So I'm still on the fence about it, but I'm seriously considering delaying the release of my book, The Boy Queen, from fall 2026 to fall 2027. We're still six months out from the originally planned release, which is plenty of time to get the book to where I want it. But it's the first in a four book series. I've never really done a series before, and it's a little different from the standalones.Ā
The main issue is that, while annual releases work well for traditional publishing, all of my research is showing that indie published series do better if they're released much more quickly. I've seen 30-90 days between releases suggested multiple times, but that seems really fastāmaybe every 6 months instead of every 12 would be a good compromise?
The other thing is that while The Boy QueenĀ is finished, the other three books are barely started. My only previous series experience is with fanfic, and since that's for fun and for free, it didn't bother me much when I had to shift some details from one part to the next. But I want everything to line up correctly, with no discrepancies or plot holes, when I'm selling it. Which means I need to be able to go back and tweak book one if something I didn't plan for comes up in book 4.
If I delay a year, books 2-4 might not be fully finished, but they'll be far enough along that I can be sure everything fits together appropriately.
The Boy QueenĀ is going to be my first novel published under the name Iona Gale, and whatever choice I make about release date, it won't impact my publishing schedule as Jenny Prater. I'll still be releasing my fifth novel under that name in late winter/early spring of next year, and hopefully the sixth at the same time the following year.
(Next year's release will be A Flock, A Drift, A Bevy, a retelling of "The Wild Swans," and the following year will likely be The Labyrinth of Crete, a story following Ariadne, Medusa, and Andromeda from Greek mythology, though the schedule that far out is subject to change.)
