Thanks to everyone
who purchased DROP OUT, the book continues to affect lives. For those of you who
don’t know the origins of the story and its message, I thought I’d share a portion
of a biography interview I did when the book was published. Then please decide
if it is right for you.
I’ve been a
thriller, sci-fi writer for more than twenty years and over that span of time
my books garnered the attention of numerous literary agents and publishers. In
2005, I signed with a major literary agent from a major NY literary agency. The
agency had sold hundreds of books and film rights, some for seven figures. I
was very excited to say the least.
My agent loved all
six (I now have ten) of my books and like any good agent edited and provided free
advice to make the stories stronger and more saleable. We had several exciting
close-call deals and a few heart-racing moments while waiting for offers. My
agent encouraged me to keep writing and truly believed that one day I’d hit it
big.
Then something
happened that sent my world into an unrecoverable tailspin; a close friend was
diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Here’s the kicker… he was given just
two weeks to live! He went from his nine-to-five life, to knowing he had limited
amount of time left. Having no close family, no insurance, and no money for
treatment, he was left with little option except to die alone in his apartment.
It is then that my wife decided to hospice him. I wholly supported her.
It was an
incredibly powerful experience watching as my friend’s life slipped away and
how he dealt with it psychologically as the physicality got worse. Eight days
after his initial diagnosis he was dead. I pulled the bed sheet over his head.
I’ve never been the same since.
As a writer, I
wanted to capture something of the moment and relay what I experienced watching
and talking with a lucid person as their life was ending. Having never written
literary fiction, I suddenly found myself cemented in front of my computer in
the throes of typing DROP OUT.
When I sent the
completed manuscript off to my agent, he was extremely disappointed that I had
gone this literary route and had no intentions of ever trying to sell the book.
I had no intentions of letting the book sit in a drawer, so after a few emails
and telephone calls to the agency we decided to end our nearly four year
partnership. I published the ebook version of DROP OUT a month later not
expecting much to come of it. Then something amazing happened…
