I just finished my second Cozy Mystery book from the Q Mysteries series. Those are available through my Elliot Droit pen name. The new book is called Treasure on the Trail. The book has not been approved yet, but Amazon is rather quick at performing that task, especially for authors who have a lot of books published.

Daphne Series

I’m leaning heavily toward rewriting the first Daphne book (Novis Terminal). The book would show up as a second-edition copy of the book. I’m not sure if I can jam the book in while writing other books (I might be able to slip in 500 words a night or more if I’m willing to go crazy). I have deadlines on my Q series, even though nobody has purchased or read the first book (on KU). It’s tempting to set the series aside and work on other things, but I already laid down a marker, and I intend to keep my deadlines. Therefore, I will be completing the third Q Mystery at the end of February, the fourth at the end of March, and the fifth at the end of April. I’m also committed to completing the seventh Daphne book, Shadows in the Bloodline. The rough draft for that one will start in May. Assuming I can find a little time here and there, I might be able to slip in an updated version of Novis Terminal. Now that I’ve published a new Daphne book, sales, or rather, KU reads, have demonstrated that the characters and universe are good. Now that I have the skills to write a better book, that series could be really popular.

If you’re coming to this site (or the Facebook site) for the first time, you may not realize that the Daphne series of six books consists of five books written over two years ago, followed by RUSTY’s Memories, which was published last month (as of this writing). I wrote RUSTY’s Memories to prove to myself that my improved writing skills could have made that series a success. The KU reads are really good, and the first book alone is profitable with a 5-dollar-a-day Facebook Ad spend. I can also see a lot of KU reads for Novis Terminal. What’s great about Amazon’s metrics is that I can see a lot of stuff (no personally identifying information, in case you’re wondering). But, there are some pieces that will always be missing from metrics. Mostly an important metric known as “intent.” Every salesperson on this planet would love to know the intent of buyers or customers. That would solve their advertising “issues,” assuming they have any. In my case, I don’t know why people are reading Novis Terminal. Mainly, what I want to know is if they see the Ad, go to Amazon, and think, “Hmmm, this book Frank is advertising is not the first in the series. I think I’ll go out and read from the beginning…”

Which is legit.

Unfortunately, the read-through of the older books was not great because my writing skills were weak. So those people probably will not make it to the last book. Especially if they don’t realize the newest book was written after a two-year gap where I spent a lot of time studying the craft. The other primary scenario I see is that people read RUSTY’s Memories, and they want more, which is awesome. So, they go out and pick up the first book, or some might just grab Supercomputer since it’s mentioned in RUSTY’s Memories, and they might not be as impressed, which is a bummer.

If you’d like to voice your opinion, don’t be afraid to slap a comment on this blog site or the Facebook site. I’d love to hear your comments.

Anyway, since RUSTY’s Memories is shining so bright, I intend to do something about that. First of all, I’ve promised to produce Shadows in the Bloodline. So that has a deadline set (it’s a semi-so-so deadline, but it’ll be here sometime in the summer). After that? Well, I don’t want to promise more books and deadlines that far in the future, but as I mentioned above, I am leaning heavily into rewrites of the first five books. Maybe just the first book, maybe all five. If I drop a second edition of Novis Terminal and it goes crazy, I’ll be committed to getting the remaining four up to the same level of writing.

Right now, I’m still noodling over the storyline for a new Novis Terminal. Oh, it’ll fit within the blurb of the book. Daphne arrives at a station that looks abandoned by its workers. I also have to keep the characters that are in the current book. There are a few other details I have to keep because the conclusion of Novis Terminal kicks off events in other books. Other than that, I have quite a bit of freedom to change the story around. So far, I have the first Act of a potential story that is so much better than the original. Of course, that’s the way things go. Once you finish something, you have the benefit of hindsight to realize that you could have done something better. Novis Terminal was written in 2022, so I’ve had a few years to think of something better.

There are a few downsides to rewriting a book (or two). First, that’s time I could have spent writing a new story. Second, the original will be delisted therefore, the nostalgia of the original will be gone. Not that anyone will go back and re-read the old books.

The upside of rewriting is that the series can become profitable and, therefore, more widespread. It will also motivate me to write more. The current sales situation would prompt me to end this series at book seven and move on. Maybe I would create a spin-off so I could shrug off this read-through issue of the series, but that might never happen.

See how I talk myself into these things…