I’m currently running a sale for my Sons of the Starfarers series bundle, available only on my online author bookstore. From now to the end of December, you can get all nine books in my flagship series for just $9.99.
Merry Christmas!
As Gulchina's forces bombard Edenia II from orbit, Mara Soladze and the Deltana brothers rush to the planet's aid. Trapped on the surface, Reva finds an unlikely ally—one who proves to be a game changer for them all.
More info →
It’s out! Four years and two months after the publication of Brothers in Exile, the Sons of the Starfers series is now complete!
This book release marks the end of an era for me. I have to admit, there were times I wondered whether it was worth finishing this series at all. But I made a promise when I published the first book, and just like Sam Kletchka, I always keep my promises, dammit.
Judging from the reader response over the last couple of books, I’m glad I did. And the next time I launch a 9+ book series, I’ll be sure to write all of the books first, before publishing the first one. Four years is far too long to drag out a series like this.
In any case, Victors in Liberty is out now, and if you’ve enjoyed the rest of the series, I think you’re really going to like how it all wraps up. I certainly had fun writing it.
Thanks for reading!
Joe
Greetings, humans! I am alive. I’m actually doing quite well right now. Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes, and it all seems to be coming together quite nicely.
First, Victors in Liberty is now up for preorder, with a release date of July 22nd. This means that the Sons of the Starfarers series is now officially complete! The books have all been written, the plot threads have all been wrapped up (except for one or two, in case I ever decide to write another story), the edits are in, and the final versions have all been uploaded. Four and a half years went into this, and now it’s DONE!
I wrote a lengthy author’s note where I talked about the ups and downs I went through while writing this series. Basically, Sons of the Starfarers was the series that really disciplined me, turning me from a write-when-you-can, publish-when-you-feel-like-it kind of writer to one who makes and keeps deadlines and holds to a consistent release schedule.
Midway through writing this series, I really didn’t know if it was worth it to continue, but I decided to keep with it because I’d made a promise to my readers and I was going to keep it, even if there were only a few dozen of you. As it turns out, there’s quite a few more, for which I am very grateful. If you’ve been waiting since 2014 to read this series, I’m happy to report that your wait will soon be over.
As for my next WIP, I’m about a third of the way through Gunslinger to the Galaxy with a deadline of June 30th. It’s going to be tough to keep that deadline, because I’m moving before the end of the month and don’t yet know where my next place is going to be. Nothing too serious, it’s just that my contract is coming up so it’s time to move on. I’m toying with the idea of buying a National Parks pass and living out of a tent for the next two months, but in all reality I’ll probably just get a summer contract here in the Provo/Orem area. After that, who knows?
My plans are to write Gunslinger to the Galaxy and Gunslinger to Earth over the summer, and publish them both before the end of the year. A couple of years ago, this would have been a tall order, but I’ve reworked my writing process since then to the point where I don’t need multiple drafts to write clean copy. That’s partly the reason why I haven’t been blogging much recently. I’ll do a post on it sometime, if you guys are interested.
Once the Gunslingers trilogy is complete, I plan to finish Edenfall and The Stars of Redemption next. That’s another promise I need to keep to my readers. I don’t feel quite so bad, since Genesis Earth works well as a standalone, but I do need to finish the trilogy and I plan to do that before the end of next year.
On the publishing front, I’m doing a whole bunch of things behind the scenes, but the most visible thing you’ll probably see next is paperback releases for most of my books. It’s been a long time coming, and it will probably be a few months before it happens, but I plan to get those out before the end of the summer.
That’s pretty much it for now. Thanks for reading, and here’s where you can get Victors of Liberty:
As Gulchina's forces bombard Edenia II from orbit, Mara Soladze and the Deltana brothers rush to the planet's aid. Trapped on the surface, Reva finds an unlikely ally—one who proves to be a game changer for them all.
More info →Holy cow, it’s been forever since I’ve written a proper update. For a while there, it seemed to be nothing but more of the same. Then I got caught up with all the other things that come along with writing and publishing, and the blog sort of fell by the wayside.
Don’t worry, I’m still writing. In fact, I’m only a couple of scenes away from finishing Victors in Liberty, the last book in the Sons of the Starfarers series. A couple of days ago, I wrote a scene that I’ve been waiting to write for the last four years. Good times.
I was hoping to have this book up for preorder right now, but I think it will be better for the delay. Still aiming for a release date in July. My editor says he’s got an open slot, so I should be sending it out to him before the end of the week.
