As my old radio mentor said occasionally, "Better late than never, better never late."
Last month--February 15, to be exact--marked the 15th anniversary of my breakout thriller series, Jaclyn Johnson, codename Snapshot. Fifteen years has passed, and today I look fondly back.
She came to me in a dream, this leggy blonde wearing the stereotypical schoolgirl uniform complete with kilt, walking down the street with purpose. As my dream continued, my mind's eye watched as she entered a building. I didn't see anything else until she walked out... just before the building exploded. And as that happened, she didn't even flinch in reaction.
It made me wonder (as I shot out of bed and vaulted toward the writing room) what did that all mean?
In a word, it meant beaucoup readers, and opportunities to reach more readers than I could have possibly dreamed when I started out writing back in 2003. It was late 2009, and I spent pretty much the second half of 2010 and all of 2011 writing about this partially blind (partially sighted?) counterterrorism agent.
What you probably don't know is that I wrote the second book in the series, Rogue Agent, before I wrote Model Agent. By Halloween 2011, I had finished the third book, Double Agent, and as was the custom back then, I made Model Agent free on Smashwords--in essence, Apple iBooks and the small outlets that sold/lent eBooks--and had someone report the lower price to Amazon. It was sound practice: use the first book--Model--as a loss leader and see the sell-through through the next two books--and the following books--go high.
And for the most part, that happened. There were people who loved the books, and there were some who didn't. I wanted to create a series that was fun, escapist fiction that readers could enjoy. I threw in the James Bond-esque gadgets that helped Jaclyn achieve her goals and solve her missions. I made her strong and relentless, and in many respects, I made her vengeful and bloodthirsty. The way Jaclyn inflicts punishment is in no way realistic, but in a book of escapism, blurring the lines of what is real and the fantastical makes, in my opinion, good pulse-pounding reading.
Over the next decade or so, I got away from some parts that made Jaclyn special. I stopped using her "darkness bombs" and "ether bombs," but kept others that made her unstoppable, such as her bodysuit and the multiple holsters. I ensured that she would have a reliable, fancy vehicle that was a rolling cache of weaponry. I carried this through nine full length novels and a novella... and then I stopped.
In 2018, I started on a new path. I had other things I wanted to accomplish... but then the pandemic and buying a house threw a monkey wrench into everything. I managed to start a tenth Jaclyn novel back in 2023, but I haven't come close to finishing it. It's my goal to get another quarter of it finished within the next year; between a long research project, as well as covering games again, it's all about balance.
I also want to regain my audience and make it grow. I want to find readers who love James Bond and the gadgets. I want to find readers who love a heroine who has a lot going against her (she's disabled, for Christ's sake!), but overcomes and kicks ass. I want to find readers who want to binge read me on the beach, who want excitement in their books and not just the stale storytelling you'd get in New York-published books. This series, now 15 years old, is cinematic spy reading, and is FUN.
Again, I'm writing a new JJ. When will it get done? I don't know.
But the series is waiting for new readers like you.
Take a chance. You won't regret it.
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