A Full Year of Publishing

How time flies. It was about a year ago that I decided to start publishing things again. It had been quite some time since the last time I’d put my writing out there in public, so I wasn’t entirely sure how things would turn out. If none of them ever took off, I’d just let things continue for a year and then close things down with no regrets.

Fortunately, it seems like plenty of people are excited about my stories, so I’m going to keep things going for a while longer, in no small part thanks to all of your support here. It’s meant a lot to me. I know I’m not the most interactive of authors, especially since I have a habit of overscheduling my efforts and burning out because of it, so your contributions have that much more impact for me as I try and keep ahead of the stuff I’ve committed to do. I don’t think I can ever say thank you enough.

So let’s go through the series I’ve published over the past few months and see how they’ve all gone.

Hector Kingsley- This is one of my older series, and it had always bothered me that I never got the chance to really finish it off. A good part of the reason I came back was to tie things off for the trilogy at last. I’ve always really liked Hector’s story, even if it did take me a few years to get good enough at writing to tie it off effectively. I’d hoped it would catch a bit more interest, but it really didn’t catch on, so I guess it’s just going to be one of my personal white whales. Still glad I got it out there, and I guess at some point I should get the completed book up with the rest of the series at some point.

Iron Angels- Another older series, and one of the reasons I kind of burnt out during my first publishing stretch. I tried to stick way too many plotlines into the third book and the whole thing just collapsed under me. Of course, there was an Amazon review calling it a dead series, and me being me, I wanted to finish it out of pure spite, but it took a lot of practice and work to finally bring the conclusion together. My spouse still says that Hollow Vessel is one of her favorite books from me, but I think she mostly just likes the villain there. Like Kingsley, still didn’t really attract a new audience, but it was still satisfying to finish the story. The third book is probably a good stopping point for it, though.

Iron Kingdom- Ah, Matt. I started this one originally because I had read or watched a bunch of isekai stories, and kept running into themes I didn’t like. The ones that stuck out the most were proagonists that were just super okay with slavery and gathering a harem around them like they were grabbing Pokemon. I’d also been reading a lot of Machiavelli, who I think is criminally underrated and generally has a bad rep. That kind of fused into the story I’ve been telling in this series, and it’s been a blast. The idea of a guy getting sucked into a world and doing his best to just make things work just clicked for me, and I’ve been glad that others have appreciated it as well.

I guess the only hiccup there appears to have been Tanya, which has been kind of funny. She started out as a counter to a couple of ideas I see a lot of, the whole ‘enemies-to-lovers’/tsundere thing and another common plot line where an isekai protagonist saves someone and they’re automatically a love interest. Her personality was kind of built around completely countering that, yet still remaining a real character; I used the real-life experience I had with meeting a few rather interesting art history majors as inspiration. I might have done a bit too good of a job with that one, which I never thought I’d say.

At the very least, I’ve enjoyed continuing the series. Throwing obstacles in Matt’s way and watching him fight his way past will never be unfulfilling for me, and I hope you all continue to enjoy it as well.

Common Clay- I think this series, more than any other, probably has enjoyed the most success. It’s not quite to the level of Wolfhound, but at the same time, it’s been a fulfilling and incredible ride. I’d been struggling through the finish of Tyrant’s Fall when I looked at the LitRPG genre on Royal Road and just decided to give it a try. Game systems have always been a fascinating thing for me, to the point where I was almost as interested in game manuals as I was the games themselves, and I was already homebrewing an alternate version of Dungeons and Dragons. I’d even started the bare bones of design for a spiritual successor to a JRPG I grew up playing, so I thought some of the mechanics might be reusable there.

At the same time, I wanted to avoid a few of the standard stories I was seeing in LitRPGs. I didn’t want to write an edgy protagonist, or a reluctant one. I didn’t want anyone who was going to be particularly special, either; there was never going to be a secret bloodline or special destiny set for him. Any divine meddling was going to be mostly putting him in place and winding him up; I wanted Clay to stand on his own, and be motivated to achieve what he could without those things. In my own way, I wanted a hero who earns the victories he gets, even if the world and society at large is not working in his favor.

I’m happy to report that the series is definitely going well. The first book is still probably one of the best things I’ve ever written, and I still routinely run across scenes that give me chills on a reread. Not sure if that’s just me being a doofus, but I’m hoping that the books continue to do well. I did probably make a few missteps in the second book that I’ve learned from, but I think I’ve learned pretty well from them going forward. At the very least, the next couple of books will probably do well; I finished the draft of Common Labor last Friday and got it out to beta readers, and two of them have already finished it in just a handful of days, so that’s a good sign. Looking forward to the future of that series!

Team Player- When I started this series, it was mostly an attempt to prove I could write more than just male protagonists. I’d written a female viewpoint before, in Iron Angels and a few unpublished books, but never a book with a sole viewpoint from a woman. More specifically, I wanted something that might appeal to my daughter, who had kind of been turning her nose up at my other stories. I just couldn’t let that stand.

So I went to work to try and figure out some of the structure behind it. I did a lot of reading of various female perspectives, from Vin in Mistborn to El from the Scholomance series. I even read some of the Throne of Glass series. From that, the bones of the character came together; a special heritage, a name she didn’t like, a secret identity, and natural skills. She was a very different sort of character than Clay, especially once my daughter said that she’d prefer a more contemporary setting, and after I put in a LitRPG system based a lot more on personal choices and risk-taking—all the better to have her kick back against authority figures who object to her choices. A lot of female protagonists are also social underdogs as well, but that didn’t sit well with me, so instead I mixed in some Jack Reacher and the Lone Ranger. Alex, in all her vengeful, battle-hardened glory, is what came out.

While the series hasn’t caught on for a ton of people compared to Clay, I have still loved the chance to write it. Everyone likes seeing the bad guys get what’s coming to them, and Alex really doesn’t disappoint there. While I might have been tempted to tie things off at the end of book three, my daughter—and the entire rest of my family—has absolutely loved it, so Alex’s story is going to be around for a while. The third book in that series starts next week, and Corporate Values is a pretty good time. I’ll be starting the draft for the fourth book, Independently Motivated, next week, so it’s going to be something of a race to get it done before you catch up, but it’ll be worth it.

So that’s the rundown for the first year here! Thanks again for all your support, and I’ll see you in the new year. Let me know if you have any questions for me, or if there is bonus material you’d like to see. Here’s to another new year!