Backed into a corner

The beauty of having a lack of success is you don't have an all knowing, all powerful publisher who once loved you for the money you brought into their bank accounts forcing you to keep writing for a series that had phenomenal success, when you're completely over the characters/world you've created. It creates fatigue for you and the reader, but the publisher insists upon it because money.

If I decide to keep going with a concept, it's because I want to revisit the world. When a publisher dictates that an author continue with a series, no matter if it's genuinely finished or had open-ended plot lines, you're essentially ruining it for people. Fans of certain series have flocked to YouTube and Twitter to complain about the demise of their beloved book series. I haven't caused a generation of kids to pick up books, and the fact someone did is a good thing for literature. Kids should be reading. But when you've spent years taking their (or rather their parents) money, and you're continuing to do so, you should be rewarding your readers for their dedication and putting the effort in, sadly regardless of how much you hate having to continue and bow to the publisher who's asking you to do this. Or maybe you genuinely want to keep going after the point. But I would assume you have other ideas, and when those ideas failed to sell, when your name failed to bring home the bacon, your publisher made you back to what worked.

I couldn't do this to readers if they genuinely loved my stories and characters. I actually feel sorry for avid fans on two points: one, eventually they're going to be disappointed or even angry with an author's books if they're still churning them out, they're going to be upset with the direction the author took. Two: your love is all encompassing and you might write fan fiction, or you're just a reader, but I feel bad for you if you're not writing your own thing. I'd rather write than read, it's what I do. It's what I essentially need to do. But I would be devastated to be told to stop, or know I upset my audience by continuing a series for money alone. I would always understand their stance as well. I'd probably apologise. Being a fan seems so much more exhausting than living in a corner, like I do, making up my own stories.