Mention Series Potential in Query Letter?

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Dear Heather…

Only mention series potential if you’ve developed a full series and that’s how the project must be contracted. Don’t complicate matters; if this story can stand alone, let agents/editors fall in love with it before you go into all the other things it can become. There’ll be plenty of time for that discussion later.

Happy writing!

The Editor

5 Comments

  1. I always thought you were supposed to finish writing the 7th book in the series, and then query the first book, summarizing the plot of each single book in the query, mentioning it’ll be bigger than Harry Potter, and they’d be a fool to turn down all the money your books will make.

    But I guess your suggestion works too 🙂

  2. Yes, I’ve heard most agents consider mentioning ‘series potential’ to sound over-confident and be annoying. Every book has series potential, but it’s not a good idea to write past book one because many agents/editors want input into later books. It’s better not to mention it at all.

  3. Just wanted to thank you again for the insightful article–The Stuff Between Scenes– that you so kindly contributed to Kite Tales. Thanks for posting the link, too!

  4. I would agree. Let the series happen if it does. That said, I would have a second in the bag or at least started before saying the word “Series”.

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