September 02, 2011

Welcome to my newly redesigned website! And let me apologize in advance for the length of this posting, but there is a lot of news to catch up on.

It would be an understatement to say that I am unskilled in computer and web programing.  Since my Strongbow Saga series was first launched and I first perceived a need to have a website, I have relied on a fellow author and friend, Luc Reid, who is a highly skilled programmer and web designer, to both create and periodically update my website, when I’ve had new information to share. But that arrangement—having to rely on someone else to post updates to my own site— has led me to only rarely update my site (witness the last posting on it being back in January of this year). This redesign, jointly developed by Luc—who did all of the work—and  I, who had some of the ideas—will allow me to, going forward, post news and other updates directly, without having to impose on someone else’s time and efforts to do so.

But enough about process—what has been happening with the Strongbow Saga?

As my January newsletter explained, during 2010 the original publisher of the series, HarperCollins, took the first two books, Viking Warrior and Dragons from the Sea, out of print. Under the terms of my contract with HarperCollins, that meant that the rights to those books reverted back to me—and as far as I’m concerned, that’s a wonderful thing. I’ve republished both books under my own imprint, Northman Books, in both paperback and e-book editions.

An interesting thing has happened.  When HarperCollins bought the series back in 2004, they did so contingent on publishing the series as young adult fiction, because Halfdan, the protagonist, is 14 years old—by modern standards a teenager—when the story begins. I admittedly was a little skeptical, because I always intended the series to be adult historical fiction and wrote the first book as such. However, the agent I had back then thought it was a good idea, and we had no other offers, so I went along with it.

But when the books were released, HarperCollins never made any effort to make the young adult reader base aware that the series existed. Maybe things would have been different if they had—the relatively few younger readers who have, by chance, discovered the series certainly seem to feel passionate about it, and I’m very grateful to have them as such loyal readers. But sales never took off, so HarperCollins decided the series was a failure.

As I explained in the August 2010 newsletter that was originally posted on my old site, while the future of the Strongbow Saga was tied up for several years by my contract with HarperCollins, I began work on a stand-alone historical thriller, set in Ireland around the year 840, which features several characters from the Strongbow Saga, including Halfdan’s captain, Hastein, and which, in some ways will act as a prequel to the final book of the series. Because that book was progressing so slowly, and because it had been so long since the series’ fans had been given anything new from the Strongbow Saga world to read, in late 2010 I published a lengthy preview of The Beast of Dublin as a Kindle e-book on Amazon.

Then the rights to Viking Warrior and Dragons from the Sea reverted to me. When I republished those first two books in the series myself, I decided to try to position them as adult historical fiction, and attempt to reach their originally intended audience. Amazon, through whom I’ve published the new paperback editions and what is, to date, the most widely-read format of the new e-book editions, has helped me remarket the series that way through the magic of their search and recommendation engines. The number of new readers the series has found since January of 2011, when this relaunch began, has been both gratifying and humbling.

Enough about the past—after all, it cannot be changed. What about the future? (And it is, I must say, a good thing that I don’t tell Halfdan’s story in such a rambling fashion.)

Thanks to the huge growth in readership for the Strongbow Saga since the first two books have been republished, I decided to temporarily move The Beast of Dublin to the back burner and begin writing book 4 of the series, which is titled The Long Hunt. The book is set in Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, and in it, Halfdan begins his pursuit of Toke in earnest.

Although there is still a long way to go before it’s finished, a good chunk of The Long Hunt is now complete. I’d hoped to be able to finish the book and publish it by the end of this year.  Although I haven’t completely given up on that goal, I’m now realizing that it’s probably unrealistic.  The rights to book 3 of the series, The Road to Vengeance, will revert back to me from HarperCollins this fall. In anticipation of that, I’ve had to temporarily suspend work on The Long Hunt while I re-edit book 3 and work on a new cover and new print and e-book editions of it, so they’ll be ready to republish as soon as the rights to book 3 revert. Because those are all very time-consuming steps,  I must realistically admit that more likely than not, the publication of book 4, The Long Hunt, will not occur until the first half of 2012, rather than late 2011.

Once book 4 is complete and published, I’ll return to The Beast of Dublin. Upon completing it, I’ll turn to the fifth and final installment of the Strongbow Saga series.

Stay tuned: I promise that going forward, updates will be much more frequently forthcoming than they have been in the past.

Judson Roberts