First of all, welcome to the new website! As you will read below, launching this new site coincides with new directions for me as an author. My web master, editor, best friend and wife, Ann Marie Whicker, deserves the credit for building this website and putting up with my fastidiousness. I created the graphics, but she had the hard part of designing everything else and editing code. I am ecstatic about the new look!

I am also pleased to announce a new direction for Planet of Eden and the Planet series that will follow it. Publishing Eden as a novel has always been my plan. Indeed, my previous website was partly designed to grab the attention of potential literary agents and publishers. However, while spending 18 months playing the traditional publishing game, two things occurred to me. First, the traditional publishing model for fiction books is in decline. The recent pandemic and resulting lunacy did not help it. You’d think that people being forced to lock themselves in their homes would have led to more reading and more fiction books sales. Sadly, that didn’t happen. According to a recent report, “the preferences towards other entertainment means like videos, streaming platforms, gaming, and television have caused a decline in the people reading books and an increase in time spent on other means.” Will the publishing industry be able to fix this problem? Not likely…but I can (more on that later).

The second thing that occurred to me during my quest to find traditional publishing is that Planet of Eden is just too different for fickle, risk-averse, and agenda-focused firms to consider. Ironically, it’s the unconventional nature of the novel that you are going to love when you read it. Unfortunately, it won’t fit easily into the unremarkable formulas that seem to dominate book publishing nowadays.

That said, I’m sure I’ll be accused of being “just another disgruntled writer who couldn’t get published and is railing at the system.” You know me too well for that. Anyway, I certainly could continue trying to woo someone into publishing my awesome novel, and I’m sure I would eventually succeed. But why pursue entry into a dying system? Any success would be short lived, and I am in this for the long haul. No, I’d rather find a better way to get things done…and that’s just what I am going to do.

My friends, Planet of Eden is going to be published, but it will be done in a way that will rock the traditional book publishing industry. As I finish my final edit—now two-thirds done—I am assembling a team that will be helping me to present this entertaining story in completely new ways. Follow this Blog for updates, and do consider joining my Launch Team when I get my crowd sourcing site up and running. More to come. Project Eden continues!