Multiple Novels Coming to Completion Simultaneously

by Linda
(Canada)

Hi

I've so enjoyed using your resources for a series of novels I've been working on.

Although I know you always advise to focus on writing and selling one book first, and I agree this would be a terrific plan, four of mine are all coming to completion at roughly the same rate and will likely be completed and edited in six months. Another four will probably each completion around the same time as each other too, eighteen to twenty months hence.

Although the completed series of novels follow the same folks over forty years' time and the maturation of characters is all worked out over that period, each novel can stand alone and they could be published in any order.

That being the case, when I have the first four manuscripts ready to submit, would it be 'bad form' or 'poor judgement' to submit query letters etc for each of them separately but at the same time? Because it strikes me this quadruples the odds of being seen and read and potentially contacted for a first chapter.

Or is there a better way?

'Cause I can consider practically anything other than, of course, writing just one title before doing anything else. It's way too late for that. And besides, they're so closely integrated I have had to approach them the way the Harry Potter series was done.

Thanks so much!

Response: The challenge I see is that the best agents or publishers to approach for one of the books are the same ones you would want to approach for all of them. So you would be sending multiple queries to the same people at the same time. If they don't like one of the queries, they may be less inclined to read the rest of the stack.

If, as you say, the books are all more or less stand-alone, it might be better to query one book first (regardless how many are actually finished). Choose the book you think has the most appeal at the time. (Either because the story is stronger, or more topical, or has more obvious audience appeal.) You could certainly mention in your query that it is part of a series.

If you get no bites on the first book, you could query the second, etc.