Judging the Profitability of a Series

This post is going to hurt. There are a lot of readers who get really upset when an author doesn’t finish a series, but in reality, writing a series is one of the riskiest gambles an author can make. If book one flops, the whole series flops. And that’s for good reason. I commit to finishing every series I write; I have my entire lifetime to get it all done, and I’m writing these books because I want to.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to prioritize a book series that isn’t profitable. (And frankly, no author should.)

Sorry to any readers who might have stumbled upon this. This isn’t the kind of post you probably enjoy reading. But if you are a reader who wants to see a series finished, by the books as they release and refrain from reading them until the series is done. That way, the authors get paid and continue the series… and you get a finished series.

If you didn’t buy the books in the series when they were new and supported the author… you can’t complain that the series doesn’t get finished. Authors are not a charity.

Authors… you are not a charity. You can choose to be like me, finishing everything you start even if you take losses, but you are under no obligation to.

Also, this post is about to get hella complicated, so buckle in. It’s going to be a ride.

As always, these are my opinions. Nobody is forcing you to agree with me on these things. Take or leave my commentary as you will.

Also… this is the foundational basics. I’ve barely scratched at the surface of this subject in this post. More will come, eventually.

Why Write a Series?

Before we dig into the nitty gritty of series profitability, I feel we should take a slight detour to discuss why you might want to write a series. Most want to tell a story arc that is bigger than one book. This is a great reason to write a series. Not all stories can fit in a reasonably sized book. I typically aim between 80,000 to 120,000 words for my novels. This is my comfort zone, with most of my books falling in the 90,000 to 100,000 word range.

These aren’t short novels, but they aren’t chonky novels, either.

To give you an idea, that’s roughly the same general expectation of length for traditionally published authors. According to Kobo, Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews is 105,000 words. The Mane Event by Shelly Laurenston is 120,000 words. This is actually a two-for-one book consisting of two independent stories, thus the extra length. Lynsay Sands’s A Quick Bite is 105,000 words. The 32nd book in the same series is also 105,000 words.

In short, 100,000 words is the ‘average’ book length for urban fantasy and paranormal fantasy novel.

Independent authors, obviously, have more flexibility with their word counts than traditionally published authors.

Can we just take a moment to admire Lynsay Sands? The Argeneau Vampires series is approximately 3,360,000 words of entertainment.

That is a lot of words.

My Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series is currently sitting at 1,680,000 words written with something like six novels to go.

I always had a set conclusion point for my series, which is an equal mix of standalones-in-series and “proper” series books.

I really do wish people would stop saying books that are over 100,000 words long are ‘short’ because that is very disheartening to me. Sigh. Oh, well.

It’s just a thing that will never stop happening, so I deal with it. (It is okay to be frustrated by things like that.)

What makes a profitable series?

In the most simplest terms, any book series with 101% total ROI (Return on Investment) is profitable. Sure, 1% ROI is not much to write home about, but profit is profit is profit. The first goal of any author is to get book one at 100% ROI or greater.

That’s common sense. But you can’t make profit until you eliminate the losses.

Unfortunately, judging the profit of a series is far more complicated than just “shiny math rocks say we have profit on book 1.”

A profitable series carries profit throughout the entire series. For how I operate, if a series has 22 books in it, books 1-21 should be profitable and book 22 should be working on earning profit.

As you’ll soon see, my primary series (the Mag Rom Com one mentioned above) no longer meets these requirements.

Let’s dig down into some math for the series. Here are the books in the series, the number of books sold solely on Amazon, and the read through rate from the previous book in the series. As a bonus, I’m going to include the read through rate in comparison to book one. (This is a general representation of “overall” series read through.)

Note: these figures from May 2024 and cover Amazon’s lifetime for the series.

• Playing with Fire: 110,014 books sold. (This is Book 1.)
• Hoofin’ It: 58,134 books sold, 52.84% RTR (Read Through Rate)
• Hearth, Home, and Havoc: 25,906 books sold, 44.56% RTR, 23.54% overall RTR.
• Serial Killer Princess: 25,321 books sold, 97.74% RTR, 23.01% overall RTR.
• Whatever for Hire: 43, 581 books sold, 172.11% RTR, 39.61% overall RTR.

