Tag: books

Hasta La Vista, 2025. Bring on 2026!

Leap The Dead will be finished by the end of next week. That’s book… -counts fingers- seven.

Not bad.

I started it May of 2025. So, 9 months. That’s the shortest time it’s taken me to write a book yet.

My favorite cover artist, fellow author Matt James, is working on that part. Also, my favorite narrator, Christopher Lyell, is going to be dragged back in to do the audio on this one as well. (After three weeks so far of dealing with Amazon ACX/Audible trying to get the cover art uploaded – we finally wrapped that up Trample the Weak last week. Now it’s around ten days of waiting for approval…) And as for myself, I’ve an idea for a third book to continue the Beau Henry series. Which will likely be titled, ‘Eat the Survivors‘.

I also have ‘Settling Prehistoric‘ on the brain. I miss Jedidiah Huckleberry Smith, his horse Carbine, his love Skyla, and all that chaos of fun western characters in the lost world of Prehistoria…

Conquering Prehistoric, the 5th book in the series, was a blast to write from a new perspective. Cato ‘The Black Plague’ Landry was a cool character who needed his story to be told. And bringing a lost Roman Legion into the story was fun as well. I mean, c’mon… Roman’s vs Cowboys. Heck yeah.

But ultimately, while the reviews are at an awesome average of 4.7/5 stars, it wasn’t as popular as the Jedidiah books. And Settling Prehistoric would be going back to Jed as the main character, with his ‘family’ intact, and a dangerous new threat that was hinted at in the end of Conquering Prehistoric. (So I reckon you ought to read that one even if you wanted more Jed… just for the reveal at the end.)

After almost two years away from Prehistoria, I feel like I need to re-read the books first while I work on an outline. I’ve been so glued into WWII and the Pacific Theater, that it’s going to take some work to recall all the details of the West of Prehistoric series.

That may give me time to figure out the next series I’d like to work on. And also give another book to the fans of WoP before 2026 is over…

But expect a cover reveal post and pre-order option soon for Leap the Dead. Which will hopefully coincide with a ‘Audible Release!’ announcement for Trample the Weak.

Things are a moving.

Cheers to 2026.

May we make all things better than they were before.

Erik.

December 2025 – Update

The writing continues. I’m over 60% through writing the Leap The Dead. It’s going well, we get to explore Yeuhan Island in depth, and the Japanese Emperor’s sadistic Unit Thirty-Five. I’m having fun with that. And Trample The Weak is still doing REALLY well in sales. So I need to wrap that up…

My next project is up in the air though… I was going to write this series about two competing billionaires using mercenaries to retrieve artifacts of Christ.

But then I saw this $0 deal on Amazon for The Blood King by Matt James who is a fantastic writer and cover artists. (He does my cover art)

And danged if he didn’t write my book.

It’s so good, folks. I’m about 3/4’s of the way through, reading it in bits and pieces on my bathroom breaks at work. (heh) And I’m very, very impressed. I highly recommend it. He gets the ‘nerd lore’ down pat. I won’t say anything more than that, but it’s clever and historical and such.

Go buy it. The sequel, The False Prophet, is already out.

So, since Matt James wrote my series and all… it’s back to the drawing board.

Settling Prehistoric is still waiting. I’d love to go back to the world of Prehistoria and write about my favorite character of all time. But I’m going to have to re-read the books so I don’t goof it up after taking a year and a half off from the series.

And… that’s kinda it. I’ve a few small ideas that I’ve got to do some thinking on and see if I can expand them properly for a nice little series.

But we will see.

Hope you all had a glorious Thanksgiving with much giving of thanks to our Lord and Savior, and enjoyed your bountiful feasts on this conquered land.

Hasta la vista.

Writer’s Update – October 2025

Still working on ‘Leap the Dead‘. It’s coming out spectacular.

I think the word tracker was at 40% written. Not where I was hoping to be, but still progressing. Will I make it by the end of the year? Dang, I dunno… I really hope to pull it off somehow…

But there’s an awful lot going on in the real world for me. Pretty much all of it is just… exhausting and difficult and in some cases, kind of needless. But alas, the world continues to turn and my books continue to be written in my free time with style, elegance, and grace. 🙂

I did manage to take a couple days off from work and go shooting. It was good for the soul. The first time out, the rifle range was packed so I spent some time on the pistol range zeroing in my daughter’s Ruger Mark IV pistol and plinking with mine. As tempting as it was, I didn’t go guns akimbo(dual wield!)… The second time, I got there early Monday morning and beat all the old retired guys to the rifle range. Got some really good shooting in and spanked the old steel coyote at 300 yards with regularity.

I’ve gotten back into reading my bible. I’ve backslid for a few years now. So trying to get back into that. Also we are actively looking for a new church.

