Author Laura Greenwood: How to make your favourite series happen faster (without kidnap or blackmail)

I will always finish every series I start. How quickly that happens, is dependent on a number of factors - some of which, I'm mentioning below.

For those of you who were around this time last year, you may remember when I had to push back the pre-order for Chasing Aledwen (meaning I couldn't list pre-orders for a year) and that happened because I focused too much on always having the next book in a series set to release.

Now I have pre-orders back, I'm going to do things a little differently. I'll be working through my series still, but I'm keeping my schedule flexible. I have a flat pre-order goal, if I hit that on a book, then I will put the sequel up for pre-order before it releases. If I don't hit that, then I'll probably move to another book in another series before coming back to that one (but rest assured I will go back to it!). This is above all, my business. It's what I want to spend my life doing, and that means I have to prioritise.

But what does that have to do with you?

If you love a series, there are several ways you can make sure the next book moves up my to-write list:

Buy/Pre-Order the previous book in the series - the better it does, the further up my writing plan it goes. Sales numbers are a good indicator for me of which books are the best liked.
Review. It doesn't need to be super in depth, and I try not to read reviews too much (they're for readers, after all!) but I do look on new releases to see what's working for people, and I do keep an eye on the average rating and the number of reviews - if either of them are low, it tells me people aren't connecting with the series and my time is better spent elsewhere.
Recommend it to people you think will like it. You don't need to tell me you've done that, or tag me, or anything like that, but if you love a series, recommending it will get exposure that will make 1 & 2 more obvious!
Make a post in my reader group! (Or any other *reader* group. Please do not post in other author's groups without their permission). If I can see people talking about the books, then I know there's interest in it!