The Summer of Suckage Continues…

Been a rough summer.

I don’t want to make a list of reasons. Just… lots of death in our family and around us…

And just yesterday we found out that our 11.5 year old English Mastiff ‘Bear’ (whom I based Carbine off of in WoP) has an aggressive form of inoperable cancer.

So yeah…. He used to sleep on our upstairs bed until a few months ago when the Vet recommended we keep him on the main floor of the house to save his old joints. He’s been unhappily crashing on the sofa, but we ordered a mattress that’s arriving in a few hours so we can take turns sleeping down stairs with him. He’s still upbeat and playing with stuffed animals out of his toy box, and begging for food… but he’s lost a lot of weight (over 30 lbs in the past 6 months) so we know the cancer has crept into his body.

We’ll keep him happy and spoiled until he lets us know it’s time. Then we’ll be absolutely crushed for a very long time.

The new job is going well. I’m actually enjoying the drive and it’s a pretty stress free gig so far. (Comparatively speaking, I went from a 100/100 on call 24/7 for five years straight to probably a 20/100. I bring my laptop home but I’ve yet to need it. Or receive any calls at 2am. Or have to work on PTO days. Or have to work on sick days…And weekends… etc…)

My lovely wife tells me I’m a much happier person with this job. I think part of that is the ‘decompression’ of a one hour drive afterwards. But a lot has to do with the stress and reduction of work to office hours.

With the new gig and all the death, I ended up not writing for about four weeks. Which is a massive amount of time to be down, especially with a goal of a fall 2026 release for Eat the Survivors.

But I just wasn’t into it. I can’t put my finger on it, but I needed a break. And I took one.

Now I’m back at it. I actually was going to write right now, but decided since I hadn’t made a post in a while – I should do that.

Gotta stay relevant.

Anyways.

I hope you all are reading lots of books, shooting lots of stuff, resisting Communism, raising future Christian warriors, and bettering yourselves.

Until the next post…

See ya.

Erik.

An Update for May 2026.

Next month I start a new job with a long commute.

That will be interesting.

Once upon a time I drove an hour and a half each way up and down the mountains to drive a fork truck for 12 hours shifts for several months. (With a fresh four year degree in my pocket.)

That was nuts, but we’d just gotten married and the construction industry was dead. We were living in this God awful duplex, with walls so thin we could hear the neighbors hitting bongs at 4am when I was leaving for work. In the winter it got down to 36 degrees inside. Oh, and thanks to some unscrupulous housing rental agency, we had our kerosene tank locked during a snow storm. (Pay $500 now or do not survive the winter.)

However, because I was such a work stud, I picked up a few promotions and job changes and Forrest Gump’ed my way into a new career field.

And now we don’t gotta share walls with nobody. Except our kids. And there’s not much I can do about that…

So – I said all that to say, an hour drive each way on a highway will be fine.

(I hope.)

I plan listening to lots of audibles. As well as finally finishing all of the 200+ episodes of the Writer Dojo Podcast (Highly recommended for anyone interested in the writing industry and craft.)

But it’s gonna be a time suck.

And I still want to finish Eat the Survivors by this fall. I’m around 25% finished. A little behind my original schedule for where I want to be, but still winnable for my goal of releasing this fall. Which would be the first time I’ve ever released two books in one year. (Woop!)

So it’s time to tighten some screws, buckle down, and get writing and work done.

Yeehaw.

Here we go.

Beau Henry Series – A 3rd Book?

Trample the Weak has been out for nine months. Leap the Dead, for about two weeks. They both have good, strong looking sales, category rankings, and reviews.

So…

I’ll admit to it now since I already let it slip online…

There’s going to be a third book.

Eat the Survivors.

I’m about 15,000 words into it. (It’s got Nazi’s.)

Originally Trample the Weak and Leap the Dead was going to be one book… Named Operation Something Er Other. Then I signed a contract with a now defunct publishing house who requested it be turned into two books. Then, as I was writing, I had a wild idea of potential turning it into a longer series if the interest was there.

Which it appears to be.

So, there will be a third book. And possibly an as yet unnamed fourth. If this series goes on long enough, maybe we will even get around to slaying some Soviets as well. We will just go around the whole globe, killing bad people everywhere. It’ll be a gas!

In other news, I’m getting back in shape. As close as I can get to my 2019 body before I ruined it with concussions, depression, and eating my feelings. There’s a Spartan Race in South Carolina that I plan on doing this Nov. Giving me about 9 months to drop a ton of weight and learn how to run again.

I can’t wait to not be a giant slug anymore.

And I need more tattoos… But my Tat Guy is in jail for murder right now… so…. that’s a first world hardship to overcome…

But I’m rambling now.

I hope you all have a magnificent month.

Read muchly.

Shoot often.

Live free.

Erik.

Leap the Dead – Release day!

Link is below.

https://amzn.to/46veyzM

Release day’s are so exciting. It’s the culmination of hours and hours of beating my keyboard. And now I get to watch and wait as reviews roll in.

And trust me, reviews are my very favorite thing about being an author.

A lot of authors say don’t read them.

But personally? I love ’em. It’s a direct response from the readers.

Sure, no two readers are the same. Opinions vary and such. And if 99 people out of 100 like something, there’s always one butt hole who will ruin it. So you kinda gotta take them with a grain of salt, but reading good reviews makes me happy inside. It means I did my job well. I entertained.

Actually, come to think of it. The only noticeably bad review I’ve ever received was on Goodreads for West of Prehistoric. Some fellow ‘author’… who writes poorly received lesbian romance…. hammered me for her not being able to finish the book because my main character wasn’t racist enough for the time period….

Sorry lady. I don’t write liberalism.

Anywho. I’m not bitter…

Her books are of wretched filth and have poor reviews. Mine are of toxic masculinity and have awesome reviews.

Suck it, loser.

Enjoy buying half a cup of Starbucks with your meager royalty checks. I’ll be over here ordering another case of military surplus 7.62 bullets.

I digress…

Leap the Dead is out. It’s awesome. It’s fun. Go get it and read it.

And leave a review. 🙂

https://amzn.to/4u1uoMF

Oh, and I forgot to mention.

West of Prehistoric is 99 cents this week. And that’s a steal of 118,000 words of awesomeness for a rock bottom price.

Get you some of that one as well.

Link below!

https://amzn.to/4aTOVtN

Internet Forums that I owe my Authorhood to…

So in the back of my books, I always try to shout out to a few forums that have been immensely helpful to me getting started actually selling books.

I owe them a LOT.

And as I was spreading the news on them that Trample the Weak is $0.99/EBOOK for this week…. (hinthint)

I wanted to do a quick math problem.

When I finished my first book, I posted the exact same new thread in each of their General Forums. That was on October 2nd, 2020.

Which is such a long time ago.

(My very first book, West of Prehistoric, came out on Sept 18th, 2020.)

Here’s the thread, which was posted here as well.

C’mon you apes! Do you wanna READ forever? (Book PUBLISHED!)

Fast forward a few years to Feb 2026… And these are the stats on those forums/thread.

NC4x4.com – 288 Replies, 34,000ish views.

CarolinaFirearmsForum.com – 345 replies, 13,000ish views.

FalFiles.com – 121 replies, 9,000ish views.

Total of: 754 replies and 56,000ish views.

That’s just nuts. Granted, a lot of those replies were me giving updates on my writing journey and release information. But still, that’s a LOT of participation.

And I certainly wouldn’t be doing as well as I am now without them.

Many thanks amigos!