I imagine LKH is just as frustrated as we are.

Well, at least she can drown her sorrows in a paycheck.

Yo. With a PRETURNATURALly well-hung hottie.

Mmmm, effulgent.

What do you do when you have a contract and no ideas for the series?

Part of the reponsibility is purely on the author. If she knows damned well she's out of steam, she'd best say so. If the series has made her rich and famous, her publisher will usually be thrilled when they get the call from her agent to tell them "Ms. Blingle has an idea for a Brand! New! Series!"

Part of it is on the publisher, and they're usually pretty good at it, because, well, declining sales means the series is running out of gas.

And part of it is certainly the fan base. Because no matter how much private kvetching the fans do about a series? So long as they keep buying it, so will the publisher.

Sigh. I am enabling LKH. And I can't stop.

Sigh. I am enabling LKH. And I can't stop.

Then you shouldn't stop, love. Because if there's something in there that keeps you buying her books? There's a reason for her to keep writing them, and she's filling a need.

if the series has made her rich and famous, her publisher will usually be thrilled when they get the call from her agent to tell them "Ms. Blingle has an idea for a Brand! New! Series!"

see Meredith Gentry series.

Yup. A successful series may linger on for quite a long time after it loses its focus, or originality, just because the readers who loved the early work will keep buying, to see if their beloved characters and theme come back.

What Beth said! I love & seek out series mysteries about American women sleuths. I walked away from Sara Perestky for the same reasons as Beth, same reasons as Deb from Martha Grimes, and similar reasons from Patricia Coldwell. The books & characters I love the most are the ones that successfully carry forward normal things - like, the characters have friends. My favorites are Dana Stabenow & Karen Kijewski, though KK seems to have dropped off the planet. Both of them did something that seems to be a female character cliche, killed off the immensely likable boyfriend that we had become invested in succeeding in a relationship with the main character which still pisses me off. But Dana S. seems to have taken it and made it into a viable new beginning, after several books with appropriate mourning and trauma, which I like/respect.

Then there's Sue Grafton/Kinsey Mulhone, which I'll probably follow through to Z, and I guess she's just in her own category. I like them but the characters are not as consistent as DS's or even KK's.

I like the Janet Evanovich books (One for the money, etc.) The characters crack me up. Not stellar writing or anything, but good airplane reading.

Java have you read Laura Lippman. Not as many books as some of those others, but I really like her and my friend swears that her new stand-alone novel is great.