In May 2005, Martin announced that the "sheer size" of his still-unfinished manuscript for "A Feast for Crows" had led him and his publishers to split the narrative into two books. Rather than divide the text chronologically in half, Martin opted to instead split the material by plot location, resulting in "two novels taking place simultaneously" with different casts of characters. "A Feast for Crows" was published months later, and focuses mainly on southern Westeros. The concurrent novel "A Dance with Dragons", which focuses on other locations such as the North, the Wall and Essos, was teased to be published the following year, but was delayed and not released until six years later on July 12, 2011. Martin also noted that the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series would now likely total seven novels.