Category: First Novel

So pumped that it finally released.  Also I am super thankful to all my author friends who pimped it to their lists and Keystroke Medium for making me the sponsor of Monday’s show.

Two Years in the making and all of my knowledge of book writing:

Can three friends and an AI take over the world before the Empire comes back to subjugate them?

Almost 500 years ago, the Empire made an example of the planet Randver. They bombed all major population centers and left a fleet to ensure no one approached or left the planet. The Emperor declared the planet Quarantined for 500 years.

20 years ago, A dormant AI reactivated and started working on the infrastructure to repel the Empire when they returned. They couldn’t fight the Empire head to head, but they could start on the technology to fight the Empire ACE to ACE.

In a few days, Mikael, Dagny and Johan are going to graduate from the Randveri Military Academy and be given a choice.

Help the AI take over the world or let the Empire come back and take over.
Will they join with the AI? Will they succeed? Find out in the first of the ACE Cycle books: Raising ACEs.

 

Buy Raising ACEs now on Amazon

 

Check it out.  Several of my friends say they are already looking forward to the next one….Time to get back to the keyboard.

While I didn’t get as much time to finish my book as I had planned I did get 3711 out of 6K of my goal done for book 2 in January.

I have been reading Lucky’s Marines by Joshua James.  He is doing a great job of writing a page turner.  I got the box set for 99 cents and I have been reading them one right after another.  Here is a link and as of me publishing this it is still on discount.

It has me a little worried that all 6 books went for 99 cents since I am trying to sell my first for 3.99.  But I am sure they were released for higher.

I also like how he handles the AI talking directly into his mind.  My editor and I have gone back and forth on how to relate this in my manuscript.  I might change this to mimic Mr. James’ style.  It reads really well and you know who is talking right away.

I took another step back and looked at my outside of work projects and how I can finish them all up.  I think I am going to aim for May 1st.  I want to release it before the Career Author Summit.  Which is May 15th – 16th in Nashville.  I am going. I am pretty excited to learn a bunch from far more advanced authors than myself.

I am just getting back from a mid west trip.  My Wife, my 3 kids and I just did a tour of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois over the last 13 days.  The trip was long and fun and we even got a little snow in.  Not enough to make this Californian driver worried but enough to let the kids know that there is other seasons than just sunny in the world.

The snow was almost non existent on the ground but we got some sledding in and made some snowmen.

I didn’t get ahead on my production schedule before I left and didn’t make any progress during the vacation.  So the plan is to hit it hard starting today and work on getting it to the editor this month.  Then get it back by the end of the month and finish up formatting.

Finally release the book in mid-March.    Then double down on writing book 2.  I have about 15 min of writing minimum each day to work on it.  At the point that it releases I will have finished my moonlighting projects so hopefully I can bump that up to an hour in the evenings.   Which would mean 1 hour for writing M-F and then 1 hour at lunch MWF which means a full day of 8 hours of writing per week.  I can get about 150 words in conservatively per 15 min so 600 words an hour so just speculating here but 4800 words a week.  We can round that up to 5K and that means about 2.5 months to finish first draft of book 2.  Then a couple revision passes which will be 2 more months and then editing pass and back…so hopefully release around December if I can do it.

The trick of course is if I get any more contract jobs that will eat into that time which will put me back down to 4.25 hours a week of it.  Moving the needle but only 2.5k a week so 5 months to finish.  Which would put it at august when first draft is done, so not horrible.  Of course, all these numbers are made up and the points don’t matter so we shall see how it turns out in reality.  All I can confirm for a fact is my butt in the chair writing.

So I finished the Wholesale Slaughter series by Rick Partlow.  It was pretty good.  Reminiscent of BattleTech from back in the day.

I still haven’t finished revising Raising Aces.  I am on Chapter 7 and I probably have one more pass to go after I get through this one.  I have a target for Feb 1st to get it over to my editor for a final pass by him.  I also have time boxed Monday, Wednesday, and Friday lunches for revision.

On the other side of the coin, I have started writing book 2 again.  I finished about 10k words last year on it.  However the year before I did 88k words.  So clearly need to adjust my time to include writing.  I set up the same time I did in 2018 so hopefully I can get book 2 done and with some revision god luck out this year as well.

Catch you guys in 2 weeks.

Currently Reading: Wholesale Slaughter by Rick Partlow. I should probably get an affiliate link.

Book 1 state: In the editor’s hands, he said he would get it to me mid month. So pending on the edits, it is probably a July release if all goes well. If not well we shall see. First books are usually rough from what I hear.

I am going to get book 1 out to my editor this weekend.  I started up a Patreon -> https://www.patreon.com/ChadBoyerWriter

The Patreon is going to be for two serials that I am going to try for a year.  Both to get more writing in and to tell more stories.

I am excited to release book 1.  It is currently planned for June which would mean 1 year has passed since I started this journey to publish a book that I wrote.  I am hoping to get 2 more out within the year and finish the initial trilogy.   When I finish up book 3 I will decide whether to pivot at that point or continue the series, but my goal is a tightly written trilogy.

I am in the process of writing my first sci-fi book.  I hope to release in January and then write many more.  Come join me on the adventure.