To my mind this conundrum is like the magic school bus books, they look like picture books but easily translated into chapter books because the story was so complicated. You could separate your story in to several books and my DS would love it, he likes to read more about "his" characters but if you have to thin out the story it wouldn't be as much fun. If separating into books allows you to make each mini quest more rich then that would be great. Alternatively, is there a sequel to the story you have now. If its truly finished then it makes sense to spilt it up, if you can see going on, then leave it as one. IMHO of course!!!
DeHe
Well, that's a conundrum of a different sort -- technically, it is probably too late to get it into publication (even if it were finished right this second) due to the time-sensitive nature of the need to save the world from this particular threat. It doesn't hurt to say that the problem they are solving has to do with the Mayan prophecies. But if kids wouldn't mind that it was already past, I'm still ok.
That said, assuming I could get one book out before the end of the world, so to speak, it would be impossible to get them all out by then if it were split into a series.
It's hard to imagine what you could do for an encore after saving the planet, but then again, the Benedict kids managed to do it again, I believe (I have only read half of the second one, so I'm not sure). And Harry Potter kept doing it again and again, although it was all part of one big thing. And comic book heroes do it every issue. So I'm sure that there would be other quests that my kiddos could be roped into -- and there's a NaNoWriMo every year.
