"Enemies Foreign and Domestic" in 2nd Printing

[Travis McGee]

Hi Folks,

The first print run of my Second Amendment novel "Enemies Foreign and Domestic" (1,100 copies) is almost sold out. There are just enough left to supply Amazon for a couple of weeks until the 2nd edition is ