The "Good Risk" Formula (Patreon)

One of your many excellent questions was how I decide what books are "good risks." While there are a lot of inputs that go into making that decision, it's a lot more straightforward than it might seem. Here are the questions I go through:

PRODUCT LINE

EXISTING SERIES? Does this new book fit into an existing series? Preferably one that's selling well, but even one that's not selling well is better than a standalone.

EXISTING SETTING? Related, does this book fit into an existing setting? Also, preferably one that's selling well. Settings do well for the same reason series do well: people like returning to things they've already invested in.

STANDALONE? If the answer to both the questions above is 'no,' is the book a standalone? Because standalones are death. >.>

STARTS A NEW SERIES? Hopefully the answer to the question above is 'no,' because if the book starts a new series, that's a better thing than if it doesn't. (Note that this isn't an unqualified good: while you can leave an open-ended series unfinished, if you commit to writing and publishing a Book 1 that requires a Book 2+, then you're writing yourself into a promise that will cost you if you fail to fulfill. No one likes an author who leaves them hanging.)

STARTS A NEW SETTING? If the project doesn't start a new series, does it start a new setting? Because standalones that create settings that spawn other books, even if those books can also be read alone, are better than books that exist all by their lonesomes.

PORTFOLIO/MARKETING

EASILY DEFINED/POSITIONED GENRE? Does this project fit neatly into a marketing category that makes it easy for me to pitch it to the right audience? Does it have visual tropes for its cover? Does it have a natural elevator pitch? ("If you like Guardians of the Galaxy, you'll love this!" "If you enjoyed David Weber's Honorverse, here's your next great read!")

DOES IT FILL A USEFUL HOLE IN MY LINE-UP? While it's not an unqualified good to write all over the spectrum--and in some ways, it's better if you stick to a type of book and keep going--if you're like me and you've already committed to writing many kinds of books, then does this book fit neatly into a hole I'm missing? Like sword-and-sorcery fantasy? Or hard science fiction?

DOES IT TARGET A NEW MARKET? Related, does this new project target a new audience? For instance, 'will this book give me an entree into romance' or 'will this series launch me into middle-grade writing'.

EFFORT

ESTIMATED LENGTH? This is one of those things that experience teaches you to swing, but I've written enough books to have a good sense for how long most projects are. The length of a book has a huge impact on my decision-making process for marginal books because...

HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE TO WRITE? ...it lets me estimate how long it will take for me to polish it off. A short but risky project I can finish in a month is an easier sell to my inner Business Manager than something that will take half a year.

HOW MUCH RESEARCH/WORLDBUILDING WOULD IT REQUIRE? Feeding into the 'how much time would this take' equation is the question of how much work I'll have to do before I even start writing. This input is the reason I don't write historical fiction, for instance. The research involved is non-trivial and I don't want to put in the time to get all the details down. (And if you're not going to get the details down in historical fiction, why do it?)

INTEREST

DO I WANT TO WRITE IT? Finally, and importantly, is this project exciting me? Because if I'm sufficiently excited about it, all the other considerations take a big hit. Partly because... I'm in this business because I enjoy what I do, and I want to work on things that excite me! But also partly because if I'm having fun, the work goes faster, and long projects might take three-quarters or half the time.

FANS HAVE ASKED FOR IT? And yes, you all get your say. If fans want something, I'll weigh it higher than if they don't, though admittedly "have fans paid for things like it before" gets higher priority.

EXAMPLES

So, some examples:

• Doing an "Earthrise 2" is a shoo-in because starts a new series in an existing setting that sells well, it's easy to position ("space opera!"), it requires no research, and it would be about 3 months of work. Plus, fans have asked for it, and I'm excited about it. That's my next planned Peltedverse book, tentatively scheduled for the end of this year.
• On the other hand, Book 3 in the romance series is a backburnered risk because while it's an installation in an existing open-ended series, it sells poorly for its category (romance) and it's hard to position (it's high fantasy romance, which doesn't even get a marketing category on promotional lists). The TK books also take a disproportionate amount of time for their length because they require a lot of finessing.
• Kherishdar 4 is a good example of a high-risk project that's moved onto the production schedule because of fans. Enough Patreon patrons who pay well every month have expressed an interest to make it more of a priority; I want to write it myself; and it is the final installment in an existing series that will complete that series and allow me to re-position it in the market.

I'm fairly sure this is all the stuff that goes into my decision-making process. (I might have missed some stuff, but I don't think I did.) Hopefully it is illuminating. As usual, ask any questions you want!