Do you setup your first book to allow for a sequal?
- Thread starter Jade Burke
- Start date
You don't have to write a cliffhanger to setup a series. In fact, most series don't include cliffhangers at the end of the first book (though you may see them in subsequent books).
Bizarrely, something I thought about when I was reading this thread, is how intense my dislike of 'true' cliffhangers really is. Being primarily a contemporary reader (meaning I never read fantasy/sci-fi, basically), I'm not really used to cliffhangers either, so maybe that's part of it. I can be won around on most things - open endings, sad endings, HEAs - but I can't really get behind the total OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL WHAT NEXT ending. It just feels...cheap to me? I feel like I'm being Stockholm-Syndromed into being MADE to shell out money on the sequels. 
I definitely don't like cliffhangers... But I do like to leave room for a little more story. Lately, I've been toying around with companion novels, where you finish one character's story and then move on to a new character's in the same world. They're so fun, because you get the closure of a standalone with the joy of not having to leave the world!
It's a marketable choice, especially for spec fic. Personally, I can't see myself writing a sequel/series. Maybe a companion novel, but probably the kind that's only tenuously connected (like where an MC from one book show up in passing in another one). So I just don't worry about it.