Part of becoming a better writer is looking at the old stuff and thinking ‘that could be improved.’
There are then several possible actions. (Aside from ‘shrug it off,’ which is not my way.) One could simply unpublish and move on; one could revise (expand, refine, embellish, more fully interweave with the series universe) and republish; one could re-imagine. I’ve chosen all three avenues for various novellas.
Back in 2019 I took two of the novellas and expanded them to novel-length. One of those was EXPOSURE, which started a multi-book arc about my characters Andy Martin & Victor Garcia. (Their fourth book will come out early next year.) Another novelization will be launching next month, and yet another not too far down the line. Meanwhile, literally everything else in the backlist has been revised multiple times.
This year I decided to take some of the novellas off the market as single titles, re-launching them in collections instead. That turns out to be a satisfying way of managing the backlist (and by ‘managing’ I mean ‘not having an overwhelming number of titles’). For one thing, it’s allowed me to think about which stories are best read in connection with other stories. What do they have in common? Is it a friend group, a profession, a theme? Does a collection fit into one of the sub-families of this story universe? The very idea of a collection has inspired a new novella, to go with two others sharing a certain element.
A collection also gives me a great place to put short pieces that don’t belong anywhere else. These might be outtakes from novels; they might be scenes building on the storyline of a novella; they might be stand-alone short stories. They’re always going to be what I think of as bonus features: a little something extra for the reader who wants dessert.
My very first novella has been taken off sale but is now available as a free download at Prolific Works. It is also (aside from being the foundation stone of the whole enterprise), the skeleton for a new full-length novel which I hope to publish in 2022. Depends on whether the muse cooperates.
In the meantime, I have six months’ worth of new titles coming your way. Keep reading, friends.