Revised and Extended Walker I

 

After editing Walker Chronicles IV, I wanted to let it sit for a week before the last reading.  However, I also sent it off to Forest for a healthy grammar and spelling check – he is picky and finds all sorts of stuff I never notice.

Part of my advertising plan is to offer the first Walker novel at a reduced price and also free for a couple days.  I’ll do that in hopes that folks will get interested in  the series and then buy the next three novels.

So, I read the first Walker over again to see what kind of editing it may need.  The first thing I noticed was that my writing has improved a lot between the first and the fourth novel.  That is, I didn’t really want to use the first Walker novel to represent the others because the writing quality was not the same.

Nonetheless, I wanted to keep the storyline of the first novel.  Actually, I had to keep the storyline of the first novel because some of it was mentioned, in passing, in the following three novels.

Which means . . . I had some work to do to bring the first novel up to the quality of the others.  And, that took a while!

As soon as I got Walker IV published on Amazon, I went right back to the first Walker and started editing.  Really, in this case, what I call editing might better be called “revising and extending” because that’s exactly what happened.

Along with correcting a few things, another 18,000+ words got added.  The characters are better described and some technical aspects of the story are downplayed some.  Oh . . . and I made a better cover for the book:

  

That done, I sent the text over to Forest to see what he thought about the changes.  Turns out, he had a lot of suggestions, all of which I used.

That project ended up being quite a lot of work.  But, truth be told, I actually enjoyed doing it.  To me, it was almost like writing a new novel, but without needing to develop a whole new storyline.

Actually, I was surprised how easy it was to slip in another 18,000+ words and none of the editing I did was really that difficult.

So now Walker Chronicles I is reposted on Amazon with the new and reduced price of just 99 cents.

As part of my advertising plan, I’ll eventually be offering Walker I free for the three days allowed by Amazon – probably one day at a time every other week for six weeks.  I hope that will stimulate interest in the series. That’s worked well for others and so may work for me.

But first . . . I think I’ll take a critical look at Walker Chronicles II to see what that might need to bring it up to the level of the fourth novel. 

That’s what I’ll be starting this week.  But first I want to catch up on a few articles on writing and publishing and see what I might learn.

 

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