Herr Doktor Esquirel points to Correia and Van Stry about how Certain Authors, by not finishing their Big Important Epics, have ruined the genre for everyone else (some additional blame goes to smug enablers like Tubcuddle). Which Correia at least would like us all not to think about when picking up new epics from up-and-comers like Van Stry.
If Van Stry is giving decent perspective to readers; to authors his advice is less helpful. Good advice would have been to read what Stephen Donaldson said about his first epic, the Thomas Covenant Chronicles. He said he'd written the whole trilogy in advance: so that when the first book came out, his publishers could honestly promise there would be more. Because they already had the galleys of "more". The next few years were all about editing, book tours, and planning releases around whatever-else Del Rey had on-deck.
As I recall, Stephen Lawhead's paperbacks for the early parts of his Atlantis/Avalon series even had cover designs of what was upcoming. (Later the third book got cut into more.)
I suppose one way around readers not buying your first books is to write an action-packed serial. We who are reading Skyler Ramirez's "Worst X in the Y" books don't mind that it's not finished; same goes for Andrew Moriarty's "Imperial Z". Also if it's on Kindle Unlimited, what are we really losing. Another way 'round is just to write pr0n on account, lol, "story", how cute.
So I guess I'm telling Van Stry to swallow some pride and start with genre slop. The fans will come. They will trust you to finish an epic series once you write one. Just like... Larry Correia, who wrote a lot of urban-fantasy I didn't care about until he floated his epic, which led to his old fans promoting the new work, on his behalf. (Even for a Correia, I suggest finishing the series before shopping it.)
The next pitfall is if you're Peter David, so have attracted several thousands of fans; but you keep writing (basically) fan fiction for franchises. When the franchise dies, as Star Trek and Star Wars both are dead, you don't want to be a sixty year old with no savings whose fans have forgotten who you were.
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