Why Nova Roma expanded to 5 books and Jake's was delayed (long explanation)

Someone shared with me their disappointment that Jake's sequel is delayed (which I REALLY appreciate them being willing to say directly to me and they are 100% right to feel the way they do). I wanted to take a few moments to share some of what I wrote to them, so other people that may feel the same could understand a bit more why the Nova Roma series is ending up as five books instead of three and why Jake's is delayed. Here is some of what I wrote about that:

(TLDR at the bottom)

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"What I can say is the actual story for Nova Roma hasn't changed. I had about 90% of Nova Roma already written and genuinely thought I would just edit them up and release them as three books and be able to switch back to Jake's right away.

Unfortunately, having never done this before (since this is my first year actually dedicating myself to writing), I really had no idea how extensive the editing process was for me. I knew from Jake's that it was important and it expanded the story a lot, but at the time I was working like 60+ hours a week at my actual job, so I hadn't tracked exactly how long the editing took or how many pages my editing added to the story. I was just writing at night and during every free moment I could grab, without thinking that I should pay attention to how long it took or my "process" because writing Jake's was just a fun side hobby (I thought).

So when I started editing book one of Nova Roma, I was very surprised by how long it took and how it basically doubled the length of the book, just by adding in descriptions/dialogue/story beats and things like that. The overall story never changed, but suddenly the book went from 100k words to 200k+ just from what I added during editing. When that happened again for book two, I was like - "oh wow, apparently this is what will happen every time I edit a book now." I had absolutely no idea.

So long story short, a lot of this is just figuring out the whole author thing and it IS my first year ever doing this. I'm by no means a seasoned pro able to perfectly know how my process works and expertly able to predict when books will be ready for release. I'm learning those things this year and it has been very different than I expected.

And the second part is that I didn't actually say to myself: "I'm going to add on two more books!" It is actually the same story I had already written in rough draft form. I didn't choose to just tack two more books on at the end. It's that the editing process expanded each book so much that there was no way to fit the entire story into three volumes any longer. And I had to admit that to myself only a short time ago, and make adjustments rather quickly, because I was really trying to not have to change anything so major.

I wish I had just kept writing Jake's story, but at the time the card art, cover (I went through three different cover artists and had to wait 3 months for the artist I wanted), and the editing process took almost a year to bring Jake's to Amazon. During that year, I honestly didn't expect anyone to read Jake's because it was more of a hobby and I needed a distraction from work/life issues going on, and Jake's was stuck in such a waiting pattern, that I started writing Nova Roma to help me cope with covid/work stress/etc. And now, because I'm neck-deep in the Nova Roma world, I can't just switch back to Jake's without doing a disservice to this other story.

So yeah, that's basically what happened. I'll just say I've been putting in like 8-10 hour days, including weekends, since I quit my old job in January and even with all THAT things are taking wayyyyyy longer than I expected. It has been a major shock to me, but I feel I owe it to my stories to do things the right way and to make them as good as I can. It was not easy for me to admit to myself that my original plans were unrealistic, but I can't really short change one story to get a second one out sooner and unfortunately I cannot mentally write two stories at once like some authors, because I put my whole heart/mind/energy into every book."

TLDR:

(1) I'm not adding two more books to Nova Roma, the editing process just expanded the story so much the original rough draft I had already written no longer fit in just three books.

(2) This is my first year as an author and so I have had to learn a LOT about my process. I had no idea how long editing took for me, or how much it added to each book (even with working a ton on the books). I am learning as I go.

(3) Jake's took almost a year to finish the card art/cover/editing and during that time I switched to Nova Roma because Jake's was in a waiting pattern. I never expected anyone to read Jake's, so I was just writing to keep myself sane and needed something to work on to help me cope with work/life, so I began writing Nova Roma.

(4) I can't switch between series, because I feel it would significantly impact the writing quality of my current series. I wrap my entire mind around each story I am currently writing, and just can't mentally switch gears like some authors can. I have to just push through and do right by my current series before I can switch back to Jake's.