Hi guys. So I recently finished a 55k contemporary erotic romance which I plan to be the first in a series and I want to let it sit before I start editing it. While I do that, I wanted to start on another book because I do want to have a significant backlog before I start publishing, something like 5-6 completed works. So far I have one 25K novella, one 50k novel (that needs heavy editing) and the one I just completed. The first two are part of the same universe and I want to release them around the same time. But the issue is I don’t know whether to start writing the second book in the series (the 55k one) when I haven’t even published the first one and hence don’t really know how readers will respond to it. But I’ve read on this forum that series usually do better than standalones and are better for starting out so I don’t know whether to write a stand alone either.

Or should I just suck it up and start editing something?