Help Please! Trilogies

[James Marinero]

Apologies if there's a thread on this elsewhere, but I'm considering my next three books as a trilogy (not all at once, but over a year or so). I mentioned this to a friend and she said that if people see that the first book is part of a trilogy then they may think that it's incomplete in some way. Sure, there will be some foundation laying and and foreshadowing, but the stories will stand alone.

It was suggested that the first book makes no mention of trilogy.

What do you folks think?

Also, would it be better to release the three together? I hope the answer's no to that...

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Couple things:
1) If this is intended to be queried out to agents, then the book will do much better if it's able to stand by itself. That way, if an editor/publisher doesn't want more than one book, then they don't have to turn it down because it had three.
2) If this is intended to be self-published, one thing I have been told about book sales is that, if people know it's part of a finite series (so, a trilogy rather than an unknown number like Lee Child or James Rollins), they will wait until the last book is published and then buy all three so they can binge read all of them.

 

[James Marinero]

Thanks Nicole. Have to think about that!

 

[Jay Aitch]

There are ways of naming a series without calling it a trilogy, e.g. chronicles, a book of [insert curiosity-inspiring word here], tales etc.

There is the pseudo trilogy made famous by Douglas Adams ... A trilogy in x parts.

Or you could go utterly surreal and name it as "A jam sandwich in the [insert series name here] picnic".

 

[James Marinero]

I've decided to release them separately and then retrofit them as a trilogy, although the idea of chronicles is good too @Jimithyh , as I could pull in an earlier book and make it four.