Category: Newsletter

Newsflash!

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Update: November 10, 2025:

Well, we actually made it and got Wings of Earth: Book Nine: Blood Cost up for preorder on schedule. We pulled the trigger on October 24th.

So where is it? (you might ask)

Uhm, that’s a really good question, and one we’ve been asking Amazon every day since we put it up for sale. It’s also one we haven’t gotten a good answer to yet. (They say it is a systemic problem affecting lots of authors who use their platform …. but that really doesn’t hold much air since we know several authors who HAVE managed to get their works published since we hit the button.) Needless to say, Ducky has been ripping her hair out for two weeks as she’s been slogging her way through the customer service people at Amazon.

See, here is how it normally works. We get the files all ready and upload them to Amazon and then we hit the publish button (that part of the process isn’t that complex). Then they take a day or two to review the files before they get it up on their site. Rarely does it take more than twenty-four hours to get through the process of them vetting a new book (we’ve done this lots of times and know how to make sure there aren’t any problems on our end). Once they have done that, the book goes live and everybody is happy.

But this time, our new book is hung somewhere in the digital machinery, and we are powerless to move it forward. the Zon has assigned it a product number (it’s called an AISN) but they haven’t put it up yet. We don’t know why, and their tech support people haven’t given us any answers other than to say that we’re not alone with this problem. So, we’re stuck in limbo waiting for Amazon to figure out what the hell is going on and get the damn book up on their site. (We can’t even back out of the process and start over, since that would tangle up our ability to publish future books to Amazon.)

So, I just want you to know, we did our part, and we’re waiting for an impossibly big company to recognize their responsibility and do its part. It is frustrating, but it is the nature of the publishing business (at least when we have to deal with a ponderously slow behemoth like the Zon). Hopefully, they’ll get it figured out soon.

I promise to keep you all updated as things progress, but in the meantime, here is a preview of the cover for the new book. Hope you like it.

Thank you all so much for your patience.

 

I’m back in the seat again with a bunch of new stuff happening. It feels good to be at my desk after such a long time away. I’m not going to bore everybody with the details about what took me away from here for so long, but let’s just say that being diagnosed with cancer is a big step up from what the last few years have been. (Yeah, that happened too)

I’m feeling pretty good now, and I have been busy writing, even though I haven’t been online. I’ve finished (as in completely written) the final EIGHT books in the Wings of Earth series, and once we get through some business house-cleaning, we’re going to be starting to release them (There are over 700,000 words in the new books, and we’re starting to work through the process of editing and formatting).

We’re also updating all the old covers with new artwork, so keep an eye out for them too (Some of them are already up on Amazon and the other retailers if you want to check them out… yep, we finally made the commitment to go wide in our marketing, which means that soon you’ll be able to find my books everywhere).

But if you’ve already picked them up, I’ve included some of the new artwork here so you can take a quick peek at a few of them.

We’re going to be updating everything on the website over the next several weeks too. If you want to hang out and watch the construction, you can keep up on what’s happening.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest issues we’re trying to fix is that my newsletter list has disappeared entirely. If you were on it, you should probably sign up again if you want us to keep you up to date. It’s another long story, but suffice it to say, a mailing list does not age well… kind of like me, I guess.

One last thing to mention. For those of you on the newsletter (or who get back on it by signing up) one of the novels I finished during my time away is another prequel to the Wings of Earth series that takes place just before the Olympus Dawn arrives at Starlight in Book One.  Shadetree Witness gives a bit of background on what happened to the missing colony (without spoiling anything for those of you who haven’t read the whole series… and it also gives some important clues for those of you who have).

Right now, our plan is to make Shadetree Witness available exclusively as a gift for our newsletter subscribers. so resubscribe and then watch for that free book coming soon.

My newsletters will be starting again in August, and we will be releasing Wings of Earth: Book Nine: Blood Cost in October.

Thanks for hanging in with me.

We’ll talk more soon,

9-3-2020 Newsletter – A Drive-by Squashing? Yeah, it’s a thing.

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Greetings from Mars.

Or not… it’s actually been a lot warmer outside than normal (in the upper seventies this week).

Lots going on around here as we are harvesting a crap ton of produce from our garden (that is a real unit of measure… like a buttload, but much bigger). At this point we’re considering starting to do drive by squashings… where we see a neighbor’s car with the windows down and drop a bag of squash in on the seat then run away. (Okay, don’t judge… the nearest village is a small town, people do leave their windows down, and stranger things have been known to happen.)

Anyway, I’ve been writing like a fiend for the last few weeks, so you should be seeing a lot of new novels in the Wings of Earth Series start to drop over the next several months. And while I’m talking about WoE, I put up a chapter from a new novella in that Universe on my blog. You can check it out below and maybe give me some feedback …

For those of you who haven’t read the prequel trilogy to Wings of Earth (The Shan Takhu Legacy) the box set is currently on a countdown deal on Amazon and you can pick it up for 99 CENTS (until September 7th… jump on it now!).

