Where Did SOLFLEET Come From?

PART 6 – GROWTH (And Where Is It Going?) - UPDATED for October 7, 2016

On May 7, 2011, with all rights once more belonging to me, I resubmitted a newly-polished manuscript under the shorter and much simpler title of Solfleet: The Call of Duty to the same major publishing company that had previously shown enough interest to comment and invite me to resubmit—Baen Books. My sincerest hope was that Baen would choose to publish it as though it had never been published before—meaning that I wanted to ignore the fact that the first publisher even existed, let alone that they had previously published my book. After all, as a military science-fiction novel it was right up Baen's alley. Military science-fiction was and still is what they do best. I also hoped that they would follow up by publishing the second book in the series, Solfleet: Beyond the Call, which I published in October, 2014. The third book, tentatively entitled Solfleet: Above and Beyond, would naturally follow. Then, if all went well, I would wrap up the series with…well, with about a dozen more books.

There are never any guarantees, of course, and after holding onto the new manuscript for 33 months, Baen ultimately chose not to publish it. Not wanting to go through years of waiting again with yet another publisher, I went the self-publishing route CreateSpace/Amazon.

Solfleet had a following, even before the second printing. It wasn't a huge following, thanks to the original publishing company’s lack of…well, pretty much everything, including professionalism…but it was a following nonetheless, and since the second printing that following has grown. I'm obviously not using the “multi-level” titles on the series anymore—Solfleet: The Call of Duty is a lot easier on the brain, not to mention the book cover, than Solfleet: The Timeshift Saga:The Call of Duty: Book One of the Excalibur Trilogy—but in my mind the books still follow that pattern. I know exactly where the opening trilogy is going and how it's going to get there. I also know how what I was calling The Timeshift Saga story line is going to end. I even know how the conflict against the Veshtonn is going to end several books later, and how the entire series will end one or two or a few books after that.

As I mentioned, book #2, Solfleet: Beyond the Call, has already been published. Book #3 is underway. Yes, the books in this series take a while to write. That's because the characters and plot lines are very complex...and because these are not small books. If you like hard military science fiction, pick up the first book and give it a chance. If you like it, please post a review on Amazon and then pick up #2.