Keeping everyone informed- Resistance and future books
I was going to do a poll, but then I realized that I have limited choices here.
Resistance (Book 4 of WtMV) was supposed to be 150,000 words. There is always a give or take of 5000 words with those targets.
It was also supposed to be done today. Then I was taking the kids to Wisconsin Dells through Monday and would be starting Crystal Core 4 next week.
My outline still called for the following chapters in Resistance:
Thursday
Chapter 52- Weight of Responsibility- but first I need to take care of my mother Crembori stasis- talking to mom
Chapter 53- A celebrity Traveling about- meeting with corps, General Krulak, other leaders.
Friday
Chapter 54- Organizing the Resistance, Galen, Proximus
Chapter 55- They’re Here- Crembori fleet arrives
Chapter 56- New Ship
Chapter 57- It’s Time
______________________
That outline would have brought the book to a resolution just as the full induction of Earth was beginning and book 5 (renamed Contested) would begin at that same point.
Right now Resistance is at 143,656 words. This matters because of scheduling and because the editor takes a certain amount of time. The longer the book, the more time it takes the editor.
If I were to write those six chapters it would take 12,000-15,000 words and 2 days of writing. Obviously, it took me longer to get to this point than planned. Some of the earlier chapters were longer, some of the scenes required more fleshing out, etc...
So, while I'm pretty sure that I know what I'm doing, I am open to feedback. My current plan is to do a partial rewrite of Chapter 51 to add a bit to the scope of the battle, and there was an element with Spirit Singing that I had intended to include but skipped over while I was following the muse.
Then I would write a longish epilogue and or a short summary chapter and short epilogue to set up all of the issues that I didn't get to in this book, for the beginning of book 5.
I could push back my schedule and finish writing the book next week and add all of these chapters, but that would throw this editor's schedule off, which in turn could affect the narrator's schedule.
It would also be supremely unfair to Dutch, who has rightfully asked me to finish books he is editing more than 3 days before the book has to be uploaded to Amazon. To give him the 3-4 weeks time that I'd like to give him, I need to write Crystal Core 4 within the next month. So pushing it back even a couple of days would be an issue.
If all goes well-
1) I finish Resistance tonight with a bit of touch up over the weekend between water slides.
2) I finish Crystal Core by Friday August 2nd. (I will have some extra writing time in July because my wife will be gone with 2 of my adult daughters to Montreal to visit our 33 year old adopted daughter's biological father- the first time she's seen him since she was 11. I love my wife so much that it hurts, but she is also the single largest distraction from writing.
3) I will finish Dragon Sorcerer 5 on Friday August 30. Book 5 would end up being the final book of the series but it would be longer than any of the other books in the series. Right now its about 1/3 written.
Because I'm always transparent, the reason for that is two-fold. First, I feel like I made some missteps in book 4, and took the story off of its proper narrative course. It was always about Nico's progress, not about kingdom building. That screw up is on me. And second, the financial reality.
Book 4 has not even earned enough to pay for my time, editing costs, etc... To put it in perspective. Crystal Core 3, my most recently published book (a month ago) has already out earned both Dragon Sorcerer 3 and 4 combined and is pretty much tied with Dragon Sorcerer 2 that came out 11 months before it. For another comparison, Induction has out earned the entire Dragon Sorcerer series by a good margin and will soon have doubled it. That's 1 book compared to 4 books.
So, because my screw up affected how I feel about the story and because of fiscal reasons, book 5 of Dragon Sorcerer will be the last book. (Again it will be significantly longer than any of the other books in the series)
4) September will be dedicated to writing Contested- book 5 of Welcome to the Multiverse
5) October will be dedicated to writing Crystal Core 5.
6) November will be dedicated to finishing She Who Befriends Monsters, book 7 of Life in Exile.
7) December and the beginning of January will be dedicated to writing book 6 of Welcome to the Multiverse.
These plans and schedules take into consideration the reduced production goals that I mentioned in the update at the beginning of June. (Somethings gotta give)
Last but not least. This schedule calls for writing one book at a time. If you've been around here long enough you realize that I seem to cycle through times that I need to work on only one book and other times that I want to write chapters in multiple books through-out the week.
Comments (19)
Thought I had the Discord, but apparently I forgot to click on the link when it was active. Currently reading Resistance , enjoying it, though it feels like it needed another editing pass. Some of the Stat Sheet chapters seem to be after the wrong chapters on Kindle. In chapter 41 her body pixelates to prevent looting, but at the end of the chapter her headless corpse falls over.
Will you be posting dragon sorcerer to Royal Road? Your last update on the platform hinted that there wound be more chapters on there in March. Seeing as it’s already August I am just asking. Edit: Also dragon sorcerer is my favorite series of yours.
