Richard Phillips Rho Agenda Blog

May The Ripper be with you. August 15, 2014

First of all, I want to thank all of you, my fans, who have supported my Rho Agenda novels from the beginning.  I’m very pleased with the August 19th release of Once Dead, the first of three Rho Agenda prequel novels that reveal how Jack and Janet become the team that they are once the Rho Agenda trilogy begins.  I hope that you have as much fun reading it as I did during the writing.  May The Ripper be with you.

Best,

Richard

MacLeod Andrews To Perform “Once Dead” Audiobook April 5, 2014

I’m very happy to be able to announce that Brilliance Audio has secured MacLeod Andrews as the audiobook actor for Once Dead.  I was extremely pleased with the fine work he did bringing the Rho Agenda trilogy to life and it is a pleasure to have him on board again.

Official Cover for Once Dead March 26, 2014

My publisher has just released the official front cover for Once Dead, the first of my Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory prequels to the Rho Agenda.  Once Dead will be released on August 5th, 2014 and is available for preorder on Amazon.  Here it is:

Once Dead Front Cover

Best,

Richard

Nine-Tenths of the Law Renamed – Bane’s Dominion March 26, 2014

Hi all,

My publisher and I have now arrived at the name for the second Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory prequel  to the Rho Agenda (original working title “Nine-Tenths of the Law”).  The book title will officially be “Bane’s Dominion”.  I am now in the midst of the final edit of Bane’s Dominion and look forward to its release in the coming months.  I want to say thanks to all my Beta Readers who have provided so much helpful input based upon the initial rough draft.

Best,

Richard

German Translation of The Second Ship Jun 2014 March 5, 2014

I’m very pleased that the German translation of The Second Ship will be released this June.  For you German fans, here’s the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZL78NK

And here’s the cover:

Beta Reader Program Signup March 2, 2014

If you would like to be added to my list of Beta readers please send me an email at :
richard.phillips@secondship.net

When I am done with a ROUGH draft, I send it out free of charge to my registered Beta Readers who get the first crack at it.  I don’t expect Beta readers to correct punctuation or grammar errors … my editors will catch those.  Instead, I just ask beta readers to let me know their general impressions and anything that really stood out as an error or something they really liked or didn’t like.  I also ask Beta readers to agree not to share the Rough Draft with anyone outside their immediate family.

If you would like to participate, please let me know.
Best,
Richard

Just sent Nine-Tenths of the Law to my Publisher February 27, 2014

I just delivered the manuscript for Nine-Tenths of the Law to my publisher so I’m anxious to get through the editing cycle and start in on my third Jack Gregory prequel to The Rho Agenda.  The first of these, Once Dead, will be released on August 5th, and I should be seeing the cover mock ups in the next two weeks.

Once Dead Available for Preorder February 16, 2014

Once Dead has now entered production (scheduled release 8 Aug 2014) and is available for preorder. In coming weeks my publisher will be sending me a couple of different cover designs to choose from, formatting it for the print edition, and starting audiobook production. I’ll post an update as I get more details.
Richard

Once Dead Scheduled Release Date January 31, 2014

I just wanted to post a quick update letting you know that Once Dead has gone into production at my publisher and the scheduled release date looks like August 8th.  As for Nine-Tenths of the Law, I will be delivering the manuscript to my publisher in late February.

Richard

Once Dead Publishing Update December 10, 2013

Since it’s been a while since my last update, here’s the latest on the publishing schedule for Once Dead.  I have just completed the final edit changes, working with my outstanding editor, Clarence Haynes, and the production manuscript for Once Dead has been delivered to my publisher, 47North.  Next will be the copy edit, the cover art mock up and selection, followed by the layout edit which will take care of kerning issues and weird print stuff like having the same word repeated at the end or beginning of adjacent lines of text or the annoying way spaces can happen to line up in visible patterns.  Once all of that is done, 47North will select the audiobook actor and audiobook production will be scheduled.

I don’t have an actual publication date yet, but it looks like 47North wants me to be finished with the three Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory prequel novels (not a trilogy, just three separate episodes) by the first of August so that they can release all three novels in back to back months in the fall of 2014.  As of next week, I will be letting my full time, software engineering job go and will henceforth be writing full time, so you can expect to see me pump the books out much faster than writing only on nights and weekends.

I’m very pleased with the final draft of Once Dead and want to thank all of you that participated in my Beta Reader program and gave feedback.  It all helps.  I hope to offer that program again for the next Jack novel, “Nine-Tenths of the Law”.