Hearth, Home, and Havoc and Serial Killer Princess are novellas within the series; for those of you who are wondering about why NOT to do novellas as part of your series, this is why. It doesn’t matter how good these books are. The length condemned them. They could be the best book in the entire damned world, and the length would continue to condemn them.

Lesson learned: I will not be writing future novellas outside of anthologies I’m doing for fun.

As a side note: it took me like five or six novellas to learn. Don’t be like me. Learn after the first time… or better yet, don’t try it at all, in my not-so-subtle opinion.

• Owl Be Yours: 24, 054 books sold, 55.19% RTR, 21.86% overall RTR.
• Last but not Leashed: 24,731 books sold, 102.81% RTR(*1), 22.47% overall RTR.
• No Kitten Around: 33,253 books sold, 134.45% RTR, 30.22% overall RTR.
• Fowl Play: 19,511 books sold, 58.67% RTR, 17.73% overall RTR.

Oh, look. Three novellas with the same shitty result…

Please learn from me. Skip the novella “extra” content. Just write a full-length book. Novel readers just don’t want to buy novella material.

At this stage, you can start seeing the “series dwindle” beginning to occur. You will drop readers every book release. Anyone who claims that they have a 100% read through rate is either lying to you or has a tiny audience sampler size… 100% read through is not real.

The best part is, I have seen authors I have read, and have bailed out of their series in book one, claim they have a 100% read through rate. I was polite and did not tell them I didn’t even finish reading their book one…

100% read through late is an illusion and a lie. It just doesn’t happen, not with any real volume for a book sale. Or the book was sold only as a set, which absolutely does not count.

*1: Clearly, wuffs sell better than owls. These two books released in close proximity to each other: June and September of the same year.)

• Blending In: 26,593 books sold, 136.29% RTR, 24.99% overall RTR.
• Cheetahs Never Win: 24,377 books sold, 91.66% RTR, 22.15% overall RTR.
• Burn, Baby, Burn: 29,328 books sold, 120.31% RTR, 26.65% overall RTR, 26.65% trilogy RTR.(*2)
• Double Trouble: 17,701 books sold, 60.91% RTR, 16.08% overall RTR.
• Grave Humor: 25,992 books sold, 146.83% RTR, 23.62% overall RTR.
• A Chip on Her Shoulder: 22,442 books sold, 86.34% RTR, 20.39% overall RTR.
• The Flame Game: 21,541 books sold, 95.59% RTR, 19.58% overall RTR, 73.44% trilogy RTR. (*3)
• Murder Mittens: 19,874 books sold, 92.26% RTR, 18.06% overall RTR.
• Catnapped: 17,888 books sold, 90.00% RTR, 16.25% overall RTR.
• Plaidypus: 14,472 books sold, 80.90% RTR, 13.15% overall RTR.
• Doggone Mess: 8,817 books sold, 60.92% RTR, 08.14% overall RTR. (*4)
• 101 Ways to Die: 6,308 books sold, 71.54% RTR, 05.73% overall RTR.
• Whiskers on Kittens: 5,513 books sold, 87.39% RTR, 05.01% overall RTR.

*2: This is book two of a “trilogy” within the series, which includes Playing with Fire, Burn, Baby, Burn, and the Flame Game. As such, this book has a 26.65% RTR to book 2 in the trilogy within the series.

*3: This means 73.44% of people who bought book two also bought book three; I had a huge amount of drop between book one and book two, but book two to book three did well. However, that level of drop between book one and book two is a hefty sign of “series death.” I’ll explain this more in depth a little later.

*4: this is where I would have slated this series for conclusion if I did not already have a set route; in short, I would have replotted the remaining series to limit how many books I would write to cut losses.

The Death Throes of a Series

Let’s face it, y’all. A 5% overall RTR is not sustainable. And frankly, it was a miracle it was only a .70% drop between 101 Ways to Die and Whiskers.

I am expecting a 3% drop on the next book in the series, Dragon Her Heels. Let’s do some math.

