Peace Love Books with Mike Martinez

Today’s Peace, Love, Books post is from Michael J. Martinez, author of the Daedalus trilogy of Napoleonic era space opera novels and MJ-12: Inception, a paranormal Cold War thriller coming out this September in hardcover. (Yes, he mixes genres. A lot.) Mike can be found online and on Twitter. He is easily bribed with craft beer.

In retrospect, the first hint that I would have an awesome time at Phoenix Comicon was when Nathan slapped down all three of my books on my signing table.

I was at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Ariz., with at least a dozen other SF/F authors, some of whom were relatively new like me… and some of whom had much longer lines for autographs than I did. (To be fair, my line maxed out at three.)

Then along comes Nathan wearing a backpack bulging with books – and my Daedalus trilogy in his hands. “I have them all in e-book, but I had to get them in print so you could sign them because I liked them so much,” he said.

And I like you, Nathan! You are a fine, fine human being!

I hope I didn’t say that out loud, but I might have. It got a bit fuzzy after that. Endorphins, you know.

So I have fans. They are not perhaps legion, but I think at this point, they can be counted on more than my fingers and toes. They are kind with their words and generous with their time in telling their friends and family about the books they love – my books. How can you not love that?

Fans are writer-fuel. I swear, Nathan himself probably gave me enough juice to write my next book all by his lonesome. And there were other fans at Phoenix Comicon as well, and others at DragonCon and World Fantasy and other gatherings. Fans drop me e-mails, send some love over Twitter, comment on my blog.

I didn’t expect fans when my first book, The Daedalus Incident, landed back in August of 2013. I knew it was theoretically possible to have fans, as many writers do, but I was just pleased to see the book on a shelf at Barnes & Noble. I didn’t plan on fans.

But I have them. And I swear, they’re all fine, fine human beings.

So thank you, guys. Thanks for the kindness and the inspiration and the writer-fuel.

And you know what? I’m gonna pass some of that love along too. Because while I’m an author, I’m also a fan of other authors. So I’m gonna fanboy here and tell you to check out folks like Stefan Bachmann, Robert Jackson Bennett, Beth Cato, Wesley Chu, Delilah S. Dawson, Kevin Hearne, Jason Hough, Kameron Hurley, Nnedi Okorafor, Cherie Priest, Karina Sumner-Smith, Molly Tanzer, Tom Toner, Michael R. Underwood, Chuck Wendig and Django Wexler… to name a few.

Got a favorite author? Tell them. I promise you it’ll make their day. And if you want to make their week, tell all your friends about them too. Share the love!