Two posts in one day.
This post is made because I didn’t put things clearly on Friday, and poor Mod R had to suffer from my incompetence. Thank you to everyone for your supportive messages! We appreciate it. This post is for everyone who is worried that their favorites will be abandoned.
What is an anchor series?
An anchor series is the author’s primary fiction series. An author can only have a single anchor series or they can have several series during their career. Kate Daniels and the Edge ran concurrently. Kate Daniels was the anchor series, a primary series we were known for at the time, while the Edge was a side series.
Why do you need a new anchor series?
Having an anchor series allows an author to have a steady income stream by bringing in new readers. While this might seem very odd to many of us, over time people tend to abandon long fiction series. Their reading tastes change, or the author’s creative direction changes, or it becomes simply too much to keep up.
A lot of people hesitate to jump into a long existing series because it requires too much time and money. Not everyone. Plenty of people do pick up older books. But statistically speaking, a long series presents a barrier to entry. We need to be gaining readers to continue our career.
Look at Instant Pot. Instant Pot had massive sales during pandemic. It’s a great appliance. Everyone loves it, right? They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June. What happened? How could this be?
Everyone who wanted an Instant Pot bought one and they are very well made. They don’t break so you don’t need to replace them. Instant Pot literally saturated the market. If they had come up with a different product while Instant Pot was selling like hot cakes, they might not have been in this position. Peloton, same story.
While books are not Instant Pots, some similarity exists in that an author must produce new and exciting things to stay afloat.
Why can’t you just do a spin off as an anchor series?
We tried that with Blood Heir. While it sold in record numbers, it failed to pull in new readers, and in part it is the BDH’s fault. BDH loved KD so much that any time a new reader asked if they could read Blood Heir on its own, the existing readers jumped in and told them that no, they should read the entire KD series first because the relationships are so much deeper and they will miss out.
As an aside, the book pushing ability of the BDH is without equal.
So, KD is very loved and we are very lucky authors. But this just goes to show you that people do hesitate picking up a spin-off from an existing series because of the fear of missing out or being confused.
So no, it’s can’t be anything related to an existing series. Because every professional review will start with, “This is a spin off” and new readers will skip it, which defeats the purpose.
But Roman and Arabella and …
No. New. New thing. Not spin-off from old thing. This doesn’t mean we won’t write spinoffs. It just means we need something in addition to them.
But I know this author and they did…
Each author’s career is individual and unique. What worked for that author will not work for us. We are doing our best to continue to deliver cool stories to you in the best way we know how.
Does this mean we are not getting the sequels we want?
No. We are planning on concluding the hanging arcs of our other series in the next 2 years, hopefully, if nothing catastrophic happens. Remember how Hidden Legacy came out, and we still finished KD and wrote Innkeeper? This is “in addition” to existing stuff, not instead of it.
Does this mean you are not inspired to write in the existing worlds?
If we weren’t inspired, we wouldn’t be writing in them. We only work on what we want to work on.
If you have two years of work planned, why are you worrying about it now?
Because we would like the anchor series to be traditionally published. That means 12-24 months wait for publication after we deliver a manuscript. We must think about 3 years in advance.
The end goal is to provide the BDH new cool stuff to read without a long delay.
Is it Maggie? Will Maggie be the anchor series?
No. I went into in the previous post, but basically Maggie might be too niche to have a wide appeal. But we love it and we are going to work on it so we don’t regret it in the future. It is a challenge and challenges are good for the creative soul.
For the sake of all that is holy, tell us what is next? Tell us something!
After Maggie, it’s either Iron and Magic 2 or Wilmington 3. Both need to get done before Blood Heir 2. This doesn’t mean that we won’t put out shorter fiction of some sort or have a small side projects but in terms of novels, that’s what we are looking at.
Will you tell us when…
No. You will know which it is and when it is once we are ready for preorder date. We must be confident that we can deliver.
But why are you not writing the things I want right now?
Because we are not machines. We experience ups and downs, we have emotions, we have problems and sometimes we put off projects because we know we are not in the right headspace to do them justice. We don’t want to churn out crappy books.
I hope this clears things up and puts some questions to rest. Thank you so much for being enthusiastic about our work and kind to us as people even when we are sad sacks of sadness. We really appreciate all of you.
I’m so grateful that you self advocate and only work on what you want to work on and write. Both bc I really, really like y’all and want you to be happy and also selfishly as a reader bc I’ve read what happens when authors write bc they have to and don’t want to and ….. it’s horrible. So thank you bc you’re doing wonderful things both for yourselves and for me as your reader. It’s also a very healthy example. So thank you.
I know this is a few days late, but I just finished listening to Blood Heir with my early teen daughter (with some judicious fast forwarding, particularly through the cussing-heavy bits).
it works perfectly as its own series, and I can see how disenheartening it would be for people to tell others that they had to read Kate first.
We’ve now gone back to Kate’s series and just started Magic Burns this morning, skipping the first book. This is where I started the series.
My daughter is having a really hard time understanding KD after listening to Blood Heir. “Is this about the Princess of Shinar?” “Her dad is dead? But he’s not later.” (In Magic Burns, Kate’s dad is Voron)
It’s really interesting to hear her perspective on the world with Blood Heir being her introduction instead of Kate. Blood Heir has all this love for Julie – loving uncles Hugh and Nick, loving grandma Erra, loving mom and dad Kate & Curran. KD is full of angst and isolation in contrast.
