Publishers more and more often demand series books. The requirement is difficult enough for established authors to avoid and beginners have even less chance of selling a standalone. But it makes little sense for writers to start their careers with a series.

Presumably, writers who've never published before don't know everything there is to know about writing professionally. We all learn, I should think, from practice, and particularly working to professional standards under the tutelage of editors or agents. The second book ought to be better than the first. And yet, no matter how many additions writers make to a series, no matter how much they improve, most readers will naturally start with, and judge the series by, the first book -- the most poorly executed one.

In today's publishing world it probably doesn't matter since few series seem to reach book three, but there is something backwards about the whole thing. Mary and I wish we could've applied what we've learned in the past few years to our first Byzantine mystery, One For Sorrow.

Sometimes things get written before their time.

What put that in my head was thinking about those blogs about the weather I made recently, when the temperatures crept above 90 for a couple days. I should've waited. The last four days we've had 90, 94, 96 and 97 degrees. I wrote too soon.