1

I have a series of books, e.g. Acme Travel Series...

Book Title: London Sightseeing
Subtitle:   Acme Travel Series
(Book 1 of Acme Travel Series)

Book Title: Tokyo Sightseeing Volume 1
Subtitle:   Acme Travel Series
(Book 2 of Acme Travel Series)


Book Title: Tokyo Sightseeing Volume 2
Subtitle:   Acme Travel Series
(Book 2 of Acme Travel Series)


Book Title: Paris Sightseeing
Subtitle:   Acme Travel Series
(Book 3 of Acme Travel Series)


so on...

I would like to include the Series Number of each book in the Subtitle, e.g.,

Subtitle: Acme Travel Series #1

What I'd like to know is which of the following is more appropriate and "correct" in terms of publishing conventions (if any.) My own preference is 2.. Is that good enough?

  1. Acme Travel Series No. 1
  2. Acme Travel Series #1
  3. Acme Travel Series Number 1
  4. Acme Travel Series Number One
  5. Acme Travel Series Book 1

Please feel free to suggest a better one too!

Thank you very much.

spcsLrg
  • 111
  • 3
  • 2
    Regardless of which exact formatting you choose, let me express that as a reader, I am truly grateful if authors do this. Quite some times, I have had the annoying experience of having several books that I knew belong to a (possibly loosely) connected series, without any definitive indication of their ordering. It usually takes some digging around on Wikipedia and the like, and unless I dare write something onto the books (oh noes!), the search begins all over each time I switch to the next novel. And a few times, I have even had the even more annoying experience of reading a book, then ... – O. R. Mapper May 07 '21 at 21:02
  • 1
    ... finding out half-way throught hat it's actually the nth book in a series. Thus, I'm missing half the backstory, but I'm already too far in so the first parts are spoiled already. Thus, do not let anyone convince you visibly numbering your books is "not usual", "not the done thing", or anything like that - it's a good and useful practice that should IMHO be commonplace, anyway. – O. R. Mapper May 07 '21 at 21:04
  • The # symbol is a lot more common in the US than some other English-speaking countries, so it depends where in the world you are. – Stuart F Feb 26 '24 at 15:10
  • Why would you not follow your publisher's guidelines?

    Remembering, please, that those are no kind of 'subtitles' what would be wrong with 'Acme Travel Series, Book 1'?

    Ignoring your own publisher's style, what other series have you considered?

     – Robbie Goodwin Mar 02 '24 at 22:34
  • @RobbieGoodwin Why would you not follow your publisher's guidelines? Because I am the publisher, Luke. – spcsLrg Mar 16 '24 at 07:20
  • Well, good for you. Should 'I have a series of books…' have made that obvious or might you simply have said so? Duh!

    Setting that aside, back when you Asked that Question roughly how many articles, books or whatever publications had you published, and how many had you sold? What numbers today, nearly three years later?

    At any date, why did your initial research for setting up as a publisher, and why does today's up-dated plan not include a detailed review of how other publishers cope with that problem?

     – Robbie Goodwin Mar 17 '24 at 23:02

3 Answers3

1

Personally as a Novel reader, I'm really grateful for most of us face the degradation of novel mentioned by O. R. Mapper. Though in regards to the question proposed, personally I would also recommend to go for option 2, for firstly numerical representation is more preferred over textual (1 over one) and secondly the use of special characters (#) easily assists in drawing the attention and hence serving the purpose highly.

Anubhav Shriwastava
  • 11
  • 1
0

I like option two as well as option five. (Without the ellipses?) What about "volume"?

Acme Travel Series Volume 1

Or

Acme Travel Series Volume One

Hope this helps!

mindbutterfly
  • 401
  • 2
  • 8
  • Thanks! Actually I forgot to mention that a title may contain multiple volumes (I have now corrected the question.) So respective volume numbers are already contained in main Title. I am also leaning towards option 2 as it is also shorter. Thanks again! :) – spcsLrg May 07 '21 at 14:36
0

In a series of books where the order in which they are supposed to be read is important, the books are usually numbered. The common way to number them is "XY Series Book 1" etc.

In a series of books where the order in which they are read is irrelevant and in fact most readers will buy only one or a few books from the series, such as travel guides, the books are usually not numbered on the cover (though they may have a number on the spine or inside or where all books of the series are listed). In this case the common way to write the subtitle is "XY Series" (without a number).

Ben
  • 6,496
  • 1
  • 4
  • 27