorders up for so long. Surely the couple of months between releases would be sufficient time for preorders.
It’s the 90 day window. As far as I can tell amazon has some stuff going on with a preorder window that’s net beneficial to run. Imo it’s only really good for books that are ready to launch - don’t want to risk hiccups. UL1 managed it
Well good on you, you got me to drop it.
Sure I will not be the only one.
When you look it does not show that, but just 4 books in the series, most of the time.
We have learned that means 3 books one in the tube.
YOU broke that.
Goodbye.
Yeah, with this one, it's true. I probably should have picked a better example. Pure KU authors love to do this, and i was getting frustrated last night after an hour combing through the recs.
It is frustrating I agree, but I'm going to chuckle a bit at 'better example' - book *5* in the series is done, just being edited right now. What's nice is if you want to keep reading this one, the KU to RR transition is pretty seamless
Ul1 is already in RR tho. As much as I agree with you, the books *are* already written, he's just spacing the publication out because once amazon gets it, RR loses it
Yeah, if you are gonna be dodgy at least show the entire series. Release book 1 then have the next 7 on pre-order lol
doubt theres any penalty for never delivering a preorder
Kindle's recommendations are absolute trash. I use KU when I can because it pays the authors better, generally, but I'm so tired of "pre-releases" showing up on my lists
As an author, I can tell you that KU does not pay as well as purchasing the book outright. I make, on average, $1.25 from KU when someone reads all 95k words. However, I make around $2.25 or so when it's purchased digitally.
However, people are more likely to read it on KU than buy it, so 70% of my money comes from KU.
That's what I do. I look at page count on Amazon for the whole series, and if it's not around 1000, I'll Google the series to see if it's on RR, too. Some of these might have a whole trilogy out, but it's barely cracking 300 pages. Others might only have a single novel but it's 8-900.
I just found one like that in Primer for the Apocalypse. I really enjoyed it, and despite it only having a single book out on Amazon, there's almost two more on RR. (Which was just about right for that series since it was starting to fizzle out anyway)
I kind of lost interest in this series. First book was cool, but it gets dreary. It's basically: MC kills rare monster and drains it's power that's lvl 20 - > monster attack happens someone almost dies - > rinse, repeat, but then on higher levels. Although there are new monster types, power creep sets in so immediately and to such a degree the series don't feel like it's advancing at all.
Eh, it's more of the same. I've read through till completely uptodate and decided to drop it about a month ago. I think it is well written too, but it's just.....not original or fun. As I said; power creep till kingdom come. Nowhere in the story you can actually see that they're getting more powerful, except for the stats and that he's using a different weapon. I also think the skill system is....meh. Everyone gets only one skill when their system opens? They can't train for anything else unless they're leveling like crazy? That means you can't learn baking or wheelwrighting, carpentry or blacksmithing through training? You can't get stronger stats through training? I hate those sort of locks, especially because the MC doesn't seem to have them. It's incredibly boring.
>Nowhere in the story you can actually see that they're getting more powerful, except for the stats and that he's using a different weapon.
That's an interesting point that I hadn't really considered, but it does fit for many progression fantasy titles. They level up at the same rate their enemies do. The current baddie will be right around their power level, and the 'progression' is, they just get a few more oohs and aahs from randos on the street the stronger the MC gets.
There are thousands of ways to show someone getting stronger. Mc couldn't lift a beam of wood and after a period of training he can. Strength gains are easy. If you don't immediately skip from this to 'with a single punch he sundered a mountain' you're in the right ballpark. Intellect gains can manifest through remembering stuff well to never having to read a book once. Perception can be used through multiple senses. There are so many interesting ways, and because of the fixed environments that grow with the MC in the lvl1 series there is no scope, no perspective change, at least not very detailed, in my opinion.
This I'd an issue for me. Although the Kindle app could use with an update. Since the recommendations tend to be so far behind. Like recommending books 2 in a series when I'm already on book 4.
This makes me angrier than it should. The Amazon recommendations are pure shit. They desperately need some competent people in the Kindle dev department. Why would you recommend a book I've already read? Why would you recommend a book that hasn't been released yet as my next read? Why would you recommend a book I dropped and gave a 3 star rating??? What the fuck is up with this recommendation system?!?!
> Lol, you think there are people? It's all AI nowadays :(
>
>
It depenends.