Richard

Alien Agendas September 25, 2013

I was asked by 47North to write a short blog post for Amazon’s Kindle Blog. Here is the link but I am also including the complete post below:

http://www.kindlepost.com/2013/09/alien-agendas.html

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of spending three days in Robert McKee’s fabulous “Story” seminar. During one of the Q&A sessions, one of my fellow students mentioned how nature’s beauty was the inspiration behind her stories. Robert McKee’s response stuck in my head. He said, “Let me tell you something about nature. Nature is a vicious bitch.”

Since the essence of story is conflict, nature’s a great place to start.

Our planet has a rich history of alien invasion, so to speak: Illness is commonly caused by invasive microorganisms attacking a host. When plant species are brought from one ecosystem to another, they often push out the native species and take over. The same goes for insects or animals that are brought into areas where they have no natural predators. The invading species is alien to the environment and wreaks havoc. The invaders care nothing about the welfare of the species they push aside. It is simply a manifestation of a natural law, the survival of the fittest, which, for me, raises the question: Should we expect anything different from a far more advanced alien species?

My Rho Agenda trilogy offers an answer in that it presents alien agendas that were formed not with malice but instead without even considering their impact on humans. The books are about two starships that shot each other down over the American Southwest and the competing alien agendas that survive within each of those severely damaged ships.

In it, I use three exceptionally innocent high school students as the protagonists who, having stumbled upon the Second Ship, allow their curiosity to get the better of them and, like a child finding a loaded gun, their dabbling sets in motion a chain of events that destroys their comfortable lives. Ironically, it’s the same thing my villian Dr. Donald Stephenson is doing, under the auspices of the US Government’s Rho Project: dabbling with technologies that have the potential to bring our planetary ecosystem to the attention of those against whom we have no hope of competing.

So, I find myself in simultaneous agreement with my seminar classmate and with the great Robert McKee. Nature’s vicious beauty may well extend far beyond our little planet–and I find that very interesting indeed.

Amazon’s Exciting New Opportunity for Indie Authors August 17, 2013

I originally posted the following in reply to a fan’s questions (thanks Brian), but since it is of general interest, I repost the contents here:

I’m hoping to get a publication date soon for Once Dead and will post it here as soon as I know it. In the meantime, I highly encourage you to keep writing and self-publishing for the Kindle. It’s the only thing that worked for me until I had sold more than 100,000 copies. After that getting an agent and publisher came easy, although I recommend that you not be in a hurry to leave self-publishing on the Kindle. Royalties of 70 percent are nothing to shrug off too quickly. Keep writing and publishing and the sales will eventually follow … plus you will continuously get better.

I think Amazon is getting very creative in supporting Indie writers with the launch of their new Fan Fiction publication platform http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/licensing/article/57350-amazon-debuts-licensed-publishing-program-for-fan-fiction.html . It’s a great place to build upon licensed works and extend those worlds in exotic new ways.

As for my experience with an agent and publisher, I’m now represented by Paul Lucas of Janklow & Nesbit who continues to do a fabulous job. I’ve also been very happy with 47North, although, as one of the new Amazon Publishing Houses, the war with Barnes and Noble and some other big box retailers has limited physical shelf space. Still, it is great being promoted by the world’s largest online retailer.

Keep writing and publishing. Everything else will follow. Hope this helps.

End of Early Reader Feedback Program for Once Dead July 15, 2013

As I send Once Dead to my editor today, I must bring the Early Reader Feedback program to an end. Thank you to all of you fans who were willing to read the rough draft. Your feedback will lead to a much improved finished product.
Thanks again.
Richard

An Independent Author’s Path to Publishing Success on the Kindle January 22, 2013

Since a number of readers have asked me about my initial experience publishing for the Kindle as an independent author, I decided to repost an article from April of 2012 where I discuss my experiences prior to signing with 47North.

As most of you know, I originally self-published the first two novels of my Rho Agenda trilogy, so I will begin with my experiences there.  A year ago, I gave a talk to the Arizona Authors Association about the daunting path independent authors  face in trying to bring their work to a broad readership and why I believe self publishing for the Amazon kindle offers the first significant break from that catch 22.

When I finished writing The Second Ship, my first Rho Agenda Novel, I encountered the typical obstacles independent authors face.   You can’t get your books in bookstores, other than a few local stores, without a major traditional publisher.  You can’t get a major publisher without an agent with a working relationship with that publisher.  When you try to get an agent, your manuscript is buried in tens of thousands of other submissions to that agency.  You might get lucky in this process and have a great agent read your work and like it, but most likely you’ll never make it past the electronic trash receptacle.

