Book series | Michelle Proulx

Posts Tagged With: Book series

What should I call my book series?

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

As work on the sequel to Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It proceeds at a glacial pace, my thoughts turn to the series as a whole and what it should be called. Considering that the first two things that draw me to a book are 1) the cover, and 2) the name, I want to make sure the series name is just as catchy as the book names themselves.

So to recap you, the two books currently in the series are Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It (published) and Chasing Nonconformity (not yet published). The genre is young adult space adventure / romance / humor. And now I need a series name.

The obvious choice is to base the name off of “Imminent Danger”, since that’s the first book in the series. But that could look a bit silly. Imagining browsing through Amazon and coming across this name:

Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It (Imminent Danger, #1)

Seems a bit redundant. Then again, that sort of thing happens to Twilight, Divergent, The Hunger Games … lots of popular series. Hmmm …

Time to draw inspiration from popular book series! Let’s see which popular YA series have “series names” that differ from the name of the first book in the series …

The Mortal Instruments (first book = City of Bones)
Caster Chronicles (first book = Beautiful Creatures)
The Infernal Devices (first book = Clockwork Angel)
Percy Jackson and the Olympians (first book = The Lightning Thief)
House of Night (first book = Marked)
Lunar Chronicles (first book = Lunar)
Gemma Doyle (first book = A Great and Terrible Beauty)

Time to analyze! Weeeeeeeeeee …

So it seems like most YA series go with whatever the name of the first book is. Probably makes life easier. The series that don’t do that seem to draw their names from either the protagonist, important items in the story, or … well, whatever the heck “House of Night” means. The word “Chronicles” also seems popular.

Either I go with something slightly dull, like The Imminent Danger Series, or I spice it up and capture the essence of the book with something a bit more vague, like The Lamri Chronicles or The Reluctant Xenophile Saga or Abducted! (I quite enjoy the gratuitous exclamation mark in the last one).

Hmm … what do you guys think? What’s a good series name for my fledgling YA space adventure / romance / humor series? All suggestions welcome, no matter how silly!

Unrelated media of the day:

I may have already shared this last Christmas, but whatever. It’s a lovely Christmas medley shot in a very cool way, so listen/watch and enjoy!

Categories: My Works, Self Publishing | Tags: author, Book series, books, Christmas, City of Bones (Mortal Instruments), Clockwork Angel, ebooks, Gemma Doyle, House of Night, Infernal Device, names, Percy Jackson & the Olympians, self-publish, writing | 46 Comments

My crazy new idea for a book series

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I have a crazy new idea for a book series. I’m not talking about the story or characters or anything (although they will be epic!). I’m talking about the structure of the series itself.

Here’s my idea. Ready?

So I was watching The Avengers a while back, and I thought the concept of having a handful of origin stories followed by an ensemble film, followed by more individual hero stories, followed by another ensemble film, etc. etc., was a really cool idea. And then I thought, “Has this been done with books? Could it be done with books? Why is cheesy popcorn so delicious, and yet none of my local theaters sells it?”

Existential popcorn question aside, I took this idea and have been running with it. What I currently have planned (everything is still in the outlining stage at this point), is a series of books which will be comprised of four “origin” stories, followed by an “ensemble” story, and then potentially splitting back off again to the individual characters for more adventures.

Here’s a terrible line-drawing of vaguely how the series would work:

Now, when I suggested this idea to the gentleman who critiqued Imminent Danger a few weeks ago, he said that the idea would never work. According to him, this sort of series has never been attempted because it just plain won’t sell. He suggested that instead I fit those four “origin” stories into one novel, and have the climax of that novel be whatever climax I was planning to use in the first ensemble story.

I think part of the reason it could actually work really well is because I would be self-publishing it. Meaning I could price the origin stories very low (or some of them, at least), in order to garner attention and gain fans. Or have free giveaways, set one of the origin stories permanently free, bundle them all up in an anthology once they’ve all been released, etc. etc. I’m more focused on writing them than marketing them at the moment, but still … important things to think about!

So … what’s everyone’s thoughts on this? Do you think a book series modeled in the “Avengers ensemble” style could possibly work? I’m hoping some of you will say “yes”, because I think it’s a really fun idea! But if you think it’s doomed to failure, don’t hesitate to tell me why. All information is good information!

Update: I thought you guys might be amused to know that the working title for this project is “SWAG RAVEN” — as in, a raven with lots of swag.

Unrelated media of the day: