You need to click on the Manual Series Management to be able to mark the series completed.
Yeah, it looks scary, but what it's essentially saying is "Warning! If you do this, you're not going to be stuck with the old, wonky, featureless and restricting series function any more!"
I think the feature still needs some development. It automatically created series of my stories based on similarities in the titles, which was fine. But it's very basic (and the name of the series will include "Ch." or "Part" or whatever you use to number the individual stories). I switched to Manual to add extra information. It's not really any trouble. Just remember to add your new instalments as you publish them,
Today I realised that I had to click the "Publish" button to send it from Draft status to Pending Moderation. So ignore the above comment.
I used to think readers couldn't see the difference. I recently learned that there is a series overview page which has a statement on it about whether "the author is actively working on this series" or whether "the author is no longer adding to this series" or similar statements.
Ah!! That makes sense. Thank you! So, if it is an ongoing series... Hmmm... What to do...?
I believe you are supposed to leave the 'completed' box unmarked until you are done adding new stories to the series. Once you 'save changes' it should be live, or at least sent to pending for moderation if you added a cover or any details to the series description. But as far as I know, you can come back later and change the status back to 'in progress' if you decide to add more stories, but you can't add new works if it's listed as completed (for obvious reasons). If you're planning to add more chapters or whatever, just leave it as 'in progress,' save any changes you made, and then wait for future additions to be published before adding them to the list.
Okay. My stories are a series with a larger story arc, but I think they can be enjoyed as stand alone stories. BUT... There are some connections. Like reading a story where they're boinking in a car, *then* reading a story of their first time... Well, there are some space-time continuum issues there. Right now, my stories are listed alphabetically and that has caused some to be out of my intended order. And I was advised that some readers don't like chapter numbers or part numbers (perhaps that's incorrect information).
Not a perfect solution but you can also edit your author profile to list the intended order of your stories
"Completed" means that series is finished, done, ended, finito. Lit has a vast number of unfinished chaptered stories where the author lost interest, gave up, died. The "Completed" function was to let readers know if a story was in fact finished.
Trust your readers to be clever enough to figure it out. I've got a stack of inter-related but stand-alone stories, which might share characters but not story arcs. The easter eggs only mean something to my following fans, but for a random reader wandering by, the "joined upedness" doesn't matter.
Yeah, I'm sure some readers don't like chapter numbers, but I can't imagine they represent a huge or militant bloc of the readership. You'll lose some readers no matter what you do. But those readers are probably the ones who'll complain about any story that turns out to be part of an incomplete series. Anyway...
I generally do both, such as adding an afterword, and usually mention it in the blurb as well. Laurel actually added "-Final" to the title of my last chapter of a long series, which pushed it past the normal allotment of characters. I didn't request it, but it was a nice gesture.
