Ryan M. Patrick

Well, it’s certainly been a week!

The Martian Incident came out on Tuesday, December 5, and I’m certainly pleased to see how it’s selling so far. I’ve sold 20 copies and have had a couple of people read through it on Kindle Unlimited. Sales-wise, I’m pretty pleased, but I haven’t gotten any reviews or ratings outside of my ARC team. Hopefully those will come in soon!

Next up will be Lag Delay. I’ve got a list of required edits from the Pentagon, then I’ll run through and clean up the prose/dialog/grammar/etc. No big changes, it’s good to go as is. It’s on track to launch in March.

Then it’ll be The Europan Deception. This is it – I’ve re-outlined it and I think I have the issues my alpha/beta readers identified fixed. I’ve added a couple of POVs, given the two main characters backstories that fit, and added a gritty element that wasn’t in previous drafts. I’m super excited and am already over 10,000 words in. It’s going to be long, I’m expecting it to be well over 140,000 words total, but it’s going to be worth it. I’ll have another round of betas, and it needs to get through the Pentagon, but my stretch goal is to have it published by the end of next year.

And, finally, a personal update. I’ve known for a few weeks, but am now able to announce it publicly. Through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring Our Heroes program, I will be starting a Skillbridge internship at Blue Origin in Reston, VA in early January. It’s an amazing opportunity at one of the top space companies in the country and I can’t wait to start! I’m not quite sure yet what my post-military career will bring, but it will be certainly off to a great start.