Into the Future

I have very definite plans following the release of all eight books in the Collective Obsessions Anthology.

Because there are multiple parts to the story, the novels are being released in stages. In other words, a new title comes out every few months, or up to half a year. This means the series will be released in it's entirety by the end of 2012, hopefully.

Afterward, it's my intention to combine all eight novels into one. I am a huge fan of family sagas and gothic collections, but always prefer the works to be in one volume. Who wants to buy several books when one will do the trick? Granted, merging all the titles makes for a very long read. However, surely I'm not the only one who likes big books.

Now that novels are quickly downloaded and read in electronic fashion, presenting all eight books in the Collective Obsessions Anthology together as one is not such a far-fetched notion. Printing and shipping costs are almost a thing of the past, neither of which are required with e-books. As much as print book-lovers might disagree, electronic reads are not a fad. In fact, they are far outselling their printed counterparts in today's market. E-books are simply not going away, which is a good thing. Think of all the trees that are being saved in the process!

Anyway, I'm already combining the books, one at a time. As soon as a title is released or editing is finished, I take the final text and insert it into the existing file for the complete Collective Obsessions. As of this writing, only Passion Forsaken (re-named The Advent for the whole book) and Quixotic Crossings are part of the mix, bringing the total page count to 293. By the time all eight books are one, I'm estimating the saga will number more than 1,950 pages. Reading and hauling around a print-book of that size might be difficult, but slipping an e-reader into a pocket or purse is not such a chore.

I've even messed about with a cover design for the book:

Of course, the project is still a long way into the future. Even if all eight titles in the Collective Obsessions Anthology are released by the end of 2012, it will probably be another year after that before one volume can be prepared for publication. As much as we edit manuscripts, there always seems to be something that needs tweaking during re-reads. Who knows? Maybe I'll even write a few bonus chapters.

Stay tuned...