Dave Reeder, from Breach-Bang-Clear (which I’ve written some articles for in the past), is a bit of a fan of the American Praetorians series. So much so, in fact, that he commissioned an American Praetorians Radical Firearms RF-15 for me. Haven’t had a chance to shoot it yet, but it feels good, and it looks badass. Consider this your official Thank You, Dave.
Quick News Update
That’s Mickey Spillane, not me. But that’s a manly writer photo, right there. Seemed fitting. So, I’ve been busy. Really busy. Too busy to do much blogging, either here or over on The Unity Wars. Going to try to start picking up the slack on that soon, once I get draft writing somewhat stabilized. Given some market research, and seeing how the last book has done, The Unity Wars is moving somewhat to the forefront for the moment. That doesn’t mean that Brannigan’s Blackhearts is going away anytime soon; it is, however, going to slow down just a bit. Probably going to be four books per year, rather than six. I’ve barely scratched the surface on High Desert Vengeance, Brannigan’s Blackhearts #5, but I should be able to hit it hard after the next couple of weeks. Look for it in August. I’m also working on a pitch for another project that hopefully I’ll be doing with another author and good friend of mine. Can’t say much about it yet; we’re still hashing out the details, and he’s got to sell it to his publisher. Keep your fingers crossed. And with that, back to the word mines with me.
Rest Is For The Dead
That’s right. I’m already hammering away at Brannigan’s Blackhearts #4 – Frozen Conflict. If you’ve finished Enemy Unidentified, you might have a bit of a hint of what this one’s about. I’m trying a bit of an experiment this time around; I’m working on this one simultaneously with working on The Unity Wars. Write Frozen Conflict four days a week, work on The Unity Wars two days a week. We’ll see how it works out. Now, back to the word mines.
The Unity Wars
A little while back, I mentioned that I had started work on a space opera epic. Well, there’s more to it than just writing books (though that’s the main effort). In true Galaxy’s Edge fashion, I’ve put together a website with some content to hopefully whet some people’s appetites leading up to when I start releasing books (hopefully in the summer). Welcome to The Unity Wars. I won’t be posting about it much on here; it’s its own thing. The books will be published under the pen name P.L. Nealen (because Amazon’s algorithm tends to market things differently for “new” authors in different genres). But if any of my current readers are also science fiction fans (particularly those disappointed in where Star Wars has gone), I’d welcome you over there. Now back to the word mines with me. Got more Brannigan’s Blackhearts to work on, too.
Busy, Busy
I know, I haven’t been posting here much. Need to get on that. Probably need to do some scheduling. But I’ve been busy. Very. I’ve got another new series in the works, and it’s more than a little different from anything I’ve done before. I’ve played around with military action adventure, horror/fantasy, and heroic fantasy (though y’all haven’t seen that much of that yet). But this is going to be science fiction. Now, the funny part is that I originally started tinkering with writing, back in high school, with science fiction. I still have notebooks (somewhere) of notes, starmaps, and starship diagrams from those days. I had an entire sweeping timeline of wars between alien empires and human-alien alliances. It was, to borrow a turn of phrase from Nick Cole and Jason Anspach, WingCommanderNotWingCommander with a leavening of StarWarsNotStarWars. In fact, Task Force Desperate started out as a mil-fic backstory leading into the “21st Century Chaos” that was part of the backstory of what that epic evolved into. (It isn’t anymore; the Praetorian Series became very much its own thing.) What I’m working on now isn’t that particular epic. It’s much more “The Clone Wars meets The Horus Heresy with
Status Update
So, a week and a half after Fury in the Gulf‘s release, I see I still have some learning to do when it comes to making Amazon’s algorithm sit up and do tricks. Working on it. There might be a new push just before launching the pre-order for Brannigan’s Blackhearts #2 – Burmese Crossfire next month. As for Burmese Crossfire, it still has one editing pass to go, plus I have to get the preview for Enemy Unidentified done to put in the back. As I’ve been thinking about Enemy Unidentified and the later books in the series, there might be some adjustment in the planned schedule. There seems to be more of an arc forming in my head, contrary to the original idea for the series. (I’ve already established some continuity with characters–no, not everybody’s going to survive–so this won’t be quite “’60s TV show episodic.”) With the series sitting where it is, I’m adjusting to an every-sixty-days schedule for releases. This will allow me to work on a couple of other projects, one of which has already been started. Not going to say too much about ’em yet, since they won’t be launching for a little while (February
Looking for Volunteers
So, the earlier poll (coupled with a mirror version on The Action Thriller Renaissance on Facebook) was pretty definitive. The votes are for the volunteer Advance Review Copy Reader List. So, since the first draft of #1 is past half-finished, as of now, I am putting out the call for volunteers who would like to receive ARCs of the Brannigan’s Bastards series. The signup comes with a caveat: continued receipt of ARCs is contingent on an Amazon review during the first week of release. A link to said review can be sent to the Contact form here on the blog, or by PM on Facebook. I’ve got to put that in there just to be sure that there is a purpose to this list, and I’m not just giving stuff away for free. Also, the list will only include the first 25-30 people who sign up. I’ve got to cut it off there. It’s possible that you might still sign up before I yank the form (since I can’t just sit here and watch it), but if you’re number 31 or higher, my apologies. Sign up here.
Welcome To The Action Thriller Renaissance
As some of you may remember, a few days ago I talked a little about a new plan, both for my writing and for marketing my writing. Part of that plan was creating first a Facebook Group, later to possibly expand to other outlets, in which we could build a community of action adventure/thriller enthusiasts. Because as much as I looked for one, that wasn’t specifically tied to a particular author or series, I couldn’t find one (with the possible exception of MackBolan.com, which isn’t so much a forum as a guide). That group now exists. There’s not a lot there yet, but it’s young, and that’s why it’s a group. It’s not just about me or the other authors who joined me in putting it together. Anyone who joins can add to it, posting about the books, movies, or games they have enjoyed in the genre, as wide as it is, along with anything else that might be applicable (guns, war news, cool military videos, that sort of thing). Anything that counts as an action thriller is welcome, from Mack Bolan and Casca to Tom Clancy and Brad Taylor. (And any of us in the recent indie thriller genre,
The Writer Master Plan
Back in June, Nick Cole and Jason Anspach released a military SF novel entitled Galaxy’s Edge: Legionnaire. I’d been peripherally aware of Mr. Cole for a while, ever since Harper Voyager kicked him to the curb for political reasons. But what he and Anspach pulled off made me sit up and take notice. Because Legionnaire, a brand-new, independently-published mil-SF novel, shot to the top 100 on Kindle, and #1 in its categories, and proceeded to stay there. For weeks. And they made no secret that they wanted to share how they did it with other authors. I talked to Mr. Cole myself for a bit, and got the gears turning, even before they released their After Action Report podcast. Cole pointed me toward the non-fiction work of Chris Fox, who has been studying what works in independent publishing, specifically Amazon, for some time. I started doing some more reading.
Finished!
The final edit of Lex Talionis is done, and the files have been uploaded to KDP and Createspace. Still waiting on the final cover file for the paperback, before I can order the proof, but everything is on schedule for release on the 6th. Editing is probably the most grueling part of the writing process, especially when you’re trying to squeeze three passes into three weeks, and the manuscript starts at 161k words. The final version comes to around 165k words, only reinforcing its position as the longest book I’ve ever written. As I read through the book three times, I sort of thought of a theme song for this final ride of the Praetorians’ founding team. It didn’t come from any of the music I listened to while writing it; music with lyrics tends to be a bit of a distraction while writing. I wrote it mostly to the soundtracks from all three Expendables movies, along with a bit of a few Western soundtracks, and Bernard Hermann’s score for North by Northwest. Editing mostly happened to the soundtracks from Hell or High Water and Logan. (It’s that kind of book.) But this just seemed to fit the whole thing: