At around the 600 page mark, each book in the Khekarian Series is a big book, about the size of two books and each contains two intertwining stories, so surely that makes each two books in one – so why don’t I just write two books each time, increase sales and show myself to be as prolific as I really am?
I actually considered that, but two things stopped me. The first book in the series, The Khekarian Threat was written, naturally, as a single unit – with start, middle and end, as you would expect and want. It did actually have a natural breaking point in the middle, a good “uh-oh, what happens next?” moment, and I could have split it there, but that would have given my readers entirely the wrong idea about the whole series.
It would have seemed like a serial, not a series, and they are very different things. The climax people wanted would have come in book two, not in book one, book one would have been like a half-book, even at 300 pages – and I just couldn’t do it.
Each book stands alone. It is better to read them in order, because there is progression, but each twin-story is complete (both sides), and each is a book in its own right. That’s important to me and important that my readers realize that. No one wants a book with no ending.