The more pressing stuff has all been on the marketing end. The GDPR has half the indie writing community in a tailspin, and I had to do a bit of research and make a few changes, like uploading my email list software. The GDPR, in case you haven’t heard, is the EU’s latest attempt to shoot sparrows with howitzers. It’s a series of data regulations aimed at big corporations like Facebook and Google, but it’s really the small businesses who are feeling the crunch. Let’s just say that my first-generation Czech immigrant ancestors made the right choice when they told the rest of Europe “y’all can go to hell—we’re going to Texas!”
Fortunately, everything is more or less in order as far as GDPR goes, or at least clost enough. The truth is, nobody knows. It’s stuff like this that made me want to write about the Outworld frontier in the first place, where there are no laws or government bureaucrats to control you. But I digress.
On a much lighter note, I’ve taken advantage of this opportunity to reorganize my email list. Specifically, I’ve split it into three lists of approximately 2,000 subscribers each, which I hope to eventually grow into five. The idea is to spread out my email campaigns over the course of four or five days, so that instead of getting a huge sales spike (which the Amazon algorithms tend to push back against), sales will be a bit more even, hopefully leading to better alsobots and other favorable treatment from the algorithms.
Being the eclectic nerd that I am, I have given these lists the following names:
And now I’m going through all my titles, updating the backmatter to add a signup page for my list along with the teaser chapters and other links.
So that’s what I’ve been up to, mostly. I’m also reading a lot more, and will have some book reviews real soon. Also, there’s the secret project, which I anticipate will take the next several months, possibly even years, to come to fruition.
Next WIP: Gunslinger to the Galaxy!
Sorry to go dark for so long. I’ve been sick off and on for the last two months, first with a sinus infection, then with a lung infection, and lately with a persistent stomach flu. Thankfully, I’ve been functional through all of it, but not at 100%, which is why I’ve neglected the blog.
I have been writing, though. I’m currently about a third of the way through Victors in Liberty, and should finish it within the next few weeks. I’m also revising it as I go along, so as to have a publishable final draft. We’re still on track for a July release date.
In the last few weeks, I’ve been crunching a lot of book sales numbers and formulating a better business plan. The goal is to make the writing profitable enough to pay myself more than sweatshop wages. I think I’ve figured out a way to get there before the end of this year.
I also recently discovered Jordan Peterson, and have been listening to many of his lectures while doing mindless chop-wood carry-water tasks. He’s an incredible guy. One of the last few sane and reasonable people in the world with a large enough platform to counteract the constant assault of insanity that passes for today’s news cycle.
I’ve also published a double novel bundle for Bringing Stella Home and Heart of the Nebula. I originally published it exclusively on Kobo, to get around Amazon’s price matching policy so I could run useful promotions with KWL. But the Kobo promotions use coupon codes now, which means there’s no reason not to make this title available everywhere.
I’m also experimenting a lot with my email list, trying out a new style for my newsletter and cycling through promotions more regularly. Makes a lot more work, since Amazon won’t make a book free unless you price match it first, but hey it’s not as bad as digging ditches.
Lots of other stuff going on behind the scenes, which I’d rather not get into just yet. When there’s significant movement, I’ll be sure to let you know.
I am so ready to finish the Sons of the Starfarers series. It’s been difficult to write at times, but I’m excited with how the last book is turning out and think it will provide an excellent ending to a story that has turned out better than I expected it to. Really looking forward to get it out there.
That’s just about it for now. Don’t worry about me: life is good and I’m still writing.
So much stuff going on behind the scenes here.
First, Sons of the Starfarers is coming along right on schedule. A Queen in Hiding (Book 7) is now up for preorder, and An Empire in Disarray (Book 8) is with my editor. Should be up for preorder in the next few weeks, with a release date of May 18th.
I’ve made a few changes to my publishing schedule for the year. Sons of the Starfarers is still on track for release dates in March, May, and June. I’ve switched up some of the short stories, though, and decided to focus on finishing the Gunslingers trilogy before I work on anything else. Both of those books (Gunslinger to the Galaxy and Gunslinger to Earth) should be out before the end of the year.
I’d rather have one complete trilogy than three partially completed ones, which is where things stand right now. The first book, Gunslinger to the Stars, has done modestly well for a standalone, and it was so much fun to write that I’m sure the sequels will be as well. I could use a fun project to lighten things up a bit.
The goal is still to release a new book (and/or rerelease an old one) every month this year, and I’m very much still on track to do that.
On a slightly different note, I’m considering whether or not to start a Patreon account. The goal is to set up a small supplementary income stream that enables me to publish more books without taking too much time away from the writing. I still have a lot of research to do, but some of the benefits I’m considering include digital ARCs and entry into a character naming lottery.
