Yes Harry Potter was an exceptional example of a successful series, but if you're not a known name, then your series won't be worth the paper that it was written on.
Yeah, I'm kind of cynical about them, but hear me out first.
Within minutes, my cat can become an author on Amazon and publish whatever she wants to basically. I don't have a problem with that at all. It's just that publishing serials doesn't work for the average reader.
When you're new, you want to write an amazing story from beginning to end. When you write a serial, you don't want to leave out so much that the reader HAS to purchase the second book in order to find out what happens. If this is your first time, what if you suck? You're almost guaranteeing that they won't come back.
New writers need to find their audiences in different ways than teasing their audiences with books that are sixty six pages long and that have titles that say this is "Book #1 out of 60 of the Dragon Knight Baby Specials"
Huh?
Have you even built an audience yet with the more traditional route?
What makes you so sure that I'm going to stick with you long enough to read through the second book all the way to your sixtieth?
It's presumptious.
Stick with your first book and knock them dead with that one. Join book clubs that deal with the subject matter that you're writing in. Smooze book club owners. Talk with other writers. Utilize social media. Create a blog. Read other books in the same genre. Read books in other genres. Completely immerse yourself in the world of writing. Find out what the experts are doing. Find out what the idiots are doing and then, don't do that.
Then if you think you've got what it takes to write a trilogy (and God help you if you don't) go for it. It better be damn good and damn worth it.
A writer should never go into a project thinking that they want to create a series off the bat unless they are under a contract to do so. You, as the inexperienced writer with no base, have no clue that people will give a crap about what you write. You could very well be wasting your time.
Write that first novel but leave a little room at the end to possibly create a teaser. Then wait damnit. Wait. Check the reviews. Have other people professionally critique your work. Mull some ideas over in your head for a possible part two of the series.
Have you ever seen any of the Pirates of The Caribbean movies? The first one was genius but then the scripts became some overloaded with such nonsense that even Johnny Depp threw up his hands and said, "I don't even know what this means!"
You're in the business of writing and entertaining people. You want them sitting on the edge of their beds while their spouses are asleep waiting to jump up at any moment and scare the daylights out of them. You want them rooting for your characters! You don't want the main character in the middle of the scene that YOU wrote saying, "What the fuck is THIS shit?" It's not good.
Concentrate on what makes a great story. Concentrate on how to tell a great story. Then go from there. If you're new in the game, the trilogy will come much further down the line. Captivate your readers and then you shall build a great and loyal audience. They will follow you wherever you go from there.
