Another week, another book release. Okay, I’m not nearly so prolific, but this has been a busy first week to the year. My novella The Silent Raven was released just a few days ago. And now, A Path of Vengeance is out and on the proverbial store shelves. So Exciting!
In many ways, A Path of Vengeance and its forthcoming sequel A Path of Serenity are my stories. Well, of course they’re my stories in the literal sense, but I’m talking about my stories. Every writer that I’ve ever known has had that story, the one that they itched to write, that story that dragged them-sometimes kicking and screaming-to the chair and forced them to write. These books were that for me.
Vengeance and Serentiy books were originally one novel
Fun fact: Vengeance and Serenity were originally one long novel titled A Path of Vengeance. I was forced to split them for three very important reasons. The first, and no doubt the biggest, was the publication costs. As an independent author, costs can quickly get out of control. The most significant cost for most of us indies will be editing. Quite simply, the editing cost for A Path of Vengeance was cut in half.
Now, you might find bit of a fallacy in that logic. If I split the book in half, then wouldn’t I still have to pay the same amount of money for editing in the end? Well, this brings me to reason number two for splitting the book. On the surface, yes, the total editing cost is the same. But the big difference is, for the same price, I now have two books instead of one. In the indie author world, two books are a heck of a lot easier to market, promote, and sell than a single book. And indeed, it gets easier still with even more books.
Simply put, it made both books better.
The final reason I split the two books was more of a craft consideration. As soon as the thought to split the book came to me, I knew it was the right approach. Some of the plot issues were smoothed out and, in most cases, eliminated altogether as soon as I split the book. The story flowed better, and the pacing became far easier to manage. Simply put, it made both books better.
For all those reasons and countless more, this has been a long journey. I am so proud of this story, and beyond happy it is out in the world. I have a sample here on my website you can check out. I’ll provide the link here: sample. Check it out, or if you’re ready to jump in and enjoy the thrilling story in full, you can purchase the novel and kindle versions here: A Path of Vengeance.
The Silent Raven is available in kindle and paperback, can also be purchased by clicking on the cover image below.