I think in the end that Blood Heir/Julie’s books will remain her favorite, with KD getting sad “prequel” status, like Star Wars for us oldsters who saw the 3 originals in theater and the prequels just don’t compare.
I adore Kate – I don’t want this to come across any differently — but I also wanted to affirm that based on my daughter’s experience, yes, Blood Heir could have very easily been its own anchor series if those pesky BDH hadn’t spoiled everything (quiet Scooby reference LOL)
I get it. I recently discovered you in June with the Innkeeper series and then the Edge because I liked George and Jack. I have finished most of your smaller series and am tackling Hidden Legacy now. I am reading your whole catalog, but Kate Daniels will be last.
Thanks so much for this post! I have read everything you guys have put out. You are by far my favorite authors and I’m excited to read your new anchor series as well as the sequels you’re planning. It’ll be hard to let go of the KD world, but I’m excited to go on this new adventure!
I love all of your work and hope for all of the sequels! That said, I’m here for any anchor series and sequels you want to write. More books = more better!!
I wish I could to more to promote your work because it’s wonderful. I’ll continue to write reviews and wish I had more friends, relatives, acquaintances, even random strangers I could convince to read your amazing work!
I’d love to see a series set in the world of: Of Swine and Roses!
Im just curious, do you write on several books at the same time or do you focus on one at a time?
Sorry if this is a previous answered question 🙂
Can a prequel series be a new anchor thing? So we could have more back story of some family that wipes out Victoria Tremaine’s family or the family that Alessandro’s father died defending, or something? You know, where you can see that the feud gave bad fruit later because there are always innocents who want revenge. 🤔
The Edge may be a side series, but it is an excellent gateway to the horde.
See I’m not the only one who has full conversations with people even if they are not around for it yet. LOL
I believe you covered it all.
While I have purchased and read most of your series, I must say that I had hoped for the last arc of the “Hidden Legacy” would make it into print within the next 2 years. Looks like that isn’t even a possibility. I do however wish that you folks have better times than the past few years. (Note to ModR … You may remove this reply at your leisure.)
So will see you whenever we see you👍What ever you write and when ever it comes out it will be on my immediate order list. I love your stories but more I love the way you tell a story.
Have you thought about doing a military focused anchor series? With Gordons experience it would be authentic. I personally love military focused space opera romance. Not sure you are comfortable with space science fiction but I would to see how you’d write a space fleet admiral and his rebel magically gifted love interest. Ive really loved all your heros. Rogan is my fave. Just a thought. Whatever you come up with we will love. God bless.
I also loved the space scenes around the vampire space station. They were awesome.
Sending lots of support as you work through your writer feels and business planning. As a fan, I wholeheartedly trust your creative and business instincts. And look forward to seeing where you grow as authors and how your fan base grows . . . even if it’s not for me.
I’ve been a die-hard, own every book, FAN of several authors and (when it’s healthy) there’s this magical feeling of trust and respect for the author, because the author demonstrates integrity, and trusts and respects the audience in their writing. As a fan, there is nothing more comforting than diving into a familiar world and learning more about my favorite characters. And as a fan, there’s equally nothing more exciting than being surprised by something new and unfamiliar by a voice I trust. New things feel hard in an uncertain world, but trust eases the scary of it all.
Regardless of the order and timing of publication, regardless of whether you ever wrap up my favorite series, regardless of whether blog posts are scarce, and regardless of whether your new anchor works for me personally, I support you. You are excellent at what you do and you’ve earned my trust. You’ve got this!
Just wanted to give you guys a lot of love. I just finished Magic Claims yesterday (I know, it’s so late. But I had some professional commitments:( to fulfill)
After catching up on all the blogs I missed… I just wanted to tell you guys that you are brilliant writers. And great art takes time. It is coz you guys do stuff on your timeline, that it is great.
Lots of Love
I’d love if you considered writing short story about Roman, he is my favourite! I’ve been listening to all books again and while I get that Andrea and Rafael wwre meant to be, I really wish she and Roman dated a little. He deserves to be happy!
Can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with as an anchor series! I’m sure BDH will go wild whatever it will be.
Wake up Maggie, I think I got somethin’
to say to you………
hee hee hee
Thanks for explaining how hard it is and what goals you have to reach. Man is your job hard. New readers? That’s hard. This is the only author’s blog I purposefully seek out every week. The other authors are missing out. I don’t want to do Facebook because employers are always looking on it tracking employees interests. You guys are so real. Lol. Congratulations in advance on your new anchor series. New readers! Wow.
❤️
It’s interesting to learn people might get weary of starting stablished series. I started reading the KD novels because I read Magic Stars and liked the prmise so much I went looking for the beginning of the story. Which led me to the Inkeepers, Hidden Legacy and so on.
But I am a serial and serious series reader, so it’s not really a surprise I just dive in.
The surprise is that I keep coming back to reread the books, or listen to them again on Graphic Audio. That’s for me is the mark of good penmanship: making people revisit previous stories.
I love every new series you create. I look forward to reading all that you have in store in this new chapter (pun intended) of your writing.
I so appreciate that you take the time to be in the right headspace before you write the next book!
I Loved the first two books of the Eragon series. Waited forever for the third. Realized in the 4th that the author no longer loved the characters and had just finished it to be done. It was sad. I was disappointed. I love your books BECAUSE you take your time. I also love your life stories…I’ve made several friends and family enjoy the lawn mafia tales with me:). Whatever you enjoy writing and sharing with us is appreciated.