I honestly don't know. Posting to Royal Road was an experiment. I released 2 new series in 2023- Dragon Sorcerer and Welcome to the Multiverse. Dragon Sorcerer did well commercially at first, but had a huge amount of drop off in books 2 then 3, and book 4 is my second worst selling book ever. I will accept the blame in that I think book 4 got away from what made books 1-3 what they were. But it also seems like Royal Road siphoned away readers from Kindle Unlimited. In contrast, Welcome to the Multiverse went straight to Amazon and despite being released 6 months after Dragon Sorcerer has already more than doubled its sales, especially in the later books. To put it in perspective, book 4 of WtMV released yesterday and has pretty much already matched the sales of Dragon Sorcerer 4. Good news: 1) I am 100% committed to finishing Dragon Sorcerer. 2) Contractual Obligations require me to write WtMV 5 first, but then I will be focused on DS 5. 3) DS 5 is already about 30% done- so I will pick up from there and continue forward. 4) My GOAL is to release Dragon Sorcerer 5 in October, pending getting the edits done. I might release the chapters onto RR for a short time before they go to Amazon. I just am trying not to feel upset about RR. It isn't the fault of anyone that it works the way that it does.
That is very dissapointing for ds. I hope it doesnt end up feeling like the ending was rushed.
Take the time you need and make realistic estimates. Quality and completeness matters in the long run.
If I’m being honest the ending feels a little rushed. Normandy beach feels like a cinematic ending but is missing something. Hard to say what exactly but I think you’re on that path
Although if you wrote another 20 chapters I’d just be thrilled to keep reading about Silas so I’m biased
Agreed. You’re there, maybe add an epilogue but the story arc honestly came to a nice place to pause; a rest stop along the journey.. If you write too much more you run the risk of a less tidy ending.
Do, what is right for you! As a reader, "Yes" I would like those other chapters, but understand that life and family is importance. Just keep writing with quality.
Ok, I'm not reading your other books so far but I'm going to after resistance because if I read you remarks right, all of them are connected. Idk about editing cost or anything of that nature, but remember man, this is your book.... your serieies.... your imagination.... your effort.... your time... your money.... if you want resistance to be 57 ch. Long that's YOUR CHOICE. Because remember man it's your story.. yea we are the readers and your supposed to give the readers what they want and everything man but it's still your story to tell, your time, your effort!! Write it how you want to write it. And so far the only thing I have to say is, you a damn good author man. So what your time frame got messed up your still human, your still a person. Life happens, remember we are waiting for YOU, to finish YOUR book. And that's all I really have to Comment!
I remember not long ago having to wait 2-3 YEARS for the next book. I love the speed you write at BUT don't compromise on the quality, your only talking about a small 6 month delay on the AUDIO book. That might give you a bit of breathing room to work with anyway. Please don't burn out just to save a small amount of time.
I would say write a chapter to finish up WttMV and move on. While writing the other chapters would be nice, it's not necessary. The book ends overall positively. But keep up the good work you are doing well
Chapter 51 is a perfect ending to the book. Cap it with an epilogue where he thinks about the things he needs to accomplish before the induction. Maybe a little foreshadowing of the hell invasion or something
If you need to wrap up, the time skip makes sense. If you can delay a couple of days and are feeling up to it, a couple more chapters would wrap the book up on a positive note and not a “Silas is scary” note for the earthlings.
i think a edit to 51 and a short time skip than epilogue is the way to go for induction
Agreed Silas is Scary maybe a bit and some what’s happening in the larger world this feels like a stopping point
I joined for CC but fell in love with wtmv as well. As a reader I want to say take the extra time but if you taking the extra time messes up the schedules and affects editing quality I don't know if the trade off is worth it or not.all I know is I am here for the ride.
I joined for CC, and if CC were in this position I’d want stuff to be pushed so CC gets the story it deserves. Push what you need to to get the story correct. Quality matters more than hitting a schedule imho.
That's just it. After writing that last chapter, it just felt like the end of the book. Not the total end, as there needs to be some wrap up stuff, but the proper ending spot. And while I agree that quality is critical, schedule is too. The moment that I miss a deadline for Travis (narrator) is the moment that it's 6-8 months until the next audio book comes out. And the primary reason for adjusting my productivity goals was to avoid what I feel like were cascading failures. I missed one scheduled goal, which cause me to miss the next one, etc... If I only wrote one series, then it would all be good. Ultimately this book is going to end up at the target length, it just took me a bit longer to get to this point, but having written it, I feel like it's the climax of this book.