After beating my head against that wall, I decided to try self-publishing on the kindle, publishing The Second Ship and Immune for the eBook reader.  At first, I sold only a few copies per month, but that continued to rise and as it did, something happened that I believe is due to the advantages only publishing for the Amazon Kindle offers authors, a categorization system that helps people find works by new authors.  My books began to break into the top 100 bestsellers in a couple of the sub categories under science fiction, specifically the techno-thriller and high-tech sci-fi categories.   When that happened, a lot more people started finding my novels and they continued to rise in those best seller lists.

As The Second Ship and Immune broke into the top ten in those sci-fi subcategories, they also broke into the top one hundred best sellers in the larger Science Fiction category for the kindle, followed by an appearance in the top 100 best sellers in Science Fiction on all of Amazon.  Once again, this brought a lot of new readers, such that in January of 2011 I found myself with the #1 and #2 bestsellers in the broader Science Fiction and Fantasy category on Amazon.com.

With the draft of my third book in The Rho Agenda trilogy complete in February of 2011, I had a difficult decision to make.  Should I continue to utilize the approach that had been so successful or should I try again for an agent with big connections to the publishing industry?  There are costs with making that change: I would have to give up control of the publishing schedule, I would have to take a much smaller percentage of royalties than the 70 percent Amazon pays kindle direct publishers like myself, and I would have to pay a percentage of those royalties to my agent.  On the plus side, the traditional arrangement offered me much broader distribution channels, a world-class editing staff, some of whom had New York Times bestsellers of their own, and a world-class marketing platform.  After weighing my options, I selected the traditional route to have a chance at bringing my novels to a much larger international market and elected to sign on with a well-known literary agency, Janklow & Nesbit, who were now interested in representing me.

Then the waiting game began as my agent pitched the trilogy to multiple publishing houses, reaching agreement in principle with 47 North and then waiting again as the attorneys worked out the fine details of the agreement.  This culminated with me signing with 47 North in March 2012, granting them the rights to publish the entire Rho Agenda trilogy in print, eBook, and audiobook formats in the U.S. and internationally.

This brings me back to the topic I began this article discussing: Is there a successful publishing path an independent author can take, other than relying solely on luck?  I believe there is.  Even though I self-published in multiple eBook formats, publishing for the kindle was by far the most successful.  There are reasons why Amazon’s system works far better for independent authors.

#1 Amazon has a great system for allowing readers to find your eBooks, a system of categories and subcategories plus the biggest eBook marketplace in the world.  You may not be on any Barnes & Noble bookshelves but your work is on the shelf in the biggest bookstore in the world.

#2 It doesn’t cost you anything.  Authors just set up a kindle direct publishing account and enter some bank account information to let Amazon make direct deposits and you get paid two months after the month in which the sales occur.  You can track all your sales through Amazon’s online reports.

#3 It’s easy.  You can follow the online instructions for converting a Word document. Upload it.  Then use the available tools to preview how the book looks as an eBook.  Set your pricing, publish, and a couple of days later it shows up as available.  People worry about making mistakes, but don’t.  If you need to update something or change your pricing, you can do that at any time.  (NOTE: That doesn’t mean you don’t need to use the best editor you can afford before publication.)

#4 Through the free Kindle App, kindle books are available for almost every mobile or computing device.

If you’ve written a work of fiction or non-fiction, I encourage you to take the plunge and publish your work for the Amazon Kindle.

Best of luck to all of you who may be thinking about publishing your own works.

Richard

Once Dead January 16, 2013

As some of you may have noticed, my last post was mysteriously titled, WatfordElephant87654@gmail.com  .  I’m very pleased that so many of you have expressed interest in my upcoming Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory novel titled “Once Dead”.  I think it only appropriate that I give a hint to you, my blog and twitter followers here @RhoAgenda.  That email address is one used by Jack Gregory in Once Dead and in anticipation of that, I have taken the liberty of helping Jack set up that account.  Should you happen to send an email to that address, you will periodically find a different auto-reply that contains a new hint of just what is coming.  Enjoy.

