Reflections back on DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE
Recording on DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is done, and if all goes well it should be available at all audiobook stores in a few weeks.
The 7th book in the DRAGONSKULL series (WRATH OF THE WARLOCK) just came out, and it’s been two years since I wrote SWORD OF THE SQUIRE. Since I had to listen to the entire audiobook before approving it (this is best practice – it can come back to bite you if you don’t), it was interesting to reflect back on writing the book.
SWORD OF THE SQUIRE always does well – when I calculate my ad results at the end of the month, it always performs amazingly well on Amazon ads. The rule of thumb is that for an Amazon ad to be profitable for an ebook, you need 1 sale for every 6 to 8 clicks on the ad, and SWORD OF THE SQUIRE regularly lands around 1 sale for every 1 click, sometimes even a little less.
Without false modesty or false bragging, I think one of the book’s strengths is that it’s the first book in a new series, but I don’t do a lot of, shall we say, “authorial throat-clearing” before the plot actually starts moving. When you start the first book of a new series, especially a fantasy or science fiction series, the overwhelming temptation is to do a lot of worldbuilding in the first half of the book, which can have an unfortunate tendency to devolve into infodumping. It’s better to get the plot moving first and then only drop in new information as necessary to move the story forward. This makes for a more enjoyable read, and it also helps hold the reader’s attention, since there’s an element of mystery.
I think SWORD OF THE SQUIRE benefits that the main protagonist, Gareth Arban, is seventeen years old when the story begins. Maybe one of the reasons so many fantasy novels start out with teenage protagonists is that it’s immensely helpful for worldbuilding, because as the protagonist learns about the world you can introduce the reader to the same information. Gareth’s not a bad kid, and he’s not stupid, but like many adolescents his worldview is entirely centered around himself. Growing out of this helps propel his character arc forward. It’s also helpful for the worldbuilding and revealing information about the world and the plot, since at the beginning of the story he 1.) wants to become a knight, and 2.) marry Iseult Toraemus, and isn’t terribly interested in anything that doesn’t help with that. But external events start to force him to realize there’s a bigger world outside of his own problems.
The cover helps, too. As a cover designer, I wouldn’t say I’m great, merely on the bottom half of adequate, but the cover works for what I need it to do. A few people asked where the images came from – the sword I generated in DAZ Studio, and the castle and sky are stock images. The forest is a picture I took – the view from my doctor’s office is surprisingly scenic, and I snapped a few shots on my phone knowing I would use them for something someday. I assembled everything in Photoshop.
I am grateful to all of you who read and enjoyed the book, and am looking forward to writing more DRAGONSKULL books soon!
DRAGONSKULL: SWORD OF THE SQUIRE should be up on Audible in a few weeks. If you don’t want to wait, you can buy the audiobook direct from my Payhip store. Use this coupon at checkout for a 25% discount:
SQUIREAUDIO
-JM