For me, like many of you, 2016 was a troubling year. Not only was it troubling on the financial and personal front, I also took a hit on the writing front. The writing was more an issue with confidence more than anything. Creating stories isn’t something I find hard to do. In essence, it is nothing more than sitting at a computer for long hours spewing words on a virtual page. But something during 2016 made me want to stop.
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but it came sometime during the release schedule of Echoes of Tomorrow. Echoes was supposed to be the first of three lines of serials I had slated for 2016. Each book was going to build on the last in much the same way as a television show, in order to tell the full story. The shorter books, and faster releases, were there to keep me moving and motivated as well as satisfy the desires of a hungry sales engine that rewards rapid releases.
Long story short, Echoes flopped. Over the course of its existence it has maybe sold a dozen copies, with about as many pages worth of equivalent page reads. Not the kind of success I had hoped for by any means.I won’t go too deep into details that will likely bore you, and make me look like a pompous ass, but around the middle of the year I started to shift towards writing science fiction.
I grew up watching Star Trek and Star Wars as a child. Not only that, I was a huge fan of the Star Wars cannon. I loved the stories of people commanding large space ships into battle. How the stories took me to places and showed me aliens that piqued my imagination.
Somewhere in the trip to adulthood, those feelings were lost. I could blame any number of things, but the truth is that life got in the way. I had kids of my own and was forced to grow up.
Late 2015 and into 2016, I decided to give a few of those novels a try. Over the span of about 10 months, I’d read well over thirty novels in the genre. Books by Nick Webb, BV Larson, and MR Forbes. Even new players like TS Paul and Chris Fox. As of writing I just started reading the Ember War by Richard Fox. All great authors and great books.
Sometime around August I got bit by the bug. I’d read dozens of these stories and wanted to write one of my own. So I did what any sane writer would do, I started with a short story. The story focused on a single ship and crew on a patrol run. During the run they run into a pair of allied ships hovering near a warp gate (my form of FTL travel based loosely on Eve Online.) The story in it’s full form is currently in my newest release, Endeavor. That story built the backdrop of the universe I’m writing in today.
After writing that story, I went on to start working on two different books. One of those books was Endeavor, the other was a story I’d called Courser. After penning a few chapters in each, I ended up choosing Endeavor simply because I had more of the story worked out ahead of time. That said, I want to get back to Courser eventually.
I slapped Endeavor on Amazon before I went to bed on January 5th. It didn’t go live until I woke up the following morning. That is the day my writing life changed. I finally had a series that had some interest. In the first 24 hours that book sold a dozen copies. To some, this number is extremely low. For me, it was very good. My best launch to date.
Even better, over the following week the book continued to sell. Some days were good, with sales in the teens. Others were less so, but still made me happy. I had a book that was selling copies every day. That meant I had done something right. I may not know what I did right, but I knew what I needed to do next. I needed to write another book.
Thankfully, I had most of that book already written. As of today the first draft is sitting on my hard drive, waiting for me to get around to giving it a few rounds of edits. But that said, I also had to write another. This one a shorter novella I intended to give away to get readers on my email notification list. I didn’t bother writing that one right away because I wasn’t sure it would have any interest. That said, it became clear it needed to be done within hours, not days.
That book is also finished and undergoing edits. I promised the book for delivery by February, so I’m working hard to make sure it gets done.
Sometime after the first week, Endeavor took off. I was already pleased by its results, as it was selling copies every day. But the next few days sent that off the charts. Since then, things have settled down, but the book continues to hold in the top 100 of its categories on a daily basis.
Going forward I intend to release many more books in this universe. Endeavor was just the first of many to come. Here is a list of expected release dates for the next few:
Intrepid – Prequel Novella – February 5, 2017
Infamy – February 23, 2017
Reliant – April 13, 2017
Defiant – June 1, 2017
Defiant will end the current cycle in the series, with humanity playing defense against the Mythrar threat. I see the current iteration of this series playing out across twelve books. Four devoted to the defense of New Earth. Four devoted to the assault and liberation of Earth. And Four with them finishing off the Mythrar once and for all.
I’m also planning on no less than three spin-off series. Courser will be the first book of the Trade Wars Trilogy. I also plan on writing a series based upon the initial attack on Earth 100 years before the events of Endeavor. And finally I want to write a series from the perspective of the survivors of the initial attack. Those who still fight to take the planet back on the ground.
Hopefully there is enough here to keep readers interested for months, if not years to come.