What do you think? Should I start a Patreon? Let me know what you think by filling out this short survey.
Other than that, it’s mostly just a bunch of little stuff and adjustments here and there. Data crunching, marketing analysis, and a lot of small and incremental improvements that don’t warrant mention (yet).
In fiction, the fight against the Empire usually follows a clear progression.
First, you have the Resistance, a scrappy band of misfit freedom fighters who take up arms, barricade the streets, and fight back against all odds. Think Rogue One, or Les Miserables.
If they aren’t immediately crushed, the Resistance eventually turns into the Alliance. Only slightly more organized than the Resistance, it’s still not unheard of for members of the alliance to turn on each other if the right opportunity arises. That said, when they’re united, the Alliance can muster a lot more firepower than the Resistance could ever hope to bring.
The Alliance is what happens when the local powers commit to the fight. It’s what happens when a low-level insurgency turns into a full-blown civil war. Whether or not everyone in the alliance trusts each other, together they have all crossed the Rubicon in the fight against the Empire.
If the Alliance is successful and defeats the Empire, it will either turn into the Republic or the Federation. The Republic is much more centralized and behaves like a single nation, whereas the Federation is a collection of semi-autonomous states united under one banner.
To pull a page from history, the United States started as the Resistance, with the patriots dumping the tea at the Boston tea party. With the Declaration of Independence, the Resistance turned into the Alliance as the minutemen became the Continental Army. With the Constitution of the United States, the Alliance became the Federation, which (depending on your reading of history) has either endured to the present day, or transformed into the Republic and/or Empire.
Star Wars used to have a very clear progression from Republic to Empire (episodes I-III) and Resistance to Alliance to Republic (Rogue One, episodes IV-VI, and the expanded Star Wars universe), but the new movies have apparently thrown all that out and moved us from Resistance to Alliance to… Resistance again? And the Empire went from Remnant to Empire, even after losing Starkiller Base in episode VII? Yet another reason why The Last Jedi really did not impress me.
In my own books, this progression figures prominently in Sons of the Starfarers. It starts with the Resistance in Comrades in Hope, but soon transforms into the Alliance and stays that way for most of the rest of the series. It’s on my mind right now, as I finish An Empire in Disarray and get ready to write the last book, Victors in Liberty.
The holidays are over. Blergh.
I don’t generally do well when my routine gets broken up by outside forces, which is why this blog has fallen by the wayside for the last week or so. I’m also not very good at creating structure in my life where none exists, so during times like the holidays I don’t tend to do very well. This is definitely a skill that I need to work on.
In any case, the holidays are over, which means it’s time to get back to work. Thank goodness!
I am about 10,000 words from finishing my current WIP, An Empire in Disarray. With the work on my friends’ basement finished and my roommate starting school in Salt Lake today, there shouldn’t be any more interruptions between now and the end of next week. This bodes well.
When that’s done, I’ll jump right into work on Victors in Liberty. I’ve got to admit, there are other projects I’d really like to work on right now, but finishing Sons of the Starfarers takes priority.
The series was supposed to be finished way back in 2015. But I underestimated the volume of work I’d taken on—and that was before I got a girlfriend. I fell behind on my writing as the relationship got really serious, and then we broke up, which didn’t help with productivity either.
Long story short, I did a lot of things wrong back in 2014. But I learned from my mistakes, and I think my books are better because of it. So instead of finishing up Sons of the Starfarers in 2015, I’m finishing it now in 2018. And then I’m moving on to other projects.
Edenfall is at the top of that list. It’s been years since I started the Genesis Earth trilogy, which is another ball that I’ve dropped. Genesis Earth does stand alone, but I’ve been promising to finish the trilogy since I published it in 2011, and judging from the reviews (as well as the slow but remarkably steady trickle of sales), this is a WIP that deserves to get priority.
One thing I’m really trying to do this year is to get better at structuring things: my writing, my publishing and marketing efforts, my daily routine, etc. Towards that end, I’ve put together a publishing schedule for 2018. Here it is as it stands at the beginning of the new year:
Lots of book 2s and finishing series. I suppose you could say this is the year where I start to finish what I’ve started.
And while the schedule may seem a bit daunting, the first four books are already ready to go, with Patriots in Retreat and A Queen in Hiding already up for preorder. Of the ones that are left, half are already written. So even though it seems ambitious, it’s actually quite doable, even if something crazy happens and I end up eloping to Mongolia before the end of the summer.
So that’s what I’m up to. I’ll get back to blogging as I can, but my first priority is writing, followed closely by publishing. Lots of behind the scenes stuff happening which I don’t have time to get into right now.
