Thread by @seananmcguire

Several people have asked this, so: how long with the Toby books continue?
I don't know.

I have an ending. I've always known what it was and how to get there. I know how many books I want to do it in a graceful way.

But the thing is, I CAN'T get there if my contract doesn't get renewed. And it gets renewed--or not--based on sales.

I always have what I call "the crash plan": the emergency exit. I can get to the ending at any time by cutting across four lanes of traffic.

Will it be graceful if I have to do it that way? No. Will it resolve everything? Again, no. There are a lot of balls in the air.

If I have to crash my way to the ending, some things are never going to get answered. That's going to suck, but at least you'll get...

...as many answers as I can provide, and at least you'll know how the story ends. That is something I can promise.

So why do I keep dodging exact numbers? A lot of reasons. As I said before, with a long-running series, SALES MATTER.

Sales tell my publisher "there is still money here, this has not become a weird, labor-intensive vanity project."

Every couple of months, the people who hang out in author-heavy tide pools on social media see "please don't wait for the series to end...

...before you start buying the books" go around. The reason that keeps happening is, well. People keep announcing their intent to wait.

And I get it, I genuinely do. I've been a reader my entire life, I know that burning frustration, and the agony of a series uncomplete.

But if I say now, on book #11, "oh, the series will wrap up with book #___," I know people will go "great, I can wait and binge."

That...

a) hurts my sales and my ability to feed my cats, and
b) means that any chance of extra books is also damaged.

Why do I need extra books if the series is plotted out? Because LATE ECLIPSES and ONE SALT SEA were originally planned as a single volume.

Because ONCE BROKEN FAITH was a natural consequence of A RED-ROSE CHAIN, and was not in the original outline.

Because there was a time I thought this was a stand-alone, a trilogy, a set of five.

Things CHANGE. I am a gardener, not an architect, and one of the things that keeps this series joyful for me--and hence you--is knowing...

...that I can follow Toby into new places, if that's where the story needs to go.

So yeah. Why do I dodge the question? Because there currently isn't an answer. And selfishly, I hope there isn't one for quite a while.