At this point, I’d been writing for a handful of years, and I made friends with some rather well-known authors. When I talked about maybe getting more serious about this writing thing, several of them gave me the same advice, “Write what you know.”

Write what I know? I began to think about Michael Crichton. He was a non-practicing MD, and started off with a medical thriller. John Grisham was an attorney for a decade before writing a series of legal thrillers. Maybe there’s something to that advice?

I began to ponder, “What do I know?” And then it hit me.

I know science. It’s what I do for a living and what I enjoy. In fact, one of my hobbies is reading formal papers spanning many scientific disciplines. My interests range from particle physics, computers, the military sciences (you know, the science behind what makes stuff go boom), and medicine. I’m admittedly a bit of a nerd in that way. I’ve also traveled extensively during my life, and am an informal student of foreign languages and cultures.

With the advice of some New York Times bestselling authors, I dove headfirst into writing novels that interested me. With my background, it’s easy to imagine that I might focus solely on science fiction, but I’ve always been a sucker for mainstream thrillers, especially those with international settings.

Truthfully, I hadn’t intended to dive into self-publishing the way I have. My intent was to send this to mainstream publishers. After all, I got lots of rave reviews from the traditionally published authors who’d read my work. They were all very kind and a great source of encouragement.

Before I jumped into independent publishing, I did submit stories to acquiring editors at major publishers. Even though I’d received some interest from them, they all in the end felt it wasn’t right for their particular audiences at that time. In hindsight, it’s very difficult for an unknown author to “break into” traditional publishing, and for the acquiring editors, it’s a big risk taking a chance on an unknown author. These are things I can fully appreciate.

Given that, I was faced with a choice of leaving the stories in a desk drawer and moving on with my life, or taking a chance and seeing if I could find the audience for my stories.

Obviously, I’m stubborn and chose the latter.

And since my first book, Primordial Threat, was published and became a USA Today bestseller, I suppose I’m pleased that I took the plunge.

I’ll assume that if you’ve read these last few paragraphs, you’ve only done so because you’ve read this novel in its entirety, and I’ve hopefully kept you entertained. If so, that means I’ve found you! You’re that elusive “audience” that the publishers had said they didn’t know how to reach.

Yay!