Dahveed 3 was the little book that grew! As mentioned in my article on Dahveed 2, finding the place the story ended didn't happen until I had begun writing Dahveed 4! My boys and I sat up until midnight one night tearing the series apart until we settled on the major turning points of Dahveed's life, and thus the content of each book. By the time we were done, Dahveed 2 ended sooner than I had originally envisioned, and Dahveed 4 began later! That left Dahveed 3 as a massive 375,000 word tome that I had to tame somehow!

I spent one entire summer sitting outside on my back porch with my new laptop analyzing scenes, streamlining storylines, and consolidating/combining anything I could to reduce the word count. The finished book, complete with notes, vocabulary, and character list stands at 275,000 words. The actual story itself went from 375,000 to 270,400, so I cut more than 100,000 words. But to do it, I had to shove more events into book 4!

Dahveed 3 was only available as an e-book at first since, unbeknownst to me, a question was raised regarding the story line of the book back in October 2010. I joined the discussion in early January 2011. Then, during the on-going conversation, the decision came down that the Dahveed series was cancelled. In spite of all the editors could do, the decision stood.

It was quite a scramble to find some way to get Dahveed 3 on the market in some form! The editors helped in every way they could, and in March, 2011, Dahveed 3 went on sale as an e-book from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Then, through a series of events I never could have envisioned, the way opened to bring Dahveed 3 out in print! The story of God's leading is too long to tell here, but He led every step of the way, taking me from thinking I had found a way to publish in print from an on-line source to becoming my own publisher. The book could not be offered for sale at the current cover price any other way.

For those of you who have asked why I have the ark with Dahveed during his fugitive years, please click here. I think the subject is fascinating, and I enjoyed working through the texts to come to the conclusion I used in the book!