What is ya'll's opinion of putting a sneak peek at the next book in the series at the end of the current book? It seems to be a good marketing ploy to me, but on the other hand it seems a little tacky. I'm pretty sure I've usually only seen it done in mass market paperbacks, and in the self-publishing world it seems that the only available copies of our books are nice copies.

Maybe they're better just in ebooks?

As a reader I love/hate that...I like it when you can get past the cliffhanger of the ending of the last book, and it helps tide me over till the next one comes from the library...but I hate it because sometimes it spoils the cliffhanger and takes away some of the "magic" of getting the next book, or it sets an even worse cliffhanger (which is good marketing and I don't hate it as much as the other problem, where it spoils the cliffhanging part). So I think it might be good to have a short excerpt, but you need to be careful and know what you're aiming to do with it.
Hope that there's something useful in there...

What if the book doesn't end on a cliffhanger? Does that change your opinion?

Do you think it's more/less professional? why or why not? (I'm starting to sound like a literature text book. )

Oh, right, I was assuming every book ends on a cliffhanger.

Hmm...I think I'd like it if it got the ball rolling again for the next story, revealed the "ticking time bomb" of the plot (if there is such a thing for that book) or at least give you something to anticipate.
As a reader and a non-professional, I think I'd like that...

Hmm...I suppose it could go either way, some might say that the sheer awesomeness of your writing should be enough to draw people back to your work, but I would say that it's okay to toy with your readers' imaginations and whet their appetite too...I guess I think it could be professional unless you get the sense that the person is trying overhard to keep you as a reader (not sure how that would take shape, though, ), or is trying to keep you with sheer action and suspense (though that's just a preference of mine...it'll make me read the next book, maybe, but I'll still hate the author for making a story that way).

All that to say (I think) that you should probably try to use a sneak peek to invoke interest in the characters for the next story as well as what will (or might) happen, and not put too much emphasis on either element.

I hope that makes sense.

Well, I see it done with lot's of "big name" fantasy writers like Batson, Paul, (who wrote On the Edges of The Dark Sea of Darkness?) and Decker.
However, classic authors like Lewis and Tolkien didn't add excerpts.
Personally I don't read them, but I don't think it seems professional.

Lewis and Tolkien wrote before such things existed. That's why they're classic.

Dekker does do it quite a bit - in his hardcover versions as well. So that breaks the "only mass market paperbacks" feeling I had.

It just seems a bit tacky to have a nice collection of all the books in a series and have two versions of the first chapter of most of them... or is that just me?

No, I agree...I think it might be best to go with an epilogue that sort of resolves the first part of the story and at least hints at the next one...I don't know.

If you're going to have the first chapter of the next book at the back, I think it should probably be as close to exactly the same as possible to the actual first chapter of the next book. So if that's going to be a problem, I'd say don't do it.

It would be the exact chapter of the next book. You know, "Read the first chapter of so and so's exciting new book! Coming Date-XX-2012." And then you turn the page, and you read the chapter, but there's only one, and you want to know what happens next, so when the next book comes out you buy it.

A compromise would be to have the sneak peek available online via a code in the back of the book, similar to what Grace did with the Firmament "bonus" epilogue. Then you don't get the repetitive chapter thing once the series is all published.

Yeah, I like that too, one thing though is you need to keep that there for...well, as long as possible, unless you put it as a limited time thing...

Yeah... although part of the allure is that you have the book in your hands already, so it's a huge temptation to just read it then and there. Then you're snagged - with no hope of escape.

It's entirely possible that I'll put the first chapter of each book online before it's published as promotional material anyway, so I could just stick a note in there that they can read it online.

What do you think about the idea of including the sneak peek in ebooks but not in the print version?

Hmm...that might work well.
Or you could put a special connecting bit of story at the end of each book that isn't in the next one at all...sort of like a pre-prologue or post-epilogue. (I'm actually serious about that idea, but I'm not sure if it's totally ridiculous or not )

That's kind of what Grace is doing with hers, but I'm not sure it would work well for this series. It's a good idea though!

Okay. Hope you figure out what will work best. Thanks! I might try it myself...someday.

Bryan Davis has also done this.

I... don't know where I stand on the issue... Normally, I probably wouldn't read the next chapter, but if I don't have access to the next book... I'd probably cave in.

It's funny, because yesterday or the day before I finished Eragon and didn't read the sneak peek at the end...but I have read sneak peeks before (and been very glad for them when then next book was taking too long to get to me.

My answer to the original question: This is something that an author as author shouldn't be concerned with; if you're self-publishing, this is something to consider when you're wearing your "publisher" or "marketer" hat. In my experience, it can work really well, it's usually far better than a bunch of blank pages (and filling up unused pages in a run was how the practice got started, I'm fairly sure), or it can be incredibly tacky. Also note that it doesn't have to be a "sneak peek" of your next book; in fact, I think I've seen as many short excerpts of other recent books published by the same publisher (sometimes by the same author) than of sequels. I think you don't see them in hardcovers as much for marketing reasons (about which I could only speculate) as any other. And since ebooks automatically give a "sneak peek"/"try-before-you-buy" option, I think it'd be slightly tacky and an unnecessary use of effort to duplicate it in a previous ebook---but a list of "other (or later) books by this author" or "author's recommendations" might be a nice touch.