I’m planning on watching Primal War this weekend with my son. Pretty excited for that. I attempted to read the book… and it was terrible but I’ve heard the movie is pretty good.

Speaking of books, Larry Correia’s “Academy of Outcasts” came out a week or so ago. I just finished it… and wow. Highly recommend. I’m a snob when it comes to ‘reading time’ these days as my time is so limited and I can afford to be picky. Whereas when I was younger, I’d just devour everything inprint.. But Correia has yet to let me down on anything he’s written. May his Moose Yard Mountain grow ever higher.

Kind of a boring update. I’ll try to be more interesting next time.

But there’s only so many ways I can write, “The writing continues…”

About 3 weeks into Trample the Weak release.

One of the neat things about self-publishing is the vast amount of information I’m now privy to that I never saw before.

Before I received a quarterly statement showing Kindle Unlimited pages read, E-Books sold, Paperbacks sold, and Audiobooks sold.

Now I’ve got daily information that changes by the hour.

Pretty neat stuff.

I’ve managed to work my way down from clicking the refresh button hourly to only a few times a day now to watch my sales and pages read. 🙂

And how are sales going? Pretty good. About what I expected for the start of a new series. And the reviews are rolling in nicely, I was at a satisfying 4.8/5 with 10 reviews until a 3 star kicked me in the review-groin down to a 4.5. But that will balance out as more come in.

So – certainly good enough to continue with the sequel. 🙂

Which, according to my fancy Atticus writing/formatting/etc program, (highly recommend!) I’m around 14% on completion.

I also got a few author copies of Trample the Weak in and decided to do a quick photo shoot as I cleaned some guns.

One of the cool things a bout being a gun guy, is writing about what you own. And then taking pictures with your Garand and the books it’s included in. 🙂

Because success should always be chronicled and bragged about.

In other news, you may recall that we got rabbits last year. That was… interesting.

Now, my daughter has moved into the realm of ‘RATS’… yes. The big rodents with big tails.

Apparently there is an entire not-so-underground society of people who breed and keep rats. And there are all kinds of the hairy creatures at all sorts of varying prices for fur and size variations.

And business seems to be booming. Probably because rats only live ~2 years. So you’re constantly getting new pets, but still… I digress…

Tomorrow we are picking up a giant cage and play set from someone who is getting out of the rat business. And this weekend, we are picking up a pair of rats.

Which… I have to share photos of.

I -think- the current name choices are Spot and Sunny… will likely change in the near future before being settled on.

So. Yay. Rats!

Enh, they are kinda cute. And these are supposed to be very docile and hand-able.

But yes, out with the rabbits in with the rats.

And now for some not so subtle advertising.

https://www.amazon.com/author/eriktesterman

Above is my Author Page on Amazon. Please click it, and follow me. It helps let you know when I have books come out. And because us writers are a savage bunch of nerds, we like to brag about how many followers we have on Amazon to each other. 🙂

Thank you and enjoy your early summer!

An easy request for you…

Trample the Weak is finished.

It goes to some readers for feedback this weekend.

And then….well….

If you haven’t followed the story – the publisher who contracted these WWII/Kaiju/Pacific Island/Marine books went under. Thus I’ve decided to try my hand at self publishing. With Amazon, KDP, Print on Demand, etc… the publishing world has changed greatly to where there is no longer a stigma to self-publishing. Instead it’s turned into a very viable way to get your books to your readers without the middle man (publishing house). This will be an experiment with a learning curve for me. And I’ve been spending a good amount of time reading how to do most of the craziness that is super intimidating to a first timer.

And this is where I need your help. To make this experiment work, I need you to follow me on social media(I’m on FB,Instagram, and now X) and/or ideally – send me your email address for the rare 1-2x a year “Up for Pre-order!” and “It’s Out Ohmygosh Buy it Now!”Email List.

The purpose for this is that a lot of social media has clamped down on free advertising. Even if you are a verified account. Because social media, looking at you Facebook, wants their money for advertising.

But nothing can clamp down on a Email List except for the individual hitting the unsubscribe button at their discretion.

Following this blog works if you want a lot of information. If you want a little, or don’t care about my writing updates or process, please send me your email for the Email List so you can find out about new releases. There’s a Contact option at the top of the blog.

In the near future, I should have a fancy pop-up on this website. But WordPress likes it’s money too and wants me to upgrade to Business to add a simple Email List plugin. -eyeroll- And unfortunately, I’ve a hard time justifying a $250/year expense for a single plug in. (I’ll be looking at other site hosts soon.)

So… a lot of information.

FB = https://www.facebook.com/AuthorErikTesterman/

Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/authoreriktesterman/

X = @ErikTesterman

Thanks friends.

Looking forward to putting this book in your hands!

Erik.