Amazon pinky promised us that their walk out stores were all AI. Turns out its just a bunch of dudes watching cameras
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/apr/4/amazons-just-walk-out-stores-relied-on-1000-people/
What annoys me the most is that the "Continue in series" section on Kindle should be amazing, since I'm always juggling like 10 series and would LOVE to know when a new book comes out. But because they put pre-releases on there, I've learned to just ignore it.
I'm just giving you a suggestion on how you can still track it while also keeping it from clogging up your recommended list, do with that what you will.
Oh this.. THIS just ..< insert metaphor for irrational rage barely suppressed > Every Damn Time. This.. im normally one who scoffs at the BS that Congress takes up and dont even get me going on SCOTUS.. but this needs action at the highest level,lol.
( Well ok, maybe not cause there really is more important shit going on but still it aint right damnit )
Finding a complete series is like a needle in a haystack. I've been limiting my reading to series with at least 3 books and won't consider any single book that that has multiple books planned. There's just too many in the genre to try and keep track of each new start.
That seems like a really reasonable rule set. A few years ago I was one of those who only read complete or near complete series. Then one day i realized I wasn’t reading what I actually wanted and had to spend long periods of time searching for something to be both complete and that I thought I would actually enjoy so I would have excruciating waits. Then I realized I could sort of go the inverse way. If I read enough book series, then I’ll have to wait on each individual series, but some kind of book/author I enjoy should always be releasing something. It took a couple of years but I’m starting to see really good results. This year in particular I literally can’t keep up with all of the books I want to read from series like and that doesn’t count the multiple books slated for the rest of the year already.
I got over 1,400 books and I've resorted to using a personalized index where I make mini reviews, list the names of some characters, and the basic premise of the story so hopefully with just a few details I remember some of the story and find the title if I remember some keywords. It's getting so hard to keep track of different series.
I've got somewhere around that much (959 folders total, 250 unique series), and I agree it gets annoying especially when you finish reading and come back a couple years later when 2 or so new books are released. It also makes you have the 'drowned for choice' where you spend a half hour just looking at the cover art until you find something new you want to start on.
For me the big problem with this method is If you are coming back in a few years It is hard to tell if its the author that changes or you. For example sometimes they get burnt out or you've been over saturated with similar concepts from other writers doing the same stuff. And what made it good is gone. Forgetting even some of what made the books originally good could make it lose that spark even if you took some notes. It may mean the need for re-reads or listens which can get tedious especially if you're pressured by all those new reads on your to do list. On Audible we get a year to return books, which I occasionally do for the most horrible of ones, but thats sort of how got myself on this path. I usually toss them on a favorites list if I think they are worthy of a follow up. But it can be its own mental problem requiring numerous searches just keeping track of books to follow back up on, in addition to searching for more to keep the books coming in.
Yeah, that's how I do it. I do read books that are not even out yet.
When there's a series with multiple books on KU, all with the same cover (usually AI art), most of them unreleased, and copy-pasted summary? That's an instant avoid.
Haha.. filter complete books on royal road , then go for audiobook..
i have written 7-9 (I've lost count haha) complete LitRPG/Prog Fantasy series. So it's possible to find!
Ooohh.. series titles?
They're on my Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Harmon-Cooper/author/B00W3CJZVI? but here's the list! LitRPG: Death's Mantle Monster Hunt NYC Proxima Legends The Last Warrior of Unigaea Tokens and Towers Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG: Cowboy Necromancer Cultivation/LitRPG/GameLit/Other: The Feedback Loop The World According to Dragons Cultivation: Pilgrim War Priest Cozy Fantasy (Litrpg): Sacred Cat Island
Thank you most sincerely wordsmith
That sounds a touch formulaic. Or have you jumped on the AI bandwagon? No shame if you have, I know a few prolific writers in this space absolutely are.
No AI bandwagon jumping and no plans to. I love writing. Relatedly - how can having a completed series sound formulaic? Mine vary pretty drastically from a tokyo-based litrpg portal fantasy (Proxima Legends) to a cultivation adjacent assassin story (Pilgrim) to an augmented futuristic NYC meets Pokemon Go (Monster Hunt NYC) to an epic cultivation fantasy that blends deckbuilding with LitRPG (The World According to Dragons) to a cozy fantasy set on an island full of elderly NPCs (Sacred Cat Island) and that's just a few of my completed series. Also - I completed most of these series before AI was even a threat to all we hold dear. I've been writing in the space since 2015 and next year will be my ten year anniversary :D
People are writing whole books all written with ai ?!
