Glynn Stewart's Blog, page 31

Stellar Fox Out Now

Stellar Fox, the sequel to Space Carrier Avalon, is out now!

Check it out on Amazon here and on CreateSpace here

LEGENDARY … AND UNTESTED

Captain Kyle Roberts delivered one of the Castle Federation’s few victories in the early days of the war. Even losing his ship in the process didn’t prevent him being elevated as the hero – the “Stellar Fox” – his country desperately needed.

His status with the public demands a worthy command, and he finds himself on the bridge of the Federation’s latest supercarrier and headed to the front lines of the war.

But the Navy sees his promotion as a public relations stunt. His subordinates and superiors alike question his lack of experience – and enemies at the highest level of his own government manoeuvre to destroy him.

As the war heats up around him, the Commonwealth may not be the greatest threat to Kyle Roberts or Avalon.

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Two Years On

Two years ago today, I launched Starship’s Mage: Episode 1 on Amazon.

I had high hopes for its success – I quite liked the novella and was very pleased with it. Over the course of it’s first three months, however, it sold less than 100 copies. The general fate, so far as I can tell, of any stand-alone e-novella from a new author.

I was disappointed but my wife, who’d talked me into this endeavor at the beginning, encouraged me to at least finish the serial. I can be stubborn at times, so that was always my plan. We advanced. Episode 2 was more successful, doubling my total sales in its first weeks.

Things continued on that upward trajectory from there, culminating in the release of Episode 5 and the Starship’s Mage Omnibus.

In early 2015, royalties from Starship’s Mage and Children of Prophecy paid the downpayment on my house. That was a shock to the system. The project I’d almost given up on at the start had just enabled us to achieve home ownership a full year ahead of our schedule.

My enthusiasm was curbed, however, by the launch of City in the Sky.  It didn’t do poorly, but it wasn’t as successful as Starship’s Mage.  I lost a little bit of optimism, and slashed my expectations for Space Carrier Avalon dramatically.

Avalon then proceeded to shattered even my original, optimistic expectations. Hand of Mars followed along, almost exactly in line with my expectations. 2015 has been mind-blowing.

And so, the project I almost gave up on at the start became my primary source of income.  Two years on, I am astoundingly, unimaginably, grateful that my wife talked me into having faith in my work and putting it out there. None of this would have happened without her pushing, pulling, and encouraging.

None of this would have happened without you, dear reader. I am astoundingly, unimaginably, grateful for the way you have latched onto Damien’s and Kyle’s stories and worlds.

So thank you.

And watch this space. Castle Federation Book Two should be here soon

Stellar Fox is complete

At 91,436 words, the first draft of Stellar Fox, book two of what I think will be called the ‘Castle Federation’ series, is now complete.

Still a lot of work to be done on this one (I don’t even have a cover yet) and I’m heading out to England tomorrow for my grandmother’s funeral.  I’m not going to commit to a specific date yet, but I think I can safely say that Stellar Fox will be out in December of 2015.

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Looking backwards

So, due to the wonders of Amazon’s payment scheme (what I earned in October is paid at the end of December), I now know what I made in 2015 from writing income.

Most notably, October was my best month ever. This continues the trend of the month after the release of each of my Space Opera novels being my best month ever XD

While 2015 is not over, this seems as good a place to look back on where things have gone and where they are yet to go.

This year, I’ve put out three novels, and still intend to get a fourth out.  Two of these novels have done fabulously, and one did pretty okay.  All told, they did well enough to be life-changing.  I started 2015 with two novels out as a hobby. I will be ending 2015 with six novels out and with this now being my largest source of income.

Life-changing is almost too mild for what has happened.

I have always loved to tell stories and loved to write. I gave up on this as a potential career in my late teens and settled on accounting as a better career choice – thankfully, because I enjoyed it, not just for the money. To be able to now fulfill that childhood dream is epic.

I am looking back at 2015 and all I can see is up. Looking forwards to 2016, all I can see is more up!

I’ll keep writing. I hope you all keep reading. I’ll post some more about what my 2016 plans are as we come closer to the beginning of the year, but suffice to say: I don’t plan on publishing less books next year XD

Happy reading,

Glynn Stewart

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Hand of Mars Paperback out

A little late, but better late than never, the Hand of Mars paperback is now out!

Buy it on Createspace here, on Amazon here, or it should be up on all online book stores relatively quickly.

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Hand of Mars at Two Weeks

Hand of Mars has been out for two weeks (well, tomorrow) and has been doing very nicely. It’s currently hanging out in top ten for Space Opera on most Amazon sites, and some of the top twenties for Urban Fantasy.

It even has a whole bunch of positive reviews (21 total so far. Not that I’m counting or anything!).

It’s nice to see people returning to Damien’s story.

The paperback is still in progress. I’ll post more once I know more.

Happy reading everyone!

Glynn Stewart

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Hand of Mars OUT NOW

Hand of Mars (originally titled Mage-King’s Hand) is now out!

Check it out on Amazon here.

(this is currently only available via KDP Select. A paperback will follow within the next week or two, but the ebook will remain exclusive with Amazon until December)

ROGUE MAGE  TURNED INTERPLANETARY ENVOY

Three years ago, as Ship’s Mage of the starship Blue Jay, Damien Montgomery was pursued to the edge of human space by both the agents and enemies of the Mage-King of Mars — before being brought in from the cold.

