Well, it’s been a while since I’ve darkened the WordPress doorway, and with good reason. After a wander through Japan which was absolutely fascinating, I went under the knife twice for some long overdue surgery to make sure I would actually be able to see in future. Thankfully all went well, but my recuperation means that writing will be curtailed severely for a few months at least, with most of the effort I am able to make going into the edits to get the next book on the shelves by December. So, between January and today I’ve managed to add just on 3,000 words to Descent: Diaspora which, in other circumstances, would be criminally lazy of me but, in these, with which I am well chuffed.

So, in one way, that’s reality sinking her teeth in to remind me that I am actually human and that this flesh and blood does need periodic maintenance. But it’s not the reality I’m referring to at the head of this post.

Before I left I had a frank heart to heart with my publisher. The whole concept of Descent was a trilogy within which I gave myself license to write long and deep – to around 200k per volume. Nice thinking as an author but, I was told, no dice as a publisher. Apparently there is a distinct price jump when you go from a paperback at around 100k to one over 150k, one steep enough to put most purchasers off unless the author’s well known and able to command a premium price. Not being either meant decisions had to be made.

Choices? Cut each volume down by around 40% or convert the trilogy into a six part series, a hexalogy. Having wielded the chainsaw to get volume one down to 200k there was no more fat to trim, so it was the hexalogy or nothing. So hexalogy it is. No change in total word length (around 600k), plot or any of that, and thankfully – and I do mean thankfully – there are natural break points in each of the books of the trilogy that give a reasonably neat split into six.

In practical terms it means the series will be affordable and priced appropriately for where I sit in the scheme of things (and not pushing my publisher into bankruptcy’s another side benefit), and if I hit the dizzying heights of Nebula Award or Pulitzer Prize winner I can bolt the six volumes together and put them out as a limited edition (and heavily overpriced) hardback anniversary edition. More realistically it also means that the production schedule may slip out to 5 or so years from now so, serendipitously, it all fits in with my recent operations.

It’s another good lesson for me. No matter what I think as an author, and no matter how much leeway a publisher (or printer for that matter) may give me, if the work’s for sale the market has a defining say in what happens. It’s a business like any other in the end, even if we do call it art.

The series name remains as Descent, and it’s still being published through Temple Dark Books of Ireland (you should have a look here at their current release if you’re into historical fantasy, it’s a cracker) towards the end of the year. Obviously the book names have changed, and I’ve kept my alliterative bent and settled on the following:

• Book 1 – Descent : Diathesis
• Book 2 – Descent : Death
• Book 3 – Descent : Diaspora
• Book 4 – Descent : Deceit
• Book 5 – Descent : Dissonance
• Book 6 – Descent : Destiny

So, until the next change of plans (and we all remember what Mike Tyson – apparently – said, don’t we? “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face“) that’s how it stands. Thanks for your time, and until next time, keep plugging away.