The success of my novella, Corvette has caused me to alter my writing plans this summer and possibly this fall. The book was a hit and it has sold quite well for a month and a half now. Sales numbers are finally coming down now for that book but people are taking a chance on my Star Saga as a result. This was the whole point of writing Corvette, to act as a gateway to the already established universe. As anyone who has read Corvette knows, it is set up beautifully for sequels. I only had a vague idea of where to take the crew next at the time I wrote Corvette, last year. I really wanted people to just read Starforgers and work their way through the Star Saga series.
But many readers have expressed enthusiasm for more adventures of the crew of the Weippe, so I’ve had to consider doing more books and what that would entail. After a some thought I have settled on simply referring to them as Corvette books and instead of numbering them, just give them subtitles as I write them. This way I could make a trilogy by writing two more and then if there is still sufficient interest, I could back fill with adventures in between those books and all I’d have to do is note the read order. This is pretty flexible and lets me space out the next two books over two or more years. The biggest reason for doing that is to follow the career of Captain Vance.
So my challenge now is to crank out two more Corvette books before the end of this year and then get back to the Star Saga next year by writing XiniX, Book Five of the Star Saga. I was going to write a Mystery novel this summer as my pen name of Johnny Batch. I still very much want to write that novel, but the sad fact is that there is no market for it. The first Mystery novel, Null Pointer is not selling at all right now. The only way that series could take off is to write another five books using the same amateur detective character. I actually do have a six book arc for that series, I just don’t have the time to write them. I have a day job and a family and other hobbies to attend to. So time is pretty limited for writing. If it were my full time job to write novels I could be gainfully employed for the rest of my life. But unless my writing takes off much better than it has, I need to keep the day job.
I was approached by a audio book publisher in regards to producing Corvette but because the book was so short they decided not to produce it. Audio books prefer longer titles that give the listeners plenty of value for their dollars. They didn’t feel the Star Saga was popular enough to warrant producing at this time so no deal was offered. If I manage to finish two more Corvette novels and they continue to bounce up the charts, I’m sure they would be interested at that point. Which is a big motivation for doing a few more Corvette titles. Besides, they are damn fun to write.