Now, trained in new skills by the Mage-King himself, Damien has been sent to the planet Ardennes alongside Alaura Stealey, Hand of the King. A rebel movement there has destroyed cities fighting a Governor seemingly lost to corruption.

But not all on Ardennes is as it seems. As allies becomes enemies and an entire world comes apart in chaos around him, Damien will find both his skills and integrity tested to the utter limit.

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Hand of Mars is DONE

And with a 6,300 word sprint day, Starship’s Mage book 2: Hand of Mars (originally Mage-King’s Hand) is now done.

There’s still a few stages for it to go through before it ends up in your hands (beta readers, editing, covers, minor things like that XD) so I’m not going to give a specific release date. The goal is to have it out, as originally promised, in September.

As discussed previously, Hand of Mars will initially be released on KDP Select, but will be taken to a wider distribution after 90 days. (So if you want it on Kobo, that’ll probably be a nice Christmas present ;))

(I intend to do a longer term comparison between Space Carrier Avalon, which will remain on KDP Select past 90 days, and Hand of Mars, which will come off of KDP Select after 90 days. Experimentation is fun!)

I’m glad to see this book done, and I’m looking forward to getting it out into the wild.

-Glynn Stewart

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Space Carrier Avalon Audiobook!

There’s a lot going on on my end, but as I’m currently neck deep in pushing hard on Hand of Mars, I will have to blog about that later!

This is just a quick announcement to let you all know that Tantor Media will be releasing the audio book of Space Carrier Avalon on September 15, 2015.

They already have a sample clip up on their website.

For the moment, Avalon is the only one of my books getting an audiobook, but we’ll see how it goes! As with all things in this day and age, I have many, many options!

Happy read… well, listening!

-Glynn Stewart

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Hand of Mars Snippet 2

To celebrate crossing the 50,000 word mark on Hand of Mars, here’s the second scene XD

He was early for dinner, and only Mage-Captain Janet Adamant and her steward were in her dining room when he arrived. The room was easily large enough to seat all of Adamant’s officers, with a table made from an old earth oak tree.

Despite living in the Sol system for three years, the table was still a luxury to Damien’s eyes: he’d been raised on the MidWorld of Sherwood, almost a month’s travel from Earth. At home, anything from Earth had been a barely affordable luxury for even the wealthy.

“Welcome, My Lord Envoy,” Adamant greeted him. She was a tall woman, with the slightly Asian features of a Martian native.

“Please, call me Damien,” he told her. “The ‘My Lord’s are confusing – I keep looking around for the actual important person.”

“The third adult Rune Wright in the galaxy, personally trained in politics, magic and law by the Mage-King himself, and the man who brought down the Blue Star Syndicate,” Adamant replied calmly. “Unimportant, huh?”

“I didn’t bring down the Syndicate,” Damien pointed out. “I killed Azure – a lot of hard work by people wearing your uniform finished the job.”

Mikhail Azure, one-time leader of the largest crime syndicate in the Protectorate, had chased Damien to the end of the galaxy. Eventually Damien had been forced to carve a dangerous rune on his own flesh, allowing him to destroy the crime lord’s personal warship and save his own friends.

His ‘reward’ for that had been to be drafted by the Mage-King.

“Most people would kill for three years of training under the Mage-King,” the Captain pointed out, responding to what he hadn’t said as much as what he had.

Damien shrugged.

“It wasn’t a reward,” he pointed out. “As you said, I’m one of three adult Rune Wrights in the galaxy. Given that our very existence is classified enough we couldn’t have this conversation with your staff in the room, they couldn’t exactly let me roam free.”

Adamant chuckled and shook her head at him.

“Fair enough,” she admitted. “Have a seat. Wine? The food should be ready shortly.”

Damien gratefully took a glass of wine and a seat, nodding gracefully as each of Adamant’s senior officers entered and was introduced. He wouldn’t be aboard the warship long, so he only peripherally registered the names and faces.

“I can’t believe they pulled an entire battleship to play courier for the pipsqueak,” someone muttered halfway through the soup.

Looking up, Damien met the focused gaze of the Commander who served as the Righteous Guardian’s tactical officer, in charge of all of the many and varied weaponry she carried. The man was easily ten years his senior, but had the grace to look embarrassed when he realized he’d been overheard.

“I’m quite grateful that Righteous Guardian was going my way, actually,” Damien told him. “As you say, I’m not a very large package, and I suspect they’d have found me a box on a mail courier if you’d been heading a different way!”

That got a laugh from everyone, including the tactical officer. Damien was a small man, easily the shortest person in the room and definitely the lightest. Spending three years studying magic, law, and politics had left him little time to bulk up.

“What’s it like studying in Olympus Mons?” another officer, this one wearing the gold medallion marking him as a Mage along with his Commander’s uniform.

“Intimidating,” Damien said dryly. “Believe me, when Desmond Michael Alexander assigns you homework, you find the time to do it!”

“What’s bringing you to Tau Ceti, Envoy?” another officer asked, and Damien realized that he was going to be the center of attention tonight.

“I’m joining the Hand Alaura Stealey for a mission,” he replied. “More than that I can’t say.”

That put enough of a damper on the questions that he could, at least, finish eating. It also helped avoid mentioning that even Damien himself wasn’t entirely sure what he was heading to Tau Ceti for.

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