Richard Phillips's Blog, page 13

Official Cover for Once Dead

My publisher has just released the official front cover for Once Dead, the first of my Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory prequels to the Rho Agenda.  Once Dead will be released on August 5th, 2014 and is available for preorder on Amazon.  Here it is:

Once Dead Front Cover

Best,

Richard

 

Nine-Tenths of the Law Renamed – Bane’s Dominion

Hi all,

My publisher and I have now arrived at the name for the second Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory prequel  to the Rho Agenda (original working title “Nine-Tenths of the Law”).  The book title will officially be “Bane’s Dominion”.  I am now in the midst of the final edit of Bane’s Dominion and look forward to its release in the coming months.  I want to say thanks to all my Beta Readers who have provided so much helpful input based upon the initial rough draft.

Best,

Richard

Bane’s Dominion

I want to thank all my Beta readers for Once Dead and Nine-Tenths of the Law.  I’m excited that both novels will be released later this year.  In the meantime, I am working on the next Jack and Janet prequel to The Rho Agenda, titled “Bane’s Dominion”.   I plan on having the rough draft out to my Beta Readers in August. As always, your input helps make the final product the best it can be.   Thanks again for your support.

Best,

Richard

German Translation of The Second Ship Jun 2014

I’m very pleased that the German translation of The Second Ship will be released this June.  For you German fans, here’s the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZL78NK

And here’s the cover:

Beta Reader Program Signup

If you would like to be added to my list of Beta readers please send me an email at :

richard.phillips@secondship.net

When I am done with a ROUGH draft, I send it out free of charge to my registered Beta Readers who get the first crack at it.  I don’t expect Beta readers to correct punctuation or grammar errors … my editors will catch those.  Instead, I just ask beta readers to let me know their general impressions and anything that really stood out as an error or something they really liked or didn’t like.  I also ask Beta readers to agree not to share the Rough Draft with anyone outside their immediate family.

If you would like to participate, please let me know.

Best,

Richard

Just sent Nine-Tenths of the Law to my Publisher

I just delivered the manuscript for Nine-Tenths of the Law to my publisher so I’m anxious to get through the editing cycle and start in on my third Jack Gregory prequel to The Rho Agenda.  The first of these, Once Dead, will be released on August 5th, and I should be seeing the cover mock ups in the next two weeks.

Once Dead Available for Preorder

Once Dead has now entered production (scheduled release 8 Aug 2014) and is available for preorder. In coming weeks my publisher will be sending me a couple of different cover designs to choose from, formatting it for the print edition, and starting audiobook production. I’ll post an update as I get more details.

Richard

Once Dead Scheduled Release Date

I just wanted to post a quick update letting you know that Once Dead has gone into production at my publisher and the scheduled release date looks like August 8th.  As for Nine-Tenths of the Law, I will be delivering the manuscript to my publisher in late February.

Richard

Once Dead Publishing Update

Since it’s been a while since my last update, here’s the latest on the publishing schedule for Once Dead.  I have just completed the final edit changes, working with my outstanding editor, Clarence Haynes, and the production manuscript for Once Dead has been delivered to my publisher, 47North.  Next will be the copy edit, the cover art mock up and selection, followed by the layout edit which will take care of kerning issues and weird print stuff like having the same word repeated at the end or beginning of adjacent lines of text or the annoying way spaces can happen to line up in visible patterns.  Once all of that is done, 47North will select the audiobook actor and audiobook production will be scheduled.

I don’t have an actual publication date yet, but it looks like 47North wants me to be finished with the three Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory prequel novels (not a trilogy, just three separate episodes) by the first of August so that they can release all three novels in back to back months in the fall of 2014.  As of next week, I will be letting my full time, software engineering job go and will henceforth be writing full time, so you can expect to see me pump the books out much faster than writing only on nights and weekends.

I’m very pleased with the final draft of Once Dead and want to thank all of you that participated in my Beta Reader program and gave feedback.  It all helps.  I hope to offer that program again for the next Jack novel, “Nine-Tenths of the Law”.

Richard

Alien Agendas

I was asked by 47North to write a short blog post for Amazon’s Kindle Blog. Here is the link but I am also including the complete post below:

http://www.kindlepost.com/2013/09/alien-agendas.html

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of spending three days in Robert McKee’s fabulous “Story” seminar. During one of the Q&A sessions, one of my fellow students mentioned how nature’s beauty was the inspiration behind her stories. Robert McKee’s response stuck in my head. He said, “Let me tell you something about nature. Nature is a vicious bitch.”

Since the essence of story is conflict, nature’s a great place to start.

Our planet has a rich history of alien invasion, so to speak: Illness is commonly caused by invasive microorganisms attacking a host. When plant species are brought from one ecosystem to another, they often push out the native species and take over. The same goes for insects or animals that are brought into areas where they have no natural predators. The invading species is alien to the environment and wreaks havoc. The invaders care nothing about the welfare of the species they push aside. It is simply a manifestation of a natural law, the survival of the fittest, which, for me, raises the question: Should we expect anything different from a far more advanced alien species?

My Rho Agenda trilogy offers an answer in that it presents alien agendas that were formed not with malice but instead without even considering their impact on humans. The books are about two starships that shot each other down over the American Southwest and the competing alien agendas that survive within each of those severely damaged ships.

In it, I use three exceptionally innocent high school students as the protagonists who, having stumbled upon the Second Ship, allow their curiosity to get the better of them and, like a child finding a loaded gun, their dabbling sets in motion a chain of events that destroys their comfortable lives. Ironically, it’s the same thing my villian Dr. Donald Stephenson is doing, under the auspices of the US Government’s Rho Project: dabbling with technologies that have the potential to bring our planetary ecosystem to the attention of those against whom we have no hope of competing.

So, I find myself in simultaneous agreement with my seminar classmate and with the great Robert McKee. Nature’s vicious beauty may well extend far beyond our little planet–and I find that very interesting indeed.