To answer the question in the comment above, I must go back in time a bit.
* * * *
In November 28 2020, Nora Roberts posted her epic “I have personally explained the process to you, Debra” takedown (her comment here, the blog post that spawned the epic comment thread here).
The tl;dr on that: upon the release of Nora Roberts’ The Awakening, book 1 in her Dragon Heart Legacy trilogy, someone posted multiple comments, under the alternative names of Debra, Debra Mae Powell and Debra Powell, wherein she explained that “it’s not hard” for a publisher to schedule book releases so that she, “the customer, who is always right”, gets all the books she wants to read, one after the other.
All that author and publisher need to do is for none of the books to come out until they are all written, edited, and ready to go, and hey, presto! Debra is happy.
* * * *
I will betray here that I know far too much about how traditional publishing works by saying: such a schedule would require that either the author goes without any income for as long as it takes them to write all books in a series, while the manuscripts are edited and revised, and so on, or that publishing keeps shelling out for books they themselves can’t sell.
Neither of which is sustainable.
And that is without taking into account the fact that traditional publishers generally have sizable stables of authors whose releases they have to schedule well ahead, not just at the end (so that both print books and files are available where and when they’re supposed to), but from the moment the books are acquired, as editors and copy editors and cover artists and/or illustrators and marketing and sales have to put eyes on them and do their bit towards the final product.
This holds true for small imprints and indie publishers, as they have fewer people and other resources to manage their workload.
But lets be real, this is also not sustainable for self-publishing authors, even if they have other income or someone to support them during the writing periods when, under the Debra release model, they wouldn’t be allowed to put out anything new.
Because burnout is a thing.
* * * *
I have been online for a long time.
While I wasn’t part of Usenet groups, back in the late 1990s I participated in several author message boards; I have beta read, done some copy editing, checked for Spanish goofs, and generally interacted with a good number of genre romance authors over the years (including a stint as Ann Aguirre’s long-distance assistant); my “follow” list over on twitter was dominated by writers.
And one of the things I’ve learned over the last quarter of a century of listening to writers, is that most of them, especially those who are particularly prolific, must change what they are working on regularly, in order to keep their writing fresh and themselves engaged enough to keep at it for longer than a few books, to build an actual career.
Or, as explained better by Seanan McGuire, “if I worked only on Toby, with no pauses for other books, I’d go crazy, and the quality of the Toby books would decrease dramatically.” (full LiveJournal post here)
* * * *
So the answer to “if the second and third books are not written, why not wait until they are, and then release them together” question is: because publishing is a complex business with many moving parts, and because, frankly, writers aren’t “avid readers'” bitches. (Paraphrased from the Neil Gaiman post Sean McGuire references in her own post linked above, which is here.)
* * * *
Readers aren’t powerless in the author/reader relationship, however.
We can stop buying books entirely and only borrow from the library (for as long as libraries are funded and free to offer those books to the public–follow Kelly Jensen’s reporting on library censorship in the U.S. to keep informed). Or we can wait until all books in a trilogy or series have been published before starting the same, whether buying our own copies or borrowing them from the library. Or we can read a different series/other books (by the same author or not) to scratch that itch while we wait in between books in a particular series. We can stick to re-reading books we already own.
If none of those work…well, then, Debra; that’s a “you” problem.
* * * *
And while I’m an eternal advocate for venting and bitching (witness the entirety of this blog), I’m also a fan of reading the room, and choosing your venue.
Trying to post the comment at the top, to my recent review of Nora Roberts’ Inheritance, is just a bit too…too. (Hence my wondering whether this is Debra “by any other name”).
* * * *
(I had to edit my first post of the year to add a caveat for what I’m doing here, because I’m human.)
Her Hands, My Hands 
And the problem of “if you don’t buy the first the rest may not get published at all” (which I know is mentioned in the links, but I think is important enough to emphasise) is very real too.
Yes, indeed; if the first book doesn’t sell through, publishers may (and have, far too often) let the third in a trilogy die on the vine.
NR’s readers have it made, in that she likely signed for all three in her contract, most authors aren’t that lucky.
The ability as stated to wait to buy until all the books are out is in the customer’s hands. I don’t generally read series any more because I have limited concentration. But knowing it can take days just to write a blog post…
And a blog post only has to go through one set of eyes, too! while traditionally published, indie, and many self-published books, go through at least three (author, editor or beat reader, copy editor), which takes time, because there are changes and corrections with each read, which again, time.
There’s a third book in my Spindrift. It will never be written, for reasons not unrelated to the conversation I saw on a pirating board about “This is a great book. Can someone give me the sequel?” “Here you go, anyone else want a copy? What a shame she never wrote another book in the series. I wonder why she didn’t?” The number of paid-for copies halved between the first and second books, and there were enough good reviews of it (and I can compare with another series) that I don’t think it’s just that people bought the first one and thought it sucked. Any bets on how many copies would have been pirated, rather than bought, of that third book? That’s a lot of time I’d have spent a) waiting for income from the first two, b) not getting enough income from the third one, if I were to follow Debra’s edict.
Also, I didn’t know there was a second book, let alone a third, when I started writing it. In fact, I didn’t know there was a novel – I have a bad habit of starting a short story and ending up with a novel, and that was one of them.
And there’s that other reason why Debra’s (and her ilk’s) publishing schedule is bullshit: not every trilogy or series is planned, and even when planned, there’s thing thing called life that gets in the way.
Pirates: oh don’t get me started, the fuckers.
“Pirated, rather than bought”… My kingdom for an edit button.
::blinking innocently::
Oh, Debra.
I really think people online need to learn decorum and when you say reading the room, there’s reader-author, author-author, and reader-reader conversations and some of those conversations should not be cross-talked. Do I agonize sometimes when I have to wait for a next in the series, yes, do I have the memory of a goldfish sometimes, yes, but would I go and directly complain to the author? NO. I’ll agonize with fellow readers sometimes though.
Even readers I’m in book clubs with that have zero book community online presence understand, mostly, a publishing schedule. You’ve got to support that first book to get the rest.
Decorum: It’s so interesting to me that so few people take any time at all to learn the tone of whatever new space they find themselves in. (With very few exceptions, I’m that person who lurks for ages before saying a word, even IRL, so that colors my perception)