About three months ago I made an executive decision, much to the dismay of my beautiful wife. You see, after many weeks of deliberation, I decided to try an experiment: split Raven’s Heart into a trilogy. The sole purpose of this tactic: to gain new readers. The original edition was just too darn long (about 1,000 Kindle pages), and it seemed to be scaring potential readers away. When we priced our first book as free on Amazon.com, we gathered over 15,000 new readers. Mission accomplished in a big way…or so I thought.
Our earliest fans know that we always intended Raven’s Heart to be a single novel. That massive “paperweight”—as we called it—never really garnered any attention. But that was okay, because making money was never part of our goal. We wanted to create an enjoyable fantasy.
But I grew tired of failing to draw attention.
Marketing is a bear. To survive in today’s world of publishing, one has to be savvy and learn the ropes. I pride myself in gaining a wealth of knowledge over the past couple years. I researched, made some amazing friends, and then I started pondering the possibility that splitting our behemoth of a novel into three parts might help us gain attention. Boy was I right! But with every big decision comes a cost.
The Forging, Syuna Blue, and Ravenstone. Those are the names of the three books in our newly conceived trilogy. In essence, the story had not changed one iota, which led me to believe that Raven’s Heart would succeed no matter what format it assumed. And it did succeed, in finding a home on thousands of people’s Kindles. It wasn’t long, however, until feedback started returning in the negative. The Forging was deemed, “Boring, with little or no character development, and an abrupt ending”. That’s not what we intended. Of course, they were only reading a part of a whole—not a complete tale. Their claims were not unfounded.
To read an epic fantasy novel is to realize that you’re in for the “long haul.” In the weight of the book, you can expect a slow progression as the story unfolds, complexity of plot(s), deep characters development. To publish an epic novel as three installations is almost false advertising. You may think you’re getting a quick-paced, action-packed, self-contained story. Instead, you find underdeveloped characters, misplaced climaxes, distorted pacing, and unlikely cliff-hangers. If it’s an epic novel, it should be marketed as such.
“I told you so.” I can still hear those unspoken words in my head. Stef never outright uttered them, but I know she wanted to. She was against the “butchering” of our book from the beginning, but she eventually relented in the hopes that my plan would work in our favor. Despite the results of sales and downloads, the more was less than satisfying. She was not surprised by the negative reviews. Overall, we achieved three out of five stars after ten reviews. That’s a “D” on the report card.
Monday, October 31st. Halloween. That is the official last day you can download the three segments of our “trilogy” before they disappear forever. Will this affect our sales? Absolutely. We don’t care. What matters to us is that we give our audience our very best and not an ill-conceived, misconstrued marketing maneuver. This has been a humbling experience to say the least, and I’ve learned a lot about myself during this time. Going with a trend solely for the purpose of attracting interest isn’t always the right path. We’re going to stay true to who we are, even if it means a more limited audience. If you’re an epic fantasy reader, and you still dislike our complete, monster of a novel, then all is fair in reviews and criticism.
Thanks to all who took a chance on us during this “trilogy” period. We thank you for your support and opinions, and we hope that you continue to follow us in the future. We promise that our next series will be a true trilogy, and we hope you’ll find it worth the read.
-Matt
Our earliest fans know that we always intended Raven’s Heart to be a single novel. That massive “paperweight”—as we called it—never really garnered any attention. But that was okay, because making money was never part of our goal. We wanted to create an enjoyable fantasy.
But I grew tired of failing to draw attention.
Marketing is a bear. To survive in today’s world of publishing, one has to be savvy and learn the ropes. I pride myself in gaining a wealth of knowledge over the past couple years. I researched, made some amazing friends, and then I started pondering the possibility that splitting our behemoth of a novel into three parts might help us gain attention. Boy was I right! But with every big decision comes a cost.
The Forging, Syuna Blue, and Ravenstone. Those are the names of the three books in our newly conceived trilogy. In essence, the story had not changed one iota, which led me to believe that Raven’s Heart would succeed no matter what format it assumed. And it did succeed, in finding a home on thousands of people’s Kindles. It wasn’t long, however, until feedback started returning in the negative. The Forging was deemed, “Boring, with little or no character development, and an abrupt ending”. That’s not what we intended. Of course, they were only reading a part of a whole—not a complete tale. Their claims were not unfounded.
To read an epic fantasy novel is to realize that you’re in for the “long haul.” In the weight of the book, you can expect a slow progression as the story unfolds, complexity of plot(s), deep characters development. To publish an epic novel as three installations is almost false advertising. You may think you’re getting a quick-paced, action-packed, self-contained story. Instead, you find underdeveloped characters, misplaced climaxes, distorted pacing, and unlikely cliff-hangers. If it’s an epic novel, it should be marketed as such.
“I told you so.” I can still hear those unspoken words in my head. Stef never outright uttered them, but I know she wanted to. She was against the “butchering” of our book from the beginning, but she eventually relented in the hopes that my plan would work in our favor. Despite the results of sales and downloads, the more was less than satisfying. She was not surprised by the negative reviews. Overall, we achieved three out of five stars after ten reviews. That’s a “D” on the report card.
Monday, October 31st. Halloween. That is the official last day you can download the three segments of our “trilogy” before they disappear forever. Will this affect our sales? Absolutely. We don’t care. What matters to us is that we give our audience our very best and not an ill-conceived, misconstrued marketing maneuver. This has been a humbling experience to say the least, and I’ve learned a lot about myself during this time. Going with a trend solely for the purpose of attracting interest isn’t always the right path. We’re going to stay true to who we are, even if it means a more limited audience. If you’re an epic fantasy reader, and you still dislike our complete, monster of a novel, then all is fair in reviews and criticism.
Thanks to all who took a chance on us during this “trilogy” period. We thank you for your support and opinions, and we hope that you continue to follow us in the future. We promise that our next series will be a true trilogy, and we hope you’ll find it worth the read.
-Matt
