Announcing a New and Improved Eternity’s Empire Saga

I like to start every year with a list of things I’d like to accomplish. It gives me something to focus on and keeps me on track. I started 2019 with big ambitions. I even included stretch goals in case I knocked it out of the park.

Within a month I realized many of those plans were going to have to change. As of writing this, my husband and I are still looking for a house. We’ve had several near misses. On top of that, I realized pretty early that I simply wasn’t prepared for the kind of releases I wanted to do this year. I had to choose between rushing to hit arbitrary deadlines or doing things right.

I chose doing things right. I’d like to believe that’s always my decision. But the truth is, I wouldn’t be where I am right now if that were the case.

I’ve talked about wrapping up a recent project and starting a new one. Now it’s time to talk about my on-going project.

I haven’t forgotten about Eternity’s Empire

When I posted my publishing goals for 2019, I mentioned that the Eternity’s Empire release schedule would change. I loved the idea of releasing each chapter as I wrote it and, in the beginning, it kept me motivated to work on the project. But looking back, I can see how much extra work that made for me. In retrospect, it also wasn’t the best form for the story to take.

I also hoped I’d be able to publish the next two installments of Eternity’s Empire this year. Unfortunately, for various reasons, that’s unlikely to happen.

For awhile now, whenever I tried to start the fourth book, I balked. I seemed to be hitting a brick wall and I was never sure why. After some serious soul searching, I found the answer; the first book needs work.

There are a lot of reasons for this. The biggest is that I made some foolish mistakes when I wrote the first draft. It’s no secret that I don’t keep an outline for Eternity’s Empire. I just kind of let it do its thing. But because of that, the plot changed near the end of the first book, meaning that a lot of the foreshadowing you usually sew into early series chapters simply didn’t make it in.

Ultimately the 10,000 word chapter formats exacerbated this problem by forcing me to choose which details I kept and which I cut. The result is that the story feels curt and clipped.

The series had an identity crisis

Eternity’s Empire‘s biggest problem is that I’ve never been sure of its genre. Genre isn’t something you necessarily think about when you sit down to write a story – although if you want to sell it, it probably should be. I thought Eternity’s Empire would inhabit the realm of urban fantasy for awhile before it moved on, so I planned and prepared the series for an urban fantasy release.

I was wrong. Pretty quickly, Eternity’s Empire shifts from urban fantasy to some odd mix of sci-fi and fantasy. And by the end of the third book, it’s pretty much a space opera.

I recently encountered an author talking about her ‘genre onion.’ As soon as I saw that, I achieved a sort of clarity.

Eternity’s Empire is a passion project. All of my projects are. I learned a long time ago, I can’t write something if I don’t have an emotional attachment to it. I started writing, and publishing, Eternity’s Empire to fill space between the Mystical Island trilogy and my next major release. The monthly release schedule was meant to teach me the ins and outs of indie publishing.

As far as learning experience goes, Eternity’s Empire has given me that. But I can’t stress enough that this series was always meant to be more than a series of tests. I have always wanted this series to become something special. I want to give it a proper chance to shine.

As a genre onion, Eternity’s Empire falters. Probably because no one can figure out what it’s supposed to be. Least of all me – at least until recently.

Eternity’s Empire is getting a face lift

For awhile, I thought Eternity’s Empire would need a lot of changes to be viable – both as a story I was happy with and as a book that will sell. Realistically, as an author, you have to consider the business side of writing, even when you don’t want to. I got disheartened and avoided thinking about it.

Last week, I sat down and had a serious chat with myself about this series and what I wanted for it. It seems pretty clear that it has chosen to be a mix of space opera and sword and sorcery in space. While these are two fairly niche genres, I think I can handle that. Both are the kind of stories I like to read – and write. Plus, the story doesn’t need much to align with these genres, since it basically fits both descriptions by the time the third book rolls around.

That just leaves the biggest and most important problem; making sure I’m happy with the story. I braced myself for major edits, expecting to have to re-write entire scenes to bring them in line with my new vision.

But I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Eternity’s Empire is a solid story, one that I’m pretty proud of. It just needed a coat of polish, including a few extra tidbits of plot that got lost because I wasn’t aware, at the time, they would be important. Overall, I think I’ve only added about 1,500 words of extra content to the first book. But boy do those words make a huge difference!

I can’t wait to share it with you!

So what does this mean for the future of Eternity’s Empire? Well, it does mean that I probably won’t get book 4 finished in 2019. But it also means that the entire series is getting lots of extra love. In addition to the new content, I plan to re-release the entire trilogy with new covers, and possibly some sweet extras about the characters and myths that inspired them.

When can you expect the new version of Eternity’s Empire to hit your shelf? If all goes well, they should be ready in August. I can’t wait to share the new look and feel of the series with everyone. The story is the same, but it should feel both more complete and more coherent.

Also, I don’t expect the revamp to completely derail my writing schedule. Which means that book 4 of the Eternity’s Empire saga (The Bond Between Sisters), should be available in October.

When the new series releases, I will be pulling the old, single chapter files from the Amazon store. I’ve left them available because I understand that sometimes coming up with 99 cents here and there is easier than coming up with the money for a full price book. But buying the individual chapters is no longer the cheaper option. And now that they’re not going to match, it feels unfair to leave them hanging around.

Don’t worry too much; the changes sound bigger than they are. Each novel will still contain five parts, roughly 10,000 words each, that tell a chunk of the story. But now that I don’t have to worry about individual releases, I can be looser with the format, possibly include a little more, and make sure each group of chapters is ultra solid before they go to print.

For more information on the Eternity’s Empire saga so far, check out the series page, or any of my previous release notices. Everyone who has the Eternity’s Empire Collection will be able to download the updated versions for free as soon as they release!