Take care, and thanks for reading!
Joe
Is it time for another update? Why yes, I suppose it is.
Sons of the Starfarers is coming along quite well. Book 6, Patriots in Retreat, is up for preorder right now with a release date of January 19th. My editor just got back with the edits for book 7, A Queen in Hiding. Haven’t had a chance to look through those yet, but I will in the near future. Come January, that book will be up for preorder as well, with a release date of March 16th.
Right now, I’m writing book 8, An Empire in Disarray, with a hard deadline of 22 December (just before Christmas). Normally, I’d be panicking right now, but I’m trying out a new outlining method that seems to be working quite well. If everything works out the way I hope, I’ll finish up book 9 sometime in February and move on to other projects.
Looking back, it was a mistake to set out to write a nine-book series before knowing how the first one would do. If I could go back to 2009 and do it all over again, I’d stick to trilogies, where the first book stands well enough alone that I can abandon the other two books if it doesn’t gain much traction. That’s going to be my modus operandi from here on out.
So here are the trilogies I need to finish:
This one has been outstanding for a long time. The first book did much better than I was expecting, and while its popularity has fallen off in recent years, it still gets very good reviews. For a first novel, I’m honestly surprised that this book has done as well as it has.
The second book, Edenfall, is still on the back burner for now. Partially written, partially outlined, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of months to get it done when I finally sit down to finish it.
As for book three, The Stars of Redemption, I have no idea because I haven’t even outlined it yet. Perhaps that’s what I need to get the ball rolling: outline the last book, so I know what has to happen in the second book. In any case.
Gunslinger to the Stars hasn’t done as well as I would have liked, but I enjoy this universe so much that I’m going to finish the trilogy if for no other reason than the fun of it. I’ve already written the first four or five chapters of Gunslinger to the Galaxy, and it’s coming along swimmingly. In fact, I’ll probably go right back to it after finishing up Sons of the Starfarers and call it a vacation. Expect to see more Jane Carter soon!
I am super super excited to finish this trilogy—which is good, because the way the first book ends, it’s definitely not a standalone. Definitely not. Haven’t formally outlined it yet, but there’s a ton of stuff I’m going to throw into the second book, The Sword Bearer. Mercenaries, sorcerors, death mages, winged cataphracts, desert ruins, and mountain strongholds—it’s going to be great fun!
For a while now, I’ve been playing around with the idea of condensing all of Star Wanderers into a novel and then turning it into a trilogy. The first book will basically be made up of bits and pieces from all of the Star Wanderers novellas, spliced together to make a coherent novel. In particular, I’d like to expand on Noemi’s viewpoint and trim out some (or a lot) of the extraneous stuff that made the series drag on. Basically, turn it into less of a sci-fi romance and more of a classic space opera.
I’ve already started the sequel, Children of the Starry Sea, though I haven’t gotten past the first chapter. Where Star Wanderers is a series of novellas, though, Children of the Starry Sea is definitely a proper novel, and it would probably work a lot better to frame it as a trilogy than anything else.
I suppose it’s a bit like how Orson Scott Card turned a bunch of his early short stories into The Worthing Saga, which in my opinion is his very best book. I won’t unpublish any of the old Star Wanderers stuff, but I may just let it fade into obscurity as I push the other stuff.
These are the books that are on my mind. I’ve got to be honest: Sons of the Starfarers feels a bit like a ball and chain, but I’ve committed to finishing it and I’ll do my best to finish it well.
On the publishing front, there’s so much stuff I want to do that I’m having trouble keeping up with it all. My main goal is to get to 10k subscribers on my email list. Currently, I’m just shy of 4k. InstaFreebie has been hugely useful for that, but I’ve got to try other strategies as well. One of those strategies involves a new signup incentive, so if you’re already signed up for my email list, I’ve got a surprise for you soon.
So much stuff going on. I swear, this is the best depiction of what it’s like to be an indie author:
For those of you who have been waiting for the next Sons of the Starfarers book, I have good news! Book 6, Patriots in Retreat, is now up for preorder and scheduled to release on January 19th, 2018. Check it out!
Gulchina's betrayal has all but sealed the fate of the Outworld Confederacy. As world after world falls before the Gaian Imperial onslaught and the crew of the Merope-7 take losses of their own, a young Imperial agent must decide what she's truly fighting for.
More info →Book 7, A Queen in Hiding, is with the editor right now and should be up for preorder soon as well, with a release date in March 2018. If all goes well, book 8, An Empire in Disarray, should be out in May, and book 9, Victors in Liberty—the final book in the series—should be out in July.
Thanks for reading!