After much consideration, I have decided to take Dark Skies Over Brightwater down from the Amazon Kindle Store. Past this point, it is no longer purchasable.

I will be reworking the manuscript into a series of shorter books that will be uploaded as a series rather than one long novel.

A couple of thoughts on this:

When I first published Dark Skies, it was to prove to myself (and the people around me, I don’t pretend I didn’t feel stares from every quarter, most of them helpful but transmuted into something sinister in that pressure every budding artist feels) that I could be a full-time writer. That I really could turn out product. Dark Skies proved that for me.

The novel is good! I don’t believe for two seconds I turned out bad product. But! I do know it could be much better, and that I can better serve the story by taking the time to rework it. Characters can be explored. Relationships stretched out. Despite the novel’s huge length, there were aspects that were rushed because SO MUCH was happening. The multiple book format will help this.

There are things that will have to be sacrificed, or at the very least transformed, to fit this format. I anticipate this. I promise this isn’t a spur of the moment decision. I have been thinking on this since the beginning of the year. Call it a slow-cooked resolution.

Let this be a post extolling the virtues of self-publishing! I would never be able to do this through traditional publishing venues. Self-publishing allows this to be a teaching moment rather than a regret.