Deleting Series Without Deleting Stories

[jimplx]

I am in a small quandry as a new author. I wrote about 20 chapters for a new series before posting the first one (I had no internet access during the initial writing stint). As a first author I stumbled on the technical aspects of posting a story to a series. Somehow, I am not sure how, but I know I did not do it, the publicly visible series is titled "Chapter." The actual series is "Becky's Tribe" and that is how it appears in my "works" area. My "works" area does not know about "Chapter."

Oddly, in my "works" area is a second series that contains the first few chapters of the series, even though the rules say that no story can be in two series at a time.

When I posted the most recent chapter, I added a note asking for help to resolve this. The response was to reject the chapter and tell me that the series composition is up to the author. There were no story flaws mentioned, so I am guessing the moderators did not want to approve a chapter with the confusion.

I would like to rename the publicly visible series, but do not know how to do it.

I am considering removing the series, creating a new one and then adding the stories to the new series. I am concerned that folks who have put the story in "favorites" might lose their link if I start screwing with the series. It appears that comments, likes, and favorites are aligned with the story and not the series, so I could recompose the series without goofing up folks who have enjoyed the story so far.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

My eternal gratitude for anyone who read this through and comments.

 

[RejectReality]

Go to the series page. Click the gear icon next to the series. If the series is listed as... Can't remember the term but it's something like "automatic" then change it to whatever term means author-driven. It will give you a warning about this being irreversible, but don't sweat it.

You can then change the name of the series to whatever you want it to be, add and remove stories, change the order, etc.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Go to the series page. Click the gear icon next to the series. If the series is listed as... Can't remember the term but it's something like "automatic" then change it to whatever term means author-driven. It will give you a warning about this being irreversible, but don't sweat it.

You can then change the name of the series to whatever you want it to be, add and remove stories, change the order, etc.

Yep, it's the Manual process. As RR notes, you can muck about with the Series build as much as you like - it's not super intuitive, so it might take a couple of goes to figure it out. It only fiddles about with the chapter displays, you can't accidentally delete stories, and you can't re-title stories - only the parent Series can be given a new title.

 

[RejectReality]

Forgot to mention that the views, votes, score, etc. are attached to the stories. Series do display some stats, but they're built from the data of the stories within it. So moving stories in and out of a series won't affect their stats, any bookmarks, etc.

Eventually, people will probably be able to bookmark series, but that functionality isn't available as of yet, so no worries about readers losing their place.

 

[jimplx]

Reject Reality. Thank you very much for both of your replies. They were very helpful, especially this one confirming that rebuilding a series does not cause information loss. A month ago I tried fixing the series, but I actually cannot see that series in my account. See my response to electricblue66.

 

[jimplx]

Yep, it's the Manual process. As RR notes, you can muck about with the Series build as much as you like - it's not super intuitive, so it might take a couple of goes to figure it out. It only fiddles about with the chapter displays, you can't accidentally delete stories, and you can't re-title stories - only the parent Series can be given a new title.

My sincere appreciation to both of you for responding so thoroughly. My issue is that the series title that shows up under my name is "Chapter: 4 Part Series"

View attachment 2267723

But in my works area, that series does not appear:

View attachment 2267724
The final oddity is that the one labelled "Incorrect" has the first two stories that are in the Becky's Tribe series. I can ignore this, as my most recent submissions have all been added to the correct series.

I will wait for the next chapter to be published and then I may rebuild the series. Thanks again for your help to a newby.

Jim

 

[RejectReality]

It says "Draft" next to both series. That means neither of them has been submitted for approval. Until you click publish on the correct version of the series, it will continue to use the old style automatic series generation on your public submissions page.