The story behind The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume One, my first attempt at creating a collected edition.

When I decided to bring the first three novels of the McTavish Chronicles together into one collection, I thought I had a fairly straightforward task ahead of me.

After all, the books were already written.

How difficult could it possibly be to combine them into one volume?

Well.

As it turned out, rather difficult indeed.

What followed was one of the most frustrating, exhausting and ultimately rewarding learning experiences of my independent publishing journey.

And it all began with three manuscripts, a modest budget and a rather ambitious idea.

Three Novels and an Unexpected Problem

The collection would contain the first three adventures of Coby McTavish:

Elm Brook Manor, approximately 53,000 words.

The Haunting of Serpent's Manor, approximately 92,000 words, and still the longest manuscript I've ever written.

And Keepers of the Lighthouse, approximately 63,000 words.

Together, that amounted to roughly 208,000 words.

I wanted to publish the collection in three formats: ebook, paperback and hardcover.

This was my first attempt at producing a bundle, and I had absolutely no experience doing it.

Hiring someone to handle the entire production process wasn't an option my budget could accommodate, so I did what many independent authors do.

I decided to figure it out myself.

How hard could it be?

Famous last words.

The Page Limit Nobody Warned Me About

One of the first things I discovered was that Amazon had page-count limitations for the print formats I was trying to produce.

I was working with a limit of 550 pages for the hardcover and 830 for the paperback.

Now imagine trying to fit 208,000 words into those constraints while still producing a book that someone could comfortably read.

It wasn't simply a matter of reducing the font size until everything fitted.

I wanted readers to enjoy the experience.

I didn't want them squinting at microscopic text or wrestling with a book that looked as though its contents had been squeezed into it with a hydraulic press.

So the remastering began.

And continued.

And continued.

For weeks.

The Great Manuscript Remastering Adventure

I went through the manuscripts looking for ways to reduce their length without sacrificing the reading experience.

It was painstaking work.

I reconsidered the structure of the collection, removed material that wasn't essential to the main reading experience and experimented with different layouts.

Eventually, I made the difficult decision to remove prologues, epilogues and some of the back matter to help everything fit.

That wasn't something I did lightly.

Every author knows how much thought goes into the material surrounding a story. But I had to make practical decisions about what belonged in the collected edition and what could be left out.

I also had to reconsider the physical dimensions of the books.

After numerous attempts, I finally settled on two different trim sizes.

The paperback would measure 7 × 10 inches.

The hardcover would be a considerably larger 8.25 × 11 inches.

And finally, after weeks of frustration and experimentation, everything fitted.

With a page or two to spare.

I cannot adequately describe the relief.

The Little Things Nobody Thinks About

Of course, page counts were only part of the adventure.

There were margins to understand, formatting rules to learn and countless small details that suddenly became enormously important.

Even something as seemingly straightforward as restarting chapter numbering when a new novel began within the collection became a learning experience.

I made mistakes.

Some rather spectacular ones.

My early attempts were far from perfect, and there were moments when I wondered whether I had taken on more than I could manage.

But each mistake taught me something.

I learned how to work with the margins, how to manage the different sections of a collected edition and how to approach a large manuscript with far greater confidence.

These weren't lessons I had learned from a textbook.

They came from trying, failing, adjusting and trying again.

And Then There Was the Cover

If I thought the interior formatting was difficult, the cover had a few surprises of its own.

Creating a cover for a collection is a different challenge from designing one for an individual novel.

I wanted something that represented three separate Gothic mysteries while still feeling like a single, coherent edition.

Something atmospheric.

Something worthy of the stories inside.

And something that would look equally at home as an ebook thumbnail or as a large hardcover resting on a table.

Getting it right required an almost equal measure of frustration, perseverance, persistence and, eventually, a welcome stroke of luck.

There were mistakes along the way, revisions that didn't work and more than a few moments of exasperation.

But eventually, the cover came together.

And when I looked at the finished collection, I felt that all those weeks of effort had been worthwhile.

More Than a Bundle

I have always thought of these collected editions as something a little different from the individual novels.

To me, they are collector's editions.

Not because they are rare or limited, but because they bring several connected adventures together in a single physical volume.

I imagine someone finishing the collection and placing it on a bookshelf alongside their favourite stories.

Or leaving the hardcover on a coffee table, where its cover might catch the eye of a visitor.

Perhaps even finding a home in a public reading space, waiting for someone curious enough to open it.

Those are lovely possibilities to imagine.

And they were part of what motivated me to persevere when the production process became difficult.

I wanted to give readers something substantial. Something they could enjoy, keep and return to.

The Unexpected Reward

Eventually, The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume One was published in all three formats.

And readers began discovering it.

There were sales across the different editions, which was encouraging after the work involved in producing them.

But one of the best decisions I made was enrolling the collection in Kindle Unlimited.

That opened another avenue for readers to discover the first three McTavish Chronicles adventures together.

Today, apart from Elm Brook Manor, the collection is my second-best-performing title.

That still surprises me.

And it makes me enormously grateful.

The collection has also received two five-star reviews on Amazon.

For an independent author who remembers every formatting disaster, every failed cover attempt and every frustrating evening spent trying to make those 208,000 words fit, those reviews mean a great deal.

They suggest that readers are finding something to enjoy in the finished work.

And that, ultimately, was the whole point.

The First of Three

Perhaps the most important thing about this experience is that it didn't end with Volume One.

It was the beginning.

My first attempt at creating a collected edition taught me lessons that would prove invaluable when I tackled the next bundle.

There would be three collections in all.

One was completed after this first adventure, and another is still on the horizon.

I doubt I would have approached either with the same confidence had I not gone through the trials of producing Volume One.

What once seemed impossibly complicated became something I understood.

Not because the work became easy, but because I had learned how to do it.

And that is one of the unexpected rewards of independent publishing.

Sometimes the greatest achievement isn't the finished book.

It's discovering what you're capable of creating when you refuse to give up.

A Collection I Hope Readers Will Treasure

Looking back, I could probably have saved myself an enormous amount of frustration by abandoning the idea when the problems began piling up.

But I'm glad I didn't.

The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume One represents more to me than three novels bound together.

It represents determination, experimentation, countless lessons and the satisfaction of seeing a difficult project through to completion.

It also represents the beginning of something I hope readers will come to appreciate: a series of collected editions bringing Coby McTavish's adventures together in substantial volumes.

If you enjoy Scottish Gothic mysteries, haunted manors, supernatural adventures and stories with a little British humour, I hope you'll consider exploring the collection.

It contains Elm Brook Manor, The Haunting of Serpent's Manor and Keepers of the Lighthouse.

Three novels.

Approximately 208,000 words before the remastering began.

And one very memorable publishing adventure.

The collection is available exclusively on Amazon in Kindle ebook, paperback and hardcover formats, and is also included with Kindle Unlimited.

Discover The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume One:

https://iwanross.com/books/the-haunted-highlands-series-volume-one

And to everyone who has purchased, borrowed, read or reviewed the collection, thank you.

You may never know just how much work went into getting those three stories between two covers.

But I certainly do.

And I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.