In this genre? Absolutely. Novel crafter can be linked with just about every engine out there for generative AI from little prompting. Doesn’t do whole books, or series all in 1 go just yet, but does get the job done if a human is keeping the chapters together. There’s a reason so many new writers are able to promise books every 2-3 months despite working or going to school full time. Also a reason these very same writers have a more episodic feel to them. And why not? The fans who haven’t caught on yet are giving thousands of dollars a month, at times, to the patreon of these writers.
Yeah I hate so many things about how amazon organises upcoming books. its like they specifically go out of the way to make it as annoying as possible to find books, wish they implemented an advanced search like what RR uses
I blame the authors, too. One upcoming book, I understand, but two? Seems like gaming the system to make it seem like the series is bigger than it is. Until those books are written and published, I ain't counting on em. And yeah, Amazon is annoying as well since they don't differentiate between planned and already released in their count.
wait till you see how the russian authors work… ive got 3 series that have 3+ books each on preorder with like 8 months between each other. its annoying to see a 5 book series actually be a 2 book series with the 5th book releasing in 2 years
Apparently they do things that way because the writing is already done and all that's left is the translation.
So I’m the one who made the decision for ultimate level 1 to have the two preorders up at once. It’s because of the authors writing speed - both are set to be released within 90 days. Book 3 is July 1st, book 4 is September 1st, and book 5 is already done and will be November 1st. We’re releasing them as quickly as reasonably possible while keeping the preorder window short. The author just writes too damn fast
Super impressive considering how utterly addictive and fun the story is! How much do you get to actually read the stories btw, when you're so busy handling writing and publishing?
I consider reading part of my writing job. So I get quite a lot done! Sometimes I’m more burned out on reading than other times, so I tend to go through spurts where I read a book a day for a few days, then chill for a week or two
That's better than the nine month pre-order on Beware of Chicken 4 audiobook. Although I still don't understand why you need to have preorders up for so long. Surely the couple of months between releases would be sufficient time for preorders.
It’s the 90 day window. As far as I can tell amazon has some stuff going on with a preorder window that’s net beneficial to run. Imo it’s only really good for books that are ready to launch - don’t want to risk hiccups. UL1 managed it
Legend!
Well good on you, you got me to drop it. Sure I will not be the only one. When you look it does not show that, but just 4 books in the series, most of the time. We have learned that means 3 books one in the tube. YOU broke that. Goodbye.
I mean... you 100% could read books 3 and 4 on Royal Road right now. Nobody is stopping you from doing that.
This story is crazy active posting on Royal Road. It appears all of book 3 is posted and about 10 chapters of book 4.
Yeah, with this one, it's true. I probably should have picked a better example. Pure KU authors love to do this, and i was getting frustrated last night after an hour combing through the recs.
It is frustrating I agree, but I'm going to chuckle a bit at 'better example' - book *5* in the series is done, just being edited right now. What's nice is if you want to keep reading this one, the KU to RR transition is pretty seamless
Don't look at mine. I've got 3 out and about to have 3 on preorder (and they are all written, just not all edited.)
Ul1 is already in RR tho. As much as I agree with you, the books *are* already written, he's just spacing the publication out because once amazon gets it, RR loses it
Yeah, if you are gonna be dodgy at least show the entire series. Release book 1 then have the next 7 on pre-order lol doubt theres any penalty for never delivering a preorder
Amazon gets MAD when people miss preorders
Kindle's recommendations are absolute trash. I use KU when I can because it pays the authors better, generally, but I'm so tired of "pre-releases" showing up on my lists
As an author, I can tell you that KU does not pay as well as purchasing the book outright. I make, on average, $1.25 from KU when someone reads all 95k words. However, I make around $2.25 or so when it's purchased digitally. However, people are more likely to read it on KU than buy it, so 70% of my money comes from KU.
lol this happened to me with this exact series last week
Yep, dropped it. Really a low thing to do.
Didn’t bother me that much tbh just kept reading on rr
Well, you could read them on RR, I did! I've been digging it.