So, I need to get back to wording and will talk to you soon.

Dream well, stay safe and remember not to leave your windows down in a small town… unless you like random zucchini deposits in your car (oh, that sounds bad).
Eric

I need a favor

This is the first chapter from my upcoming novella, Scatter the Winds. It’s a stand alone story in the Wings of Earth Universe, and is set between the end of the Shan Takhu Legacy and the beginning of Echoes of Starlight. This story should be a great entry point to both series whether or not you’ve read either of them.

I will be publishing Scatter the Winds in late September and it will go out FOR FREE to my VIP subscribers before it’s available anywhere else (you can sign up to be a VIP here).

Please give it a read and send me your feedback.

Thanks!

Eric

Chapter One

“All hands report to stations. Code Red. This is not a drill. ExO and Payload Steward report to Operations. All hands report to stations. Code Red.” Captain Valleri’s voice echoed across the mess hall.

“What’s a Code Red?” asked Kylla Torrance, jumping up to follow the ExO out past stunned crew and passengers, who scrambled down the hallway as if demons were chewing on their heels.

Code Red? That can’t be good.

The ExO hurled herself down the corridor, “Raiders,” she hissed over her shoulder.

Tall, and built like an overly engineered wall of muscle, Ayanna Santore moved with surprising agility, rebounding off a bulkhead as she took the stairs, three at a time to reach the Operations Center five flights above the Commons. By the time the two women leapt out onto the deck, Ayanna was a dozen strides ahead of Kylla.

The floor plating lurched upward as the main drive cut out and they were back in normal space. Even with her limited experience in interstellar spaceflight, Kylla recognized the feel of the field collapsing.

That obviously wasn’t a normal drop into sub-light.

Here’s something else for you to read

This book is from an author colleague of mine. It looks really good but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Britain cut itself off for years. Now it’s colonising alien worlds… illegally.

The year is 2075. Britain has isolated itself from the other nations of planet Earth for decades. But now a first attempt at illegally colonising a forbidden alien world has gone horribly wrong, threatening to ignite an interstellar war.

When Harper Mulgrew and her fellow survivors discover a terrifying message in the sand of Proxima B, they must defend themselves from hostile natives and a traitor within as they struggle to establish Britain’s presence in a new star system.

Sign up for my VIP list for a chance to join my review team and get advance review copies of upcoming releases.
Click the link above or just reply to this newsletter and let me know you want to be a VIP.

8-6-2020 Newsletter

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Hello from Mars,

It’s been a busy couple weeks up on the mountain, with several new projects all happening at once. On top of dodging monsoon hailstorms while we start to harvest our early veggies from the garden, and trying to wage a war against a demonic gopher with designs on our tomatoes, we’ve moved all our communications over to a new email server. (Hopefully, you are still getting this. If not, then I guess I am winking in the dark.)

I’ve finally relaunched my website and blog (Really. Honest). I know I’ve said that before, but I’m posting a couple things a week there and think I’m starting to actually get some lift. For some reason, despite the fact that I can pound out a novel in a month, I struggle with writing a blog (there is a post on there about that in fact). But, since I’ve managed to stay after it for a month now, I think I’m getting the hang of it.

You can check it out at http://EricMichaelCraig.com. Give me some feedback, even if it’s just to say, “Hello, I’m here.” (I even put an email form on there that goes directly to MY inbox to make it easy.)

Writers love knowing that people are reading what they’re doing … I know I do.

I’m also running a free promo on Legacy of Pandora for the 6th and 7th of August so I decided to put a little background timeline that comes before Pandora on the site too.

You might want to give it a looksee, even if you’ve already read the prequel trilogy. There will probably be some stuff in there that gives a deeper insight into the history that got humanity from here to there.

Anyway, I think that’s all for now.

Dream well. Stay safe. And wish me luck against the gopher from hell.

Eric

PS: Just because spaceships are so cool… here is one by an artist I know. Dex Craig. 

Legacy of Pandora FREE August 6 & 7

Alone beyond the edge of Civilization, the crew of the Jakob Waltz makes a discovery that will alter the course of history. A secret, buried at the edge of the solar system, which is the key to changing everything.

 

But only if Humanity can survive until the truth gets out.

If you haven’t read the prequels to Wings of Earth yet, why not?? Now is the perfect time to get book one of the trilogy. It’s FREE for two days.

Sign up for my VIP list for a chance to join my review team and get advance review copies of upcoming releases.
Send me an email or just reply to this newsletter and let me know you want to be a VIP.

 

7-15-2020 Newsletter

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6-20-2020 Newsletter

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