I’ve Made a Decision…

I wanted to talk to you guys about a decision I've made.

When I originally wrote my first book in the Dead Things Series, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, I knew it wouldn’t be a trilogy. The story I wanted to tell was too broad, too sweeping, there was too much at stake. There were too many threads I needed to weave through the story to tell it the way I wanted to tell it. It’s part of the reason I never looked for a publisher, I was too afraid they wouldn’t see my bigger picture.

That being said, when people would interview me or a reader would ask me how many books there would be in the series, my go-to answer was always five. I had no real reason to say five books other than the story was told from the point of view of five people and it seemed like an easy symmetry.

But as I write book three, Sinister Souls and Dead Things, it has become very clear to me that the story I want to tell you is much bigger than just five books. Now, I’ve been hesitant to say this because there is a sort of abject terror that sets in when I think of writing this series the way I want to write it, but I feel like there is no success without a fear of failure.

So, I’ve made a decision, moving forward, I cannot tell you exactly how many books there will be in the Dead Things Series but I can tell you it will likely be no less than seven main books with several smaller novels/novellas along the way introducing you to some characters who will become vital to the Belladonna pack and the trinity eventually fighting the Grove.

This decision may impact how often I’m able to publish my books. I’m averaging one to two books a year right now, a pace I hope to maintain, but if I’m true to my story, this might mean moving to one book and one novella a year. Regardless of the number of books in my series, one of my goals this year is to see my books on the bookshelves of brick and mortar stores and to do that will mean dealing with distributors catalogues and schedules, so it’s possible this may have already effected my ability to publish more than one book a year.

In the indie world, much like the academic world, it’s often publish or perish. Pump out five to six books a year if you want to stay afloat, to stay relevant. There are too many excellent authors out there and if you aren’t publishing sometimes people forget about you.

Many of your favorite authors do this masterfully. I find I’m not one of them. To tell my story—the pack’s story—the way I want to, I need to write 500 plus page books, it’s just who I am as a writer. So, I’m hoping you guys will be patient with me and my writing schedule and not forget about me while I’m writing the next book in the series.

In the meantime, I promise to give you some shorter novels, novellas, one-shot stories and tons of fun freebies and teasers and keep up with you in my fan group on Facebook. I hope you are all as excited as I am at the possibility of the series continuing on for a long time and I hope you stick around to see how it all ends.

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