As I spent part of this weekend formatting Fertile Ground for publication, I thought I'd spend some time this morning talking about continuity... a word I'm having a tough time typing this morning, so bear with me.
CONTINUITY
Fertile Ground is the second book in the SCIU series. While I was formatting it, I knew I wanted it to have a similar look to the Dying Embers manuscript. After all, I went through a lot of effort to have continuity in the covers, so I should also spend some time making certain the look of the insides flows. (I did this for the Once Upon a Djinn series, too, I just didn't think to talk about it until now.)
Continuity... The titles and author name should have the same font, the same font size, and should be the same with regard to italics and bold. As should the chapter headings. And copyright verbiage (with the exception of the year - if your series titles were published in different years). If you have acknowledgements, those can differ in wording, but not look.
I also put a little 'Special Note' at the bottom of the same page about 'this is the second book in the series and if you want to know more about the other book, go here' with a link to the newly created SCIU page on my blog.
If you have a certain thing you use for scene breaks in one book of a series, you should use the same thing for the scene breaks in every other book in a series. I used ~~~~~ in Dying Embers, so I used that in Fertile Ground, too.
At the end of the book, I put the same About Author page in both books and then added a page about the SCIU series and a blurb from the other book.
What does any of this matter? Well, I'm not exactly certain. I hope that when someone reads one book, they'll hop over to read the other and a certain continuity between the two will be a welcome thing for the reader. I think it also might add a professionalism to the series. :shrug:
You tell me. As a reader, do you care? As a writer, do you bother? Or am I just wasting my time when I should be getting this into readers' hands?
I try to "individualize" the scene breaks for each series. For any of the books in the Moonstruck world, I use paw prints. For Hard Target, I have a sniper's rifle. For Penumbra Papers, it's blood splatters. So I get what you're doing. I like it. It's more work but I like to believe that my readers enjoy the novelty and fun of it.
ReplyDeleteAs a reader, I do notice such things--the chapter graphic, scene breaks, etc. I like that an author/publishing company thinks enough of me as a reader to go to the extra effort.
I change up my acknowledgements a little to fit each book, totally new dedication, and a mostly different Dear Reader letter. Because that's how we roll. :D
I like the way you're doing it and agree with the continuity between series thing. As a reader I really like a scene break whatever it is, because there is nothing more confusing than having to keep going back to find out what the hell happened because you jumped from one scene to another with no indicators. I don't give up on books often but that is one thing that'll make me.
ReplyDeleteI must admit that I don't bother reading acknowledgements or dedications, just the book. Is that bad of me?