Oh, and I don't like the term "sneak peek" for these things---"preview" (or "exclusive preview" if the excerpt won't appear anywhere else except in the book itself) is better IMO, and there are other phrasings that I've seen used but can't remember.


Personally, I'm opposed to cliffhanger endings as such; I much prefer the some-things-resolved-others-opening-up ending that leaves the reader satisfied but wanting more---cliffhangers only work as an incentive once, and can backfire (sometimes readers' aversion to overt manipulation of their emotions is stronger than their desire to find out what happens next).


Like I said, this is a publishing decision; I've seen it in some (paperback) editions of Tolkien (and I think Lewis too).
The "unprofessional" "smell" to it may be part of why you usually only see it in paperbacks, since those have carried that stigma for decades .


I think I've see them in some of my parents' paperbacks from the '60s, which were certainly contemporary with the Inklings. And the Ace paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings (which were arguably "pirate" editions, but were, I think, technically legal under U.S. law at the time) might have even had these "previews" themselves.
(One thing from that era that I'd like to see done in the ebook era---other than the prices, which are about the same as paperbacks were then---is "doubles," books bound back-to-back and sold for the price of one.)


In my experience, it wouldn't be "two versions," just "two copies"---the point is that you're getting a peek into the next book; it's not like a movie preview, which is heavily edited for maximum effect and thus is less reliable as a guide for whether you want to buy it. But this is, I suspect, part of why we usually only see "sneak peeks" in hardbacks---paperbacks have a stigma of being "disposable" (and I've seen people come to friends-of-the-library book sales and buy an entire rack of paperback romance novels, not caring that they themselves donated many of them months or years ago), while hardbacks are (ideally) built to last, and priced accordingly.


In my opinion, it's best to end a story when you've resolved the threads it was focused on and begun to transition to the next one, full stop. An "epilogue" should only be needed if there's not going to be a "next one" to resolve any remaining threads.


I agree---except that it doesn't have to be the first chapter, so much as the first however-many pages---preferably breaking at a reasonable stopping place, but some authors' chapters are either too short or too long for the available pages. (As I alluded to above, a book---including all necessary front- and back-matter, is or at least used to be published on one or a few really big pieces of paper, which are then folded, attached together, and cut to form the final book. Depending on the relative size of the original paper and the final pages, this gives you some multiple of either 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc., pages---and any that aren't used show up in the final product as blank so the publishers typically find some "advertising" use for them in paperbacks, and I think adjust the margins and such to avoid them as much as possible in the "more professional" hardbacks.)

In my opinion online content should in general be permanent, so links to it, bookmarks, and such work indefinitely---even if you change blogging platforms, or something. (Finding that five-year-old or ten-year-old bookmarks don't work when I suddenly need the information they linked to---or want to read the story again---is quite annoying.)


Like I said, that's ... backwards. If the reader is already online, it's not very jarring to see a link to the "read inside" page of the sequel, while it's more trouble than it's worth (and arguably padding the word count, like an unnecessarily-verbose summary of the previous books at the beginning) to duplicate that content in the previous ebook, but in paper many readers will just skip a "start reading the next book online!" link but will "take the bait" of a "teaser" that's right there in the book.


That is something that feels like a gimmick to me, and so would make me less likely to try your book. If it's relevant, it should be part of the story per se, not created to include in some editions as a marketing gimmick. (But putting in a note "exclusive Web content on the author's website" and putting things like this on your blog feels less gimmicky, probably because textbook publishers have been doing it for years.)

I actually agree...I swore off the two books that come after the hunger games because of that.



Yes. But it's impossible to really keep something online indefinitely. I was just saying as long as possible because the internet isn't an eternal platform for information...sorry for the confusion.



Well, people will have their own preferences. I think that if someone really likes the characters/world/author's writing, they will relish the opportunity to read a shortstory that connects to bigger stories, whether it's absolutely necessary or not.

No confusion; that was an aside on my part in hopes that perhaps it might help people to think when changing blogging software, moving to a new hosting provider, or some such.


The point is, why is it included in a given volume? There's ample precedent for "omnibus" volumes including some combination of novels and short stories, advertised as such. But it feels, as I said, "gimmicky" (and thus very tacky) to "pad" a novel with a supposedly-related short story, a "second epilogue," "deleted scenes," or something like that---unless this is a novel that's been out for a decade and merits an "expanded edition."

I've heard (third or fourth hand) that an author of an extensive series (I think it was Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber) wrote the first couple and got a multi-book (if it was the Amber series, nine-book) contract---but then found that the story wasn't likely to stretch that far, so the novels proper started getting shorter and shorter and the plot summaries at the beginning of each book started getting longer and longer. Putting in a "bonus" short story or whatever feels far too much like that.

Oh, I see.



Interesting.

Okay... I'll probably miss something here but I'll give it a try.

1. Of course it's a publishing decision. That's what this forum is for. I'm self publishing, and I'm trying to make a decision.

2. Your whole think about a default preview on ebooks is pointless, because at the time you'd be reading this particular sneak peek the second book wouldn't be published yet! But that's part of my issue, once the second book comes out the bonus chapter becomes obsolete.

3. It really doesn't matter what I call it at the moment. Sneak peek is short and fun to say.

4. Links break. That's just the way the world goes. Your site might move. Or you decide you hate it. Or you die. Or you can't pay your server bills. Or any number of things. Websites are not permanent by any means.

5. The subject of cliffhangers and epilogues are somewhat irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

I... think I covered everything.

Yes.... I've never heard anyone mention that before, but I have felt it for a long time.

I like that idea.... If the author is good, then I definitely like as much story from him as I can get, especially tidbits – it's the sort of feeling I get when it is Christmas time. I think the story is over, and then – there's another bit! Summa Elvetica had short stories in the back of the book (though his weren't ones from after the novel but from before it, like dramatic backstory), and I loved it. But, for some reason, the first chapter of the next book never had that appeal for me...maybe because I knew it was sort of like stolen candy, didn't really belong there, and would ruin my appetite for the next book because when I started it at last it would already be familiar? No idea.

That is interesting...IF I ever decide to try this, I would definitely be making sure I got people's opinions on how they went together...I would want the shortstory to be like a separate story that is connected to both the others...that helps you leave the one you just finished with a satisfied feeling and look forward to the next (and start the next) story with anticipation.

Sorry, I should have gotten that from the initial post; most of the in the Heralds' Hall that interest me enough to read are as applicable to traditional publishing as to self-publishing, but it should have been obvious that this wasn't.


In physical books, the point of a "sneak peek" is to incite the reader to go out and buy the other book now, not to build buzz, except a few cases where the other book is due to come out in maybe a month---that's part of why they're common in paperbacks (which usually come out about when the next book comes out in hardback) but rare in hardcovers.
But in any case, my point still stands: in a physical book, you've got these pages that would otherwise be blank, and a Web address for more content requires mental effort and a context shift to "follow" (though QR codes may change that, for readers who have smartphones). In an ebook, by contrast, any extra content that's not part of the book itself (especially marketing stuff like this) feels like "padding"---sort of like the editor of a magazine that paid by the word would feel if the author of a serialized novella wanted to be paid for the plot summaries the editor had written for the second and final installments---while a link to further content (another ebook, or on your website) is almost frictionless and affects the length of the ebook only trivially.


What we call it here doesn't matter (I agree), but if you decide to include one (verbatim or by link) what you call it will have some effect on whether it feels professional or tacky.


True, but just like it's common courtesy to leave a forwarding address when moving physically, it should be standard practice to do the same with Web addresses. (Not that "standard practices" on the Net are followed most of the time ...) And I think that putting content up for a couple of months and then taking it down is generally tacky at best. But this is only tangential to our nominal subject, so I don't think I'll say anything more about that.

That's what I'm doing. I'm releasing a book a month, and I'm pondering the wisdom of include a bonus preview of next month's book to entice readers to dive into the entire series, rather than just whatever book they happen to have in their hands at the moment.

Like the trailers for the next episode of a TV show that they play after the credits.

(Aside from my sense that that's an extremely rapid pace---two novels a year is "highly prolific"---unless the books are so short that a promotional excerpt of the usual length would be 20% or more of the final size ...)
The point of my statement that you quoted is that a traditional publisher might "jump the gun" on their usual schedule by as much as a month or so. But the principle still applies: a promotional excerpt is designed to sell books (and in particular to convert a paperback reader to a hardback buyer), not to build buzz. I see no problems with including such an excerpt in a physical book to try to "hook" readers on the next book, since most readers will probably come to your books more than a month after release. With an ebook, if it's possible to change the text (without having to pay the vendor's fees again) I'd recommend having a line giving the release date of the next volume and a link to an excerpt, then changing it to something like "read [the next volume] at [vendor site]" with a link to the sale page; if not, the first form could do, but you could add a link to the sales page on the excerpt page.


I grew up without a TV, so that's not really a helpful analogy for me .

I grew up without TV too, but now that I'm grown up I watch 'em on Netflix.

I'm writing six novellas this summer and fall that I plan to release a month apart starting in January. It is a rapid pace, but it's a brand new idea that I have nothing to lose by trying. In fact, I don't know of anyone else who'd done a series this way.

Don't have that, either And whenever I establish a household of my own I intend to keep up the practice.


The pace isn't quite as extreme with novellas as with novels---but the other side of the coin is that novellas are basically short stories that are just barely long enough to be published as books one to a volume, so any "preview" longer than a couple of paragraphs feels like padding the page count. (It's also worth noting that while Aleena wasn't quite right about Lewis and Tolkien predating promotional excerpts, they came into fashion only after the typical "novel" became longer than modern "novellas", after the wartime paper shortage---which was the writing generation before the Inklings, or perhaps the writing generation before that, as it happens.)