Dragon Her Heels will be 80,000 to 120,000 words, so I will be pricing it at $6.99. At a 2.01% overall RTR, I am expecting to sell approximately 2,211 books, most of which will happen at release. If I’m lucky, I’ll sell 3,000 at release.

Let’s run both sets of numbers.

At current, my production rates are approximately $4,000 for a 100,000 word novel.

At 2,211 books, I will earn $10,597.32. At 3,000, I will earn $14,379. This is not bad! However… using the 2,211 estimate:

I lose $4,500 to taxes immediately. That leaves me with $6,097. $4,000 of that went to production expenses. That leaves me with $2,097.32 to pay the bills, etc, etc, etc. This is assuming I don’t ever spend another penny on advertising… (Yes, thanks to my husband’s income, even if I only earn a penny, I immediately lose a minimum of 45% of my earnings to taxes.)

As Dragon Her Heels will take me 2-3 months to write, this is a non-sustainable series.

My rent is $3,500 a month.

I will be finishing this series because I want to, which is why I’m not trimming out any books. But, this is also why the series is no longer being prioritized in any fashion. As of Doggone Mess, the series has lost its realistic profitability. I might even add a book here and there because I want to and the series is fun. But as of today, I will be telling them why the Mag Rom Com series has been deprioritized… and this post will be the vessel in which I have to hold off the angry hordes due to no longer feeding the machine twice a year.

It is time to move on to new waters, and that is fine.

I finish series because I want to. However, the economics of this series states one thing: this series is officially dead. It is floating belly up in a pool of its own blood.

(Allow me to be dramatic. This is one of my heart series, and after 22 books… admitting it is now a failing series hurts.)

Eventually, all series die. And this one… should have already ridden into the sunset if I actually cared about my finances. I don’t, and so it rides for its predestined end. It will go out with a war cry and not a whimper.

It will do so because this is what I want for the series, and I am willing to take the losses to make it happen.

Author, please know that I love you when I say this:

You do not need to be me, you do not have to finish that series that is making your wallet bleed, and it is absolutely okay to quit. You do not have to go down in flames with your series.

Just because I choose to go that route does not mean you should. It is not inspirational. In fact… it’s rather stupid.

I’m okay with doing stupid things for the love of my art. You do not need to. Yes, some readers will complain. And I’m sorry for those who loved a series that was never completed. That is a huge part of why I’ll finish everything I start, even if it has gaps of 3-5 years between books.

I want to.

I want to, and I’m willing to take the fiscal losses to make it happen.

And yes… I am best known for the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series.

But when readers ask me why I try so many things, this is why. My “best” series is on its death bed, and I need to be writing books that earn profit. And every new series I try is a new chance to have something that pays the bills.

The Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series… no longer pays the bills.

And that’s the way it is.

Doing the Math to Determine Series Profitability

There were a lot of intimidating numbers above. Let’s break this down a little bit. RTR is a simple calculation. Book 2’s copies sold divided by Book 1’s copies sold = RTR. Book 20’s copies solid divided by Book 1’s copies sold = overall RTR.

That’s it, that’s all.

The math for royalty rates works as such:

Amount of Book * Percentage of Royalty Rate – fees.

So, 6.99 * .70 = Amazon’s basic royalty rate. -0.10 is the typical fee I pay for the book sale due to file size. That equals $4.793.

In ConclusioN…

Only you can decide if you finish a series or not. This is the absolute most basic methodology of determining if a series is profitable. And honestly, this is the methodology I use. If a book can’t pay the bills at release week this deep into the series, I’m generally fucked. And so, that’s the story of why the Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series joined the deprioritized list.

At first, I’ll do one a year moving forward. Then I’ll drop to once every 2-3 years, which will be the probable frequency until the series finally grinds to a halt, creating losses along the way.

And that’s fine.

Why is that fine?

It is what I have chosen for myself.

Only you can decide what do with your series. There is no right answer to this question. There is only the answer you can live with.

And sometimes, pulling the plug is the right decision, even if there are fans who would like to know how the story ends.