The Adventures of the Everyday Fangirl is happy to welcome guest blogger and author Greta van der Rol. She has graciously offered to share with us her new venture into Joel Stottlemire’s Dryden Experiment.
Thank you for visiting with us today Greta and now take it away!
Greta’s new Dryden Universe release
Thanks for having me, Patty.
Today I’d like to talk about my new venture into Joel Stottlemire’s Dryden Experiment.
One of the biggest problems independent authors face is marketing. How do we reach out to readers when there are so many more new titles being added to the ebook retailers every day? We’ve all heard about branding, but even so, one small author’s brand doesn’t really add a lot to visibility.
But what if you’re part of something much bigger?
What if you write for a franchise such as Star Trek or Star Wars? You immediately have a dedicated, enthusiastic audience which will at least look at your work. You also have back story, a pantheon of aliens, books full of space ships, and even established characters you can use in your own work. Sure, there are limits to what you can do, but many, many new characters, worlds and crises have been introduced through (say) the Star Wars Expanded Universe [Now Legends]. Such as the great Grand Admiral Thrawn.
It’s pretty hard to get into the Star Wars franchise, though. And while having an established environment gives opportunities, it also imposes restrictions.
Enter the Dryden Experiment. It’s a shared SF universe which uses Creative Commons 4.0 BY-SA copyright. In short, it means that while your story is yours, the characters, tech and so on can be used by others with proper attribution. It’s explained a little more at Dryden’s website. The BIG difference is that this franchise is starting from the bottom up. There’s no established fan base – but that gives lots of room for new societies, new tech, new aliens to be fitted into the billions of worlds and thousands of years of our Milky Way galaxy.
For my small part of the billions of worlds out there I have laid claim to the star cluster in Sagittarius which we call M24. My stories are set twenty thousand years in the future, at a time when humans have encountered aliens, and have established an Empire. Of course, there are splinter groups, and pirates – a rich tapestry for a thousand stories.
We’re hoping Dryden’s logo will become as well-known as Star Wars or Star Trek. If you’re interested in jumping on the band wagon early, please visit the Dryden website for more information.
Meanwhile, here’s my first contribution to the cause – The Demon’s Eye.
Krystina Merkos is reluctant to leave her home planet, but agrees it’s best that her father doesn’t have to concern himself with her safety while he fights a civil war. The journey on an Imperial warship becomes much more palatable when she discovers that Ben Paulsen, an old flame from her high school days, is a senior officer on the ship.
But it’s not all plain sailing. The captain wants to seduce her, Ben’s trying to keep his distance – and pirates want to sell her to the murderous sect waging war on her father.
When the frigate is attacked by a pirate fleet intent on capturing Krys, she faces impossible choices. If she hands herself over to the pirates, she will die a painful death. If she doesn’t, everyone will die.
Unless she and Ben can contrive a way out for them all.
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Thanks again Greta for introducing us to the Dryden Universe and what your first contribution to this is.
You can learn more about Greta and her releases by visiting her website, http://gretavanderrol.net/.