Richard

WatfordElephant87654@gmail.com January 5, 2013

Happy New Year to all my fans out there.  I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are raring to get back to work.  I am.  You may be wondering about the title to this blog post … as well you should.  Let’s just say it’s a teaser to my upcoming Jack ‘The Ripper’ Gregory prequel “Once Dead” that I’m hard at work on.  I’ll be using that account to periodically feed little tidbits you’ll recognize in the story when the novel comes out.  As for the release schedule, that will be set by my publisher, but I’m aiming for my initial draft to be complete this spring and in the hands of my editor by then.  Hopefully the final edit and publication won’t take too long after that.  Enjoy.  Richard

Now on Twitter @RhoAgenda December 28, 2012

Happy New Year to all you Rho Agenda fans out there.  As I take a break from work on my Jack Gregory prequel “Once Dead” I thought I’d let you know that thanks to Sharky Laguana … @Sharkyl … I decided to launch my @RhoAgenda twitter account and link this blog to it.  Those of you who want to follow me on twitter will see a tweet anytime I post something new here.  Hope you all have a great 2013.

Richard

Orson Scott Card Reviews Immune: Book Two of The Rho Agenda December 6, 2012

I was pleased to have the great Orson Scott Card take the time to review the unabridged audiobook of Immune: Book Two of The Rho Agenda.  I repost the review here:

“A second volume that stands alone – brilliantly”

Richard Phillips has led such a life that he absolutely nails the science aspect of this new sci-fi classic – and yet also gets the action and the political aspects exactly right as well. Speaking as an old sci-fi writer myself, I know how hard it is to do what Phillips has done.

But here’s the clincher. Reading on my Nano, I began this book without remembering that this was volume two of the Rho Agenda series. Within a few chapters I realized that there must have been an earlier book. But so skillfully does Phillips handle exposition, and so clearly and deeply did he create his characters and their relationships, that I felt no need to stop and go back to listen to the first volume.

I WILL go back and listen to The Second Ship, now that I’ve read Immune to its brilliant and completely satisfying end – but only because this new writer is so skillful and this storyline is so inventive and moving that I don’t want to miss a chapter of it.

I promise you that Richard Phillips is going to be a popular and influential writer, period.

The Rho Agenda has young protagonists, and so the series could be viewed as YA (Young Adult) fiction. While the novel is brutally real, including sexual tension, there is NO explicit sex and nothing to keep you from handing this book to a mature and well-informed twelve-year-old. Yet it is also completely fulfilling for adult readers – as good as any science fiction being written today.

MacLeod Andrews gives a perfect performance. You forget you’re listening to a book. All you can think about is what’s happening and why. Moving back and forth among characters, he is always clear as to who’s talking – without “doing” voices in any obvious way. This is how audiobooks are supposed to be read.

Orson Scott Card

Jeff Carson Interview October 26, 2012

This past week I enjoyed the opportunity to sit down for a skype-cast interview with Jeff Carson on his Work From Anywhere blog.   Jeff, currently working from Italy, spent an hour asking me about my best-selling Rho Agenda trilogy and about how I found my initial success by self-publishing for the Amazon Kindle.  Here’s the link to the interview:

Jeff Carson Interviews Richard Phillips

Countdown to Launch September 29, 2012

Well it’s finally getting here.  As I sit here writing this, only a couple of days out from the launch of 47North’s edition of The Second Ship, it’s exciting to know that by November 20th, the entire Rho Agenda trilogy will finally be available to the general public.  I want to thank all of you fans who have given me a lot of support and encouragement along the way.  I also want to thank my early readers who willingly dug into the rough draft of Wormhole and provided feedback that helped me make it a better and more satisfying story.  I also want to thank my wonderful development editor, Jeff Vandermeer, whose expert hand helped refine all three Rho Agenda novels.  An editor with his level of expertise is worth his/her weight in gold.

For those of you who will be in Toronto between 1-4 November, I invite you to stop by the World Fantasy Convention where I will have a chance to meet and chat with fans.  I will also be at the New York Comicon in October although only in an unofficial capacity, since 47 North plans to focus its marketing efforts toward the launch of Wormhole in November, when the entire Rho Agenda Trilogy will be available.

For those of you who are audio book fans, I’m very excited to have Macleod Andrews signed up to do the narration of all three Rho Agenda novels and that the Audio CDs will be released at the same time that the novels go on sale.  I think you’ll appreciate the fact that they will be available in MP3 format which is much more convenient for copying to your portable devices than some of the restricted formats.

Once The Second Ship becomes available on October 2nd, I encourage everyone to take a couple of minutes and post your own reader impressions of The Rho Agenda under The Second Ship reader reviews.  It really does help others to find and experience the novels.  Finally, if you happen to see a review you don’t like or disagree with, please give it a NOT HELPFUL vote which helps keep that review out of the most helpful reviews list.

Thanks again.  Please check out my updated website …  www.SecondShip.com

Best,
Richard