You finished your book. The main character(s) have a happy ending, the bad guy or antagonist has been stopped or defeated, and readers can close the cover with a contented smile because all is well and the story ends here.
Or does it? What if … It doesn’t?
For the western Christian church, the 12th day of Christmas has come. The three magi visit, leave gifts, and … the story continues, albeit with a large missing segment of time. For believers, the Christmas tree has been undecorated and disposed of (or taken apart and stored for the next year), the decorations come off the house, thank you notes are written, and the holiday ends. The passing of the feast is lamented, or greeted with relief, depending on one’s persuasion. Eastern Christians are just now getting started. Non-Christians shrug and go about their own religious or other years. But the story behind the holiday doesn’t stop.
If the Christian Gospels were novels, no publisher would take them without major re-writes or serious editing. The story leaps from Jesus’ birth and toddlerhood to his ministry as an adult, and no one blinks*. We writers can’t always get away with that kind of jump, unless we have a “signs the MC is a chosen one” prologue or prequel, and then start the main story. We might be able to jump a few years, and allude to them in passing.
This can work very well when we have characters that are settling down at the end of a story. The next installment shows them with a family, notes changes, and introduces the new antagonist or other plot elements. Perhaps the bad guy all though dead and buried has come back … with friends. Or the new king isn’t quite as good of a manager as the protagonist and her allies had thought. Or “the last dragon” wasn’t, and now the MC has a family to feed and defend, and needs to think very hard about chasing off after strange reptiles.
What about you as the author? You might look at the possibilities and decide that while the story goes on in your head, and maybe even in your snippet and scraps file, the official story has reached a close. This is how the Cat Among Dragons series ends. The protagonist gets a “happily for the foreseeable future,” and the cover closes. Yes, her life will go one, with joys and heartbreaks, misadventures and business deals. I wanted to end on a high note, or at least “we made it, we’re together, and life is not all that bad, really” note.
Too, you the writer might no longer be in the head or heart space to do more in that world. Quit while you are ahead, leave readers mostly satisfied, and allow them to spin stories for themselves. We’re probably all read or heard of a series that went on too long, after the author lost interest but the publisher, or bill-collectors, or rabidfans, insisted that more stories come forth.
I’m not sure readers really want that. Some stories can stop, with tales untold and worlds yet unexplored. Others need to continue, and should, even if you skip a little. The core Familiar Tales books have a 5-7 year gap between them, because readers don’t need all the mundane life of two shadow mages who also have to pay bills, take drippy-nosed kids to school or the doctor, mow the lawn, shovel the walks, buy still more shoes for two fast-growing boys … And occasionally fight monsters, break curses, and tap-dance around land mines and in-laws.
Don’t be afraid to have loose connections and gaps between specific stories, so long as critical ends get tied off, and there are a few references for readers to know any really important bits in between.
*Some people filled in the missing years. Some of those fill-ins are entertaining, some head-scratching (Jesus went to India and studied with Buddhist monks? Huh?) and others got dropped over the years. A few became popular enough to appear in art, frequently. And in Christmas carols (“Cherry Tree Carol”).
Mad Genius Club 
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