Send me an email and tell me what you do in Africa!

Chris

cwalley@gmail.com

I have read the first two books and I liked them. I live in Kenya and since 2006 or so we have been looking for the third book but it hasn’t arrived. As you work on getting your book rights from Tyndale would you be able to get your book sent here in any way? Are there plans for a fourth book? It is good writing. All the best and God Bless you.

First of all I’d say what good books they are, and how they throughly deserve a wider audience than they’ve had. The mix of tight plotlines, apocalyptic good v evil battles and enlightening spiritual insights is an excellent one.

That said, the pace of the first 2 books (or first volume as it appeared in the US) is probably too slow for it to get mass appeal, and if you have chance for a re-write, it would be a good move. It could be done without compromising integrity.

I think that Kirsty’s idea of going back to the Rebellion is very good – you could properly introduce characters such as Adlen, Jannafy and Ringell without them just being historical footnotes, and it would start the series with the bang it deserves. You could hook reviewers and the public in!

I also felt your writing of dialogue and prose went from decent to very good as the books went on – from that point of view a re-write would be no bad thing. I felt that some condensing of the revelations about the growing evil
would have made it flow better too.

Mind you, if Tolkein had just made the same blog post about his trilogy, I’d be saying similar stuff to him… They are really very good books and they stand as a real achievement. It just deserves to be read by more people.

I see the “kiss of death” as marketing this series as teenage fiction. At least my local Cristian bookshop put it in the adult fiction section, otherwise I would never have found it. Whoever you find to republish it, I hope it is a well-known publisher because self-publishing, or publish on demand is merely an attempt to stave off the awful day when the books go out-of-print.

That awful day is not yet upon us. The last book I purchased from amazon (a commentary) was rated somewhere about 690,000 in the best sellers, but by buying a copy it leapt upwards about 500,000 places! There’s still hope, even when you are ranked at 300,000.

James

I loved the contrast of the books, the slow build-up in the first one ( I read them in their 4 book format)intrigued me…and such things as the sighting of the bug, the dead dog, and the white lie…I was genuinely frightened…part of the suspense was that you had no idea what was going on…absolutely none.

and than they go on a journey, and its like the horror movie where your like DON”T GO THROUGH THAT DOOR! because you know something is out there, but you don’t know WHAT. it was scary…all the more so because of the utopia at the beginning.

I know I’m repeating myself but I think the scariest part of the first book was the white lie. It worked.

Now the first book helped contrast the second, with them trying to get together a military, and genuinely not knowing HOW to do it. They don’t know how to make weapons, organize training and command structures…their confused.

And then the Third book, where you here at the beginning that the cockroaches and apes, the foes of the first book, are mere FOOD for the mechinations of the shadow empire…and that the krallen, that almost killed them…come in the numbers of the hundreds of thousands.

Than the race against time and odds, as they figure out how to destroy these new menaces…its…epic. But it wouldn’t be without the contrast of the first book. The Dark Foundations worked so well, because the first book was so slow and creepy…

I don’t know if I’ve told you anything you didn’t know, and with an excess of periods plus I’m a week late but I hope I might have given some encouragement.

and as for the original topic, others have said it, I said it. You have to get the book out. You’ve written a good series…publicize it. Get reviews, go to schools, go to churches. Get it out.
Thanks for reading,
Anonymous Prodigy.

One more thought, to echo Andrew’s ideas on promotion. I realize that your eyebrow may lift at this comparison, but I recall reading a bit about the promotional process of Arnold Schwartzenegger’s first workout book. Referring to the promotional tour, the publisher said something like, “We’ll promote the book in as many cities as it takes to make it a bestseller.”

I remember then being a little surprised that the formula for a bestseller could be that cookbookish – that all one had to do was get enough exposure.

I realize that Big Arnie already had a rather high profile by then (he had, I think, two or three movies out), and there are other obvious differences, but perhaps the idea has some merit.

Just a thought. But by all means, if you have the will to persevere, “Let us not be overthrown at the final test, who of old forsook the Shadow and the Ring.” (Can anyone give me chapter and verse on that? Just a little test for the LOTRites.)

Take care,

Terry

I enjoyed this series immensely, and actually just today sought the books out this morning to read again. While I haven’t finished the entire series yet, I did finish the Shadow at Evening, and I have to say, I encourage you not to rewrite it.

Looking at the book, I would say the lack of sales could easily be attributed to things other than content. First, the beginning, while fascinating in a theoretical, how could the future be, manner, lacks in the action and intrigue that many people my age and younger look for. However, this could be solved in ways other than rewriting it; perhaps inserting an interesting snippet with the prologue, something to draw the readers, an appetizer to get them through to the action later on in the book. Another way to do this without changing things overmuch would be by possibly developing on the dream sequence near the beginning a little more, rewording it to catch the reader a little more effectively.

Another reason that it is doing not as well as you might like might have something to do with the presentation. I’ll admit, I was skeptical about reading it based on the cover; to me, the title was somewhat cliche, the picture boring and not indicative of the great story inside. Nevertheless, I gave the book a try, and am glad I did. that being said, perhaps a simple redo over the cover and perhaps coming up with new titles would be better than rewriting it entirely, and would result in higher sales.

The last reason is that people simply don’t hear about it. I would say, get out there and make it available, not just through the publishers. Your book has a good message, one not only different but genuinely, especially when compared to the mainstream popular books of today. So, maybe contacting churches, having ‘meet the author days’ at big churches around the country, things of that nature, would get people talking about it. Another way to do it would be to get out there in the medium in which today’s youth reside…the internet. Get a facebook, make a group, go to myspace, etc. And encourage people to join. Perhaps put a paragraph of your favorite part of the book on your page and let people read it, get people interested in it.

Well, sorry for leaving such a long comment, but I wanted to one, encourage you to keep writing because it really is excellent, and two, find a way to boost sales without rewriting a very well written series.

Thanks and God bless,
Andrew

Having all this information at the start I think would ruin that effect – since you know the information from before you’ve built up a proper picture of the world and so are really interested in it, it is not nearly so exciting.

For me it would be like having a murder mystery when you already know the murderer from the start – you miss all the excitement of the “dénouement” moments.

First, I’d like to start off by saying that I’m a teenager (16, can ya believe it?) who read and enjoyed these books. While i do agree that the first 150 pages could be just a tad bit faster, I wouldn’t change too much about them. The subtle creeping way of evil is perfect to offset the worldview of the Assembly, that which it has held for so long.

The very thought of evil to these people is repulsive, just as the creatures disgusted me in the description. There are a few suggestions I would like to add, seeing as how I like to write myself.

Bring Verofaza in sooner. Have him stationed, and the friendship between Merral and our Sentinel grow. Perhaps give Jorgio a different view of the end of the Assembly, or a different view of the test. And most definitely, tell a little bit more of the story through Anya, Perena, and Vero.

it would help to move the story along a little bit faster, and also to build the suspense quicker, all to have it stopped by the end of the book after the diary explosion. This would cause more suspense, etc. And if you happen to be looking for a publisher, then may I suggest the publisher of Ted Dekker’s wildly popular books? His Circle Trilogy and Lost Books series, which are a mix of sci-fi and fantasy, sell quite well. His publisher is Thomas Nelson, located in Nashville, Tennessee.

Regardless of what you decide to do, i enjoyed the books, and definitely look forward to a rewrite, should you decide to make one.

Thanks, and have a blessed day!

~Danno A.