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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1341311" data-attributes="member: 5171">Yup. No argument there.  My point was that the ratio of standalones to series, which used to be relatively balanced, is now skewed toward series -- to the point where, to paraphrase what you said earlier, authors are writing first novels that don't stand on their own at all.  I like all of the first Star Wars movies, but I also like the fact that you can watch the first one on its own and not feel like there's a gigantic cliffhanger.Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I dislike Terry Goodkind's writing, but at least he made some effort to provide a bit of closure at the end of his first book. Based on your earlier post, I was holding things to fantasy.  That's where my points were aimed.  Yeah, SF is relatively balanced right now -- some popular series, but not so many that it's any harder to get a standalone published than a new series.As for fad-dom, I wasn't arguing that big fat fantasy has suddenly appeared on the scene -- just that it's now working to the exlusion of standalone fantasy novels, instead of as an equally enjoyable complementary form.Interesting.  I suppose this is an "agree to disagree" area.  I like both, and would be sad to see standalones, loosely connected books set in the same world, or directly connected fantasy series monopolize the fantasy market.Entirely different thread. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But yeah.  Very very much.  I've got multiple pro short story sales, but I'm still nowhere near published enough to distinguish myself in the Great American Slush Pile.  And while it's relatively easy to weed out the "I read Terry Goodkind/Robert Jordan and nothing else and now want to write my own novel" person who didn't even spellcheck his beautiful art, there are a lot of simply mediocre wannabes out there clogging up the submission process.  (For all I know, I might very well be one of them.  I mean, no wannabe thinks that he's one of the wannabes, and I don't think I'm one of the wannabes, which means, logically, that I could very well be one of them.  And isn't THAT depressing?)But yes.  A different problem, and one that does stink.  But from the publishing web pages, the author contract stories, and so forth, I do see a lot of "if you're writing fantasy, you should aim for a series" advice.  This change-of-ratio isn't just something I'm making up -- they weren't always saying that.  Series fantasy has gone from "sure, we're good with that" to "that's really pretty much all we're interested in (although, as noted, we aren't going to pass up greatness if we see it)" over the past decade or so.</blockquote>

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