Isle of the Forgotten Series Update
We’ve recently been asked by a few readers about whether or not we’ll be writing any more books in the Isle of Forgotten Series. We figured we’d go ahead and address that here for everyone. For those of you who are new to our books, The Isle of the Forgotten is a Fantasy Romance series that were basically the first books we’ve written to publish (Make Me Burn being our debut).
Originally, the final book was meant to be Make Me Yours, but after talking to our editor at the time (Lora Gasway) while working on our outlines, we knew that there needed to be one more book. You can still read the series without cliffhangers as each book is a standalone with a new couple, but the overarching plot wasn’t quite finished. The final book was then going to be Make Me Surrender, featuring Keric. We had a cover painted (by the wonderful Isis Sousa) and ready to go…except… We floundered. The first chapter was a rough start, and we struggled. This was mainly because we’d just finished writing Undying and we were not sure where to go from there. And then my idea for Treasure of the Abyss became our focus, and from then on, The Kraken Series.
Why have we not returned to Make Me Surrender?
Well, here are a few of the main reasons: Lack of sales, interest, and reviews.
This has happened to many series for many authors. It’s why traditional publishers sometimes cut off authors from finishing their series. If the books are not generating interest or sales, then that series is a dud. That paired with our hearts simply not being into it at the time made it very difficult to justify taking the months of work writing the book would’ve entailed.
Ultimately, our choice to hold off on Make Me Surrender became a business decision. We’re both writing full time now, but when we were attempting to write MMS, Rob still had a day job and our writing time was extremely limited. It came down to a choice of struggling through a manuscript our hearts weren’t in for all that time and likely seeing little return on our investment (not only the time, but the cost of cover art and editing) or moving on to a project that we were excited about and had the potential of reaching a broader audience.
When it comes down to it, writers have to pay their bills and put food on the table, just like everyone else. This is our job, and being fulltime writers, there is no backup paycheck. Our books are what pay our bills, and when they are successful, that enables us to continue working a job we love.
Due to all the above, the Isle of the Forgotten Series has fallen to the bottom of our to-be-written list. We hope to write it someday, but for now, it’s not in our schedule.
So if you love a book or series, please, please consider leaving a review. It can be as short as you want to be. A simple ‘Loved it’ works just as well. The more reviews a book has, the more interest it can generate, and Amazon has some system that allows books with a certain number of reviews to be seen to wider audiences. And share the book with your friends or in your favorite book groups. Word of mouth is seriously the best thing you can do for an author. And we thank everyone single one of you who have shared our books. **Muah!**
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