26 January 2026 · Book Assembly Team · 6 min read
You'd think tracking a book series would be simple. Book 1, Book 2, Book 3. Read them in order. Done.
In practice, it's chaos.
Publishers repackage things. Prequels appear years later. Spin-offs share characters but maybe aren't really the same series? Omnibus editions contain books 1-3 but your tracker thinks it's a single book. And don't get me started on the Discworld reading order debates.
If you've ever stared at a bookshelf wondering which one comes next, or bought a book only to realise it's actually book 4 and you've missed two, you're not alone.
Here's why series tracking is harder than it should be, and how to make it less painful.
Publishers don't help.
Cover designs change between books. Numbers aren't always printed on the spine. Sometimes they're not printed anywhere - you have to check the copyright page or just know. Marketing teams decide "Book 1" sounds off-putting to new readers, so they quietly drop the numbering altogether.
Series structures vary wildly.
Some series are strictly sequential - skip one and you're lost. Others are loosely connected standalone novels. Some have a "main" sequence plus novellas, short stories, and spin-off trilogies that may or may not be essential.
The Cosmere. The Discworld. The Culture novels. These aren't series in the traditional sense. They're ecosystems.
Data sources disagree.
Google Books might say one thing. Goodreads another. The publisher's website another. Wikipedia has seven different "suggested reading orders" in the talk page, all with passionate defenders.
There's no single source of truth.
Your own collection is messy.
You've got the first three in paperback, then switched to hardback. One's an omnibus. One's a special edition with a different title. Your book tracker, if it even supports series, probably thinks these are four unrelated books.
After years of wrestling with this, here's what actually helps:
1. Track series position explicitly.
Don't rely on metadata. When you add a book, note which series it belongs to and what position it's in. Yes, this takes thirty seconds. Yes, it saves hours of confusion later.
Most book trackers support this. Use it.
2. Track total books in the series.
"Book 3 of 7" is more useful than "Book 3 of ???". You can see how far you've got to go. You know when you're done. And you notice immediately if you're missing one.
Some series are ongoing, obviously. But for completed series, fill in the total.
3. Group by series when you need to.
Your main library view probably sorts by title or author or date added. That's fine day-to-day. But when you're deciding what to read next, being able to see "here are all my unfinished series" is genuinely useful.
Filter by series. Sort by position. See the gaps.
4. Accept that some series defy structure.
Discworld has about eight different valid reading orders depending on whether you want to follow characters, themes, or publication date. Pick one. Or don't - many people read them randomly and it's fine.
Not everything fits neatly into "Book X of Y". Some series are more like a loose collection. Track them in a way that makes sense to you, even if it's not technically correct.
Sometimes the publication order isn't the best reading order. Prequels written later assume you know things. Some authors recommend starting with book 2 because book 1 is a bit rough.
For well-known series, someone has usually written a guide. A quick search for "Malazan Book of the Fallen reading order" turns up opinions. Lots of opinions.
My approach: publication order unless there's a good reason not to. It's what the author expected most readers to do at the time. And it avoids spoilers that crop up in prequels written after the fact.
But honestly, this is personal preference territory. The important thing is knowing which book comes next for you, whatever order you've chosen.
Omnibuses are useful - three books in one, usually cheaper, takes up less shelf space.
They're also a nightmare for tracking.
Do you log it as one book or three? If you log it as one, your series shows a gap. If you log it as three, the page counts are wrong and you don't actually own three separate books.
There's no perfect answer. Options:
Option 1: Log the omnibus as one book, note the contents.
Add "Contains books 1-3" in the notes. Your series will look incomplete, but you'll know why.
Option 2: Log the individual books, mark them as a single physical copy.
Some trackers let you note the format or edition. Mark all three as "Omnibus edition" so you remember they're the same physical object.
Option 3: Don't overthink it.
If the goal is "do I know what I've read and what comes next?" then either approach works. Pick one and move on.
This is where it gets properly complicated.
Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere has multiple series set in the same universe with occasional crossover. Do you track them as one mega-series? Separate series with notes? A custom "Cosmere" tag?
The answer depends on how your brain works. Some people want one big list. Some want separate series that they can mentally connect. Some just want to know which Mistborn book comes next and don't care about the wider universe.
What doesn't work: ignoring it entirely and then being confused when a character from another series shows up.
At minimum, note the shared universe somewhere. Even just "Part of the Cosmere" in the notes helps future-you remember the connection.
Here's what I actually do:
Every book gets a series and position (if applicable). No exceptions. Takes seconds when adding a book.
I track total books for completed series. For ongoing series, I update it when a new one comes out.
I use a series widget that shows two things: how many books in each series I actually own, and how far through I am reading them. Different questions, both useful. Stops me buying book 5 when I haven't read book 3 yet.
I check my library before buying the next book. Sounds obvious. Prevents buying book 5 when you already own it but forgot.
I don't stress about reading order debates. Publication order is fine. If I later find out I "should" have read something first, I survive.
The goal isn't a perfect catalogue. It's knowing what you've read, what comes next, and not buying duplicates. Everything else is optional.
Sometimes you're three books into a series and realise it's not for you. This is allowed. You can stop.
Mark it as "abandoned" or "DNF" or just quietly remove it from your in-progress list. Life's too short to finish a seven-book series out of obligation when you stopped enjoying it at book 2.
The sunk cost fallacy is strong with series. Resist it.
Series tracking is harder than it should be because the publishing industry treats series as a marketing problem, not a reader problem. Numbers get hidden. Orders get confused. Data is inconsistent.
The solution is taking control yourself. Track series explicitly. Note positions and totals. Filter and sort when you need to see the bigger picture.
It takes a bit of effort up front. But "what's the next book in that series I was reading?" becomes a five-second lookup instead of a twenty-minute investigation.
Book Assembly has proper series tracking built in - positions, totals, and the ability to filter your library by series. Free during beta at bookassembly.co.uk.
