Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion

I am about to publish the first novel in a series and am trying to decide whether I should follow advice to include the first chapter in the second book. I've only just started writing that 2nd book, so no one can run off and buy it. If I were the reader, I would be frustrated to read an excerpt when no full book was yet available.

What is your experience with this, as a reader or writer?

Including the first chapter of a book that hasn't been finished doesn't sound like a good idea to me. You gain pretty much nothing from it (because, as you said, they can't buy it yet). And assuming that you're going with an ebook, it's pretty easy to add the first chapter once the second book is finished.

That's not even going into the scenario where you decide that the first chapter needs a rewrite.

I think I agree with Robert on this. It is probably best to wait until you have finished your second novel in the series before including chapter from it with the first novel.

But once you have the second novel ready I think it might be good idea to add the teaser chapter to the first one.

I agree with Robert and Hàkon. Perhaps have a 'coming soon' type announcement at the end of the book with the second book's title, a brief blurb and maybe a projected release date, might be a good halfway house? As the others say you can always replace this with a teaser chapter later.

I never read teaser chapters in any book, even by my favorite authors. I may be in the minority, but I feel like a simple promo for a book is better than a whole chapter. Tell me on one page why I should pick up your next book. If I read a whole chapter, I may still not know if the whole book sounds interesting or not and will have to seek out a promo. Free chapters already exist on most bookseller websites, and you can add them to your own as well. People who want them should be able to find them.

Thanks, all, this is helpful in sorting the options.

There's a teaser chapter in some of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire series. George is a notorious tinkerer and the teaser chapters ended up bearing little resemblence to what appeared in the next book. I know many people don't read teaser chapters anyway.

I'd say it would work if the next book was all but ready to go and likely to follow hard on the heels of the current one. If not, it's a hostage to fortune.

... If not, it's a hostage to fortune."

Ah. As are we all.

We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied which way it please them

Matthew wrote: "We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied which way it please them"

And sometimes it seems they play tennis about as well as I do.

I'd say no. I'm also one who never reads them.

I look at it like this: if I liked the book I just read and there's another in the series, I'm going to want to read it, teaser chapter or no. If I DIDN'T like it, then why would a teaser chapter convince me to read a second book in the same series?

I might not buy books the way others do, though. I don't buy one, read it, buy another. I buy several at once and work my way through them. So it's not like a teaser chapter is going to spur me on to buying that book. It's more like starting a book that I might read in 6 to 24 months from now, so what's the point?

For what's it's worth, I'm in agreement with the general consensus here. I don't read teaser chapters and I don't like to include that much material from my next book, in the current one.

In some ways it limits my follow on book, because I don't want to change what I've already put out there.

In my two series I may have a very brief outline of the remaining books, only so if some one bought one out of sequence, they might be able to decide to buy the other ones or press on and fill in the blanks based on the outline.

I almost never read them. I read one once. I did buy the sequel. But I didn't buy it because of the teaser. And by the time I read the sequel I remembered nothing about the teaser chapter.

I included the first two chapters of my second book in with my first but the second book was finished when I did this so nothing changed when it was published. I wouldn't do this if the teaser chapters were from an unfinished book as it limits how much you can change things if its already been published.

I agree, best not to publish anything from an unfinished book. If you have a website you can put an excerpt there once you are happy with it. I think a taster of a book is a good idea as the reader can get an idea if your style before buying. The hyped up blurb can sometimes mean very little

Hannah wrote: "I agree, best not to publish anything from an unfinished book. If you have a website you can put an excerpt there once you are happy with it. I think a taster of a book is a good idea as the reader..."

Yeah, I agree all around!

I always avoid reading teasers in the back of books, because I read a lot of books, and being a little long in the tooth, have trouble remembering whether I've read a book before. Reading the teaser chapter might confuse me, make me avoid buying the book later.