Upon a time in 2023, I released the original version of A Sanctum of Swords into the wilds. It was a time of joyous celebration, as it was my first novel, finally published and available. I had a few good reviews from Reader’s Favorite and a few other places, but overall, I received an average of three stars from reviewers on Net Galley and from Reedsy Discovery.
After some time, I reflected on this and went through the reviews, providing detailed thoughts, constructive criticisms, and feedback. I formed a list of lessons learned in that post-mortem, and then I thought…
Why not compile the feedback into a list of improvements and add content to rewrite the original version of A Sanctum of Swords?
Without being able to think of the answer, why not do just that? I became determined to revisit A Sanctum of Swords’ original manuscript and go through the entire thing, sentence by sentence.
Foremost, a lot of feedback stated that the descriptions and some of the text were a bit overwritten. Thus, my main goal became streamlining the entire manuscript, sentence by sentence. There is likely not a single sentence from the original book that hasn’t changed during the production of the Embers Edition.
Second, readers detailed some areas of the story where the storyline wasn’t clear, or something confused, or I didn’t get enough behind the narrative.
In the Embers Edition, I added a lot of extra scenes and even a chapter or two, and cut out certain others. In addition, I went back through every chapter and padded out a lot of content where there wasn’t enough explanation, detail, or context to ground the reader. That, and I also rewrote the areas that might’ve confused before, to add further clarity to the overall narrative.
Third, a lot of readers felt that the dialogue was overwritten or blended together. My last main goal for the Embers Edition was to rewrite almost every line of dialogue to improve clarity, unique character voice, and streamline it as well for easier understanding of what some characters are saying.
Overall, I am happy with the results of the new Embers Edition. I even had an audiobook produced and a new cover art update for the book.
That being said, there are some lessons of improvement that I could only do so much with without rewriting the entire book.
The largest lesson I learned from A Sanctum of Swords is that there are a lot of characters. It’s a huge cast, and not every reader found every individual unique. I could’ve avoided this issue by shrinking the cast down beforehand, which I should’ve done in hindsight.
Using a more focused character cast with overall fewer characters is a goal I want to carry into my future works, and I think I’ve been successful on that front thus far.
Hopefully, as I continue to follow the established characters in A Sanctum of Swords in future installments of the series, readers will understand the characters in a lot more depth and find them much more unique as I bring each one into focus during their journeys.
The only other lesson I learned I intend to correct in 2027, and not immediately, is the fact that A Sanctum of Swords: Embers Edition should’ve been a duet for its audiobook. Marcus Freeman did a wonderful job with the task he had in front of him, but there were so many characters—I think it would’ve made his job easier to have a female narrator perform the roles and narrations of the female characters.
Thankfully, Marcus Freeman agrees and will be returning to work alongside Laura Horowitz to remake A Sanctum of Swords Embers Edition into the duet it should always have been.
I wondered sometimes if working on the Embers Edition was worth it. Every time, I conclude that yes, it was. Some readers may still find it an average three stars, and that is okay, but I think I can rest in peace knowing I did what I could to address readers’ concerns and issues with the original book.
Hopefully, readers will recognize that and appreciate all the changes!
A Sanctum of Swords Embers Edition Audiobook – Duet Remake In 2027!
Among them, you might notice that A Sanctum of Swords Embers Edition has two versions: one for the current edition and another for an upcoming audiobook remake featuring Marcus Freeman’s return alongside Laura Horowitz, scheduled for release sometime in 2027.