Working with Series

A series groups related books and gives them shared metadata — a name, tagline, description, and an ordered list of volumes. The series definition is the single source of truth and lives in a plain JSON file, so it’s easy to read, edit, and version. Individual books reference a series rather than duplicating its data.

Defining a series

Each series is a JSON file in the series/ folder, named after the series slug (for example series/the-enochian-cycle.json). It holds the shared series metadata and the planned volumes:

{
  "slug": "the-enochian-cycle",
  "name": "The Enochian Cycle",
  "tagline": "Five keys, one forbidden language.",
  "description": "A multi-volume journey through the Enochian system...",
  "author": "Jane Author",
  "asin": "",
  "volumes": [
    { "position": 1, "slug": "the-first-key", "subtitle": "The First Key" },
    { "position": 2, "slug": "the-second-key", "subtitle": "The Second Key" },
    { "position": 3, "slug": "the-third-key", "subtitle": "The Third Key" }
  ]
}

Key fields:

• slug — the series identifier, matching the filename.
• name, tagline, description — shared marketing copy displayed on every book in the series.
• author — the series author.
• asin — optional; Amazon assigns this after you create the series on KDP.
• volumes — the ordered plan: each entry has a position, the slug of the book that fills it, and a subtitle.

Volume positions and the planned-vs-created distinction

The volumes array lets you plan the whole arc before every book exists. The dashboard Series panel shows both numbers — for example “Books in Series (5 planned, 2 in library)” — and lists each planned volume by position. Volumes whose slug doesn’t yet match a real book are shown dimmed with a “(not yet created)” note, so a series can describe future entries while only some are written.

A book’s own position is also surfaced in the metadata editor’s Series tab, where it’s the one series field you edit per-book.

Editing shared series metadata

Because series data is shared, you edit it in one place. From the dashboard Series panel you can expand a series, view its description and volume list, and open an editor for the name, tagline, description, and ASIN. Saving writes back to series/<slug>.json, and the change automatically applies to every book in the series — there’s nothing to copy into each book.

You can also filter the dashboard by series using the pill buttons (or “All Books”), and each series shows a count of how many of its books are in your library.

How a book references its series

A book joins a series through two fields in its book.json:

{
  "title": "The First Key",
  "seriesSlug": "the-enochian-cycle",
  "seriesPosition": 1
}

• seriesSlug points at the series file (series/the-enochian-cycle.json).
• seriesPosition is this book’s number within the series.

At runtime the app resolves these into the book’s full series metadata (name, tagline, description, total volumes, and position), which is what you see — read-only — on the KDP metadata editor’s Series tab. To attach an existing book to a series, set seriesSlug and seriesPosition in its book.json; the position can then be adjusted from the editor, while the shared series fields stay owned by the series file.

Keeping the series as a standalone JSON file means it’s transparent and diffable just like the rest of your project — see the file-first philosophy.