“… and so I’m back, from outer space…”

Greetings, one and all, to the official re-launch of The Mako Manifesto.  We’ve waited a while for this one, have we not?

Well, it’s finally here… the story that took me three and a half years to finish…

***deep pensive sigh*** Yeah, that was a thing!

So, now that the cat named “Mako” is officially out of the bag, I realize some folks have questions, be it about me, or the series, or where both go from here.  Thus, in the days, weeks, and months ahead, I’ll use a good chunk of the space here to keep people abreast of all things Renegades — with the occasional rant about sports, music, movies, food, and books, of course!  😉  

Before I go any further, I have to give a MAJORshout-out to anyone and everyone who has sprung for a copy of Mako so far.  To say that the book’s success has exceeded my expectations is… well, quite possible the greatest understatement of my life, and that’s all because of YOU!

Every writer hopes their work finds an audience when it hits the market — and I was no different — but a top-five ranking on Kindle’s military sci-fi best seller’s list?  Seriously?

Listen, it goes without saying that I love this story, for more reasons than could ever be summed up on a blog post.  I wrote Makoat a time in my life when not much was going right.  I was unemployed, my career was in the toilet, and to be blunt — I was miserable.  I needed an escape, plain and simple, and this quirky little story became that escape.  Had it never sold a copy, I’d have forever been grateful to it for that.

Now, however, I have something else to be grateful for… you guys, the ones who quite literally made Mako“fly.”

Trying to stay as spoiler-free as possible, I think most would agree that it’d be pretty frickin’ cruel of me to leave things the way that I did in Book 1 without having a plan for what comes next, right?  (That, and the whole “Book 1” thing is kind of a giveaway, but I digress.)

So is there more?

***flashes wry smile*** Oh yeah, there’s more.

While Mako was originally environed as a one-off piece about Lee Summerston and his friends, it picked up steam during the drafting process and continued to grow… and grow, and grow, and grow some more, until finally I had the mythological makings of, what else?  A trilogy!!!

Right now, I’m staying pretty busy with the press push for Mako, but in the weeks to come, I’ll head back to my desk — coffee cup and sunflower seeds in-hand — to begin work on Book 2 in the series… a story which, at present,  is tentatively being called Stormfront.  (I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to which character steps up in this one!)

Will this book take three friggin’ years, you ask?  No, not at all. 

Bear in mind, from the day I began Mako to the time it hit Amazon, I changed jobs twice (sadly, fiction writing is not all I do for a living), moved three times in two states, got married, became a parent, learned to write for sighted readers (I’m legally blind, so I live on audio), plus there was also the matter of finding beta readers, editors, ebook producers, etc.  Now that all of that is done and in place, the rest of the series should come relatively unimpeded.  So stay tuned…

Okay gang, that’s gonna do it for this installment of the Manifesto.  This chicken isn’t gonna cook itself for dinner, and I’ve got a new spice rub I’ve been itching to test out; so let me jet.  Everyone take care, have a great weekend, and I’ll see you around Twitter!!!  

IJM