He's here. Everyone, meet Sam.

Earlier this year I mentioned that I was launching a pen name. Well, blast off. That pen name is here.

Everyone, meet Sam Renner.

Sam is in his mid 40s, just like me

Sam is married to a wonderful woman and has three kids, just like me.

Sam has been writing for years, just like me.

The truth is, Sam's a brand. Sam's space opera. Sam's serials. Sam's special.

Is he completely necessary? Maybe not. The stuff I write under my real name is definitely scifi/speculative fiction, and so is the stuff I write under Sam's name. So why launch him at all?

First, I'm not going to tell him you asked that question. But the real reason I started writing under his name is that his stuff is just different enough from what I do under Jarrett Rush that I wasn't sure the audiences would cross over naturally.

Under Jarrett, I write nearer future scifi/cyberpunk and dystopian fiction. Under Sam, it's space opera and it's much more heavily serialized (yes, light cliffhangers). That's like two different flavors of ice cream. Yes, all ice cream is good, and I'll likely try whatever flavor you put in front of me (Within reason, of course. You can keep your vegetable flavored mess to yourself.)

But if I'm a fan of chocolate and you give me a choice between that and vanilla I'm not going to stray from what I love. That's how space opera readers are. They like what they like. So, instead of confusing my already somewhat slightly split audience who knows me as Jarrett Rush, it made more sense to launch a new name. The people who liked the space opera weren't likely to cross over to the cyberpunk stuff anyway, so there was no harm.

Plus, this gave me a chance to do things the right way. Self-publishing has changed quite a bit over the last few years. There are some best practices now that weren't around when I started doing this so many years ago. I'd like to give those a shot and see if I can't find a real audience this time. So, Sam gives me a shot at doing that.

Sam's first book is up on Amazon for pre-order now. It goes live on Aug. 12. I'm super proud of it, and I'm excited about where this series is going. I'll tell you more about that in a post early next week. In the meantime, go take a look at the new book. Read the blurb. Pre-order your copy.