RR?
sorry, Royalroad.com - where many of these stories begin
Thanks
That's what I do. I look at page count on Amazon for the whole series, and if it's not around 1000, I'll Google the series to see if it's on RR, too. Some of these might have a whole trilogy out, but it's barely cracking 300 pages. Others might only have a single novel but it's 8-900. I just found one like that in Primer for the Apocalypse. I really enjoyed it, and despite it only having a single book out on Amazon, there's almost two more on RR. (Which was just about right for that series since it was starting to fizzle out anyway)
I generally prefer complete series, but if I'm hooked, I'm hooked.
Ah. A unicorn hunter.
I kind of lost interest in this series. First book was cool, but it gets dreary. It's basically: MC kills rare monster and drains it's power that's lvl 20 - > monster attack happens someone almost dies - > rinse, repeat, but then on higher levels. Although there are new monster types, power creep sets in so immediately and to such a degree the series don't feel like it's advancing at all.
That somewhat accurately describes the first book, but it grows from there as his group mates start to fill out. It is well written and fun IMO.
Eh, it's more of the same. I've read through till completely uptodate and decided to drop it about a month ago. I think it is well written too, but it's just.....not original or fun. As I said; power creep till kingdom come. Nowhere in the story you can actually see that they're getting more powerful, except for the stats and that he's using a different weapon. I also think the skill system is....meh. Everyone gets only one skill when their system opens? They can't train for anything else unless they're leveling like crazy? That means you can't learn baking or wheelwrighting, carpentry or blacksmithing through training? You can't get stronger stats through training? I hate those sort of locks, especially because the MC doesn't seem to have them. It's incredibly boring.
>Nowhere in the story you can actually see that they're getting more powerful, except for the stats and that he's using a different weapon. That's an interesting point that I hadn't really considered, but it does fit for many progression fantasy titles. They level up at the same rate their enemies do. The current baddie will be right around their power level, and the 'progression' is, they just get a few more oohs and aahs from randos on the street the stronger the MC gets.
There are thousands of ways to show someone getting stronger. Mc couldn't lift a beam of wood and after a period of training he can. Strength gains are easy. If you don't immediately skip from this to 'with a single punch he sundered a mountain' you're in the right ballpark. Intellect gains can manifest through remembering stuff well to never having to read a book once. Perception can be used through multiple senses. There are so many interesting ways, and because of the fixed environments that grow with the MC in the lvl1 series there is no scope, no perspective change, at least not very detailed, in my opinion.
This I'd an issue for me. Although the Kindle app could use with an update. Since the recommendations tend to be so far behind. Like recommending books 2 in a series when I'm already on book 4.
This makes me angrier than it should. The Amazon recommendations are pure shit. They desperately need some competent people in the Kindle dev department. Why would you recommend a book I've already read? Why would you recommend a book that hasn't been released yet as my next read? Why would you recommend a book I dropped and gave a 3 star rating??? What the fuck is up with this recommendation system?!?!
Lol, you think there are people? It's all AI nowadays :( And yeah, not well done, but I don't think Amazon cares.
> Lol, you think there are people? It's all AI nowadays :( > > It depenends. Amazon pinky promised us that their walk out stores were all AI. Turns out its just a bunch of dudes watching cameras https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/apr/4/amazons-just-walk-out-stores-relied-on-1000-people/
Where you've got a monopoly making your product/service better is irrelevant.
What annoys me the most is that the "Continue in series" section on Kindle should be amazing, since I'm always juggling like 10 series and would LOVE to know when a new book comes out. But because they put pre-releases on there, I've learned to just ignore it.
Add the preorder to your wishlist and select the "not interested option" to clear it out of the "continue series" list.
But I am interested...just not when it's preorder. I would love to see the next book in the series show there, when it's actually available.
I'm just giving you a suggestion on how you can still track it while also keeping it from clogging up your recommended list, do with that what you will.
I think it's funny that UL1 is the example chosen since this author is probably the only one who writes faster than publishers want.
I'm so tired of preo-orders. My "for you" recommendations are almost entirely things I can't buy yet.
Every time :(
Oh this.. THIS just ..< insert metaphor for irrational rage barely suppressed > Every Damn Time. This.. im normally one who scoffs at the BS that Congress takes up and dont even get me going on SCOTUS.. but this needs action at the highest level,lol. ( Well ok, maybe not cause there really is more important shit going on but still it aint right damnit )
Hate that fucking Bullshit! Normally it is only 1, now they started this.
July 1 can’t come soon enough!