How many books will WRAITHSHARD be?

Five. WRAITHSHARD will have five books, and I want to write and publish them all in 2020.

For years now I’ve been writing really long series and alternating releases between months – like, a FROSTBORN book the first month, a GHOSTS book the second, a FROSTBORN book the third, and then a CLOAK MAGE book on the fourth month.

I suspect, however, this might have reached a point of diminishing returns in terms of reader enjoyment. DRAGONTIARNA is only selling at about 35% of what SEVENFOLD SWORD did (though DRAGONTIARNA: WRAITHS got closer to 50%) and I think it’s because the entry level has inadvertently become so high, and people feel like they need to read all of FROSTBORN and SEVENFOLD SWORD first before DRAGONTIARNA.  Like, I intended DRAGONTIARNA to be stand alone, but readers are generally completionists and prefer to read through everything and start all the way back with FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT. But with a series that long, (it’s 27 books from FROSTBORN: THE GRAY KNIGHT to the first book of DRAGONTIARNA) you lose a lot of people along the way who lose interest or get busy with something else.

So, I think after I wrap up my current long-running series (DRAGONTIARNA & GHOST NIGHT – CLOAK MAGE was intended to have more stand-alone books) I want to pivot to writing shorter series more frequently.

But I only think that will work, so to test the idea out, I’m writing WRAITHSHARD.

And on that note, I’m on Chapter 18 of 20 of the rough draft of WRAITHSHARD: SWORD & FLAME.  If all goes well, I’ll finish the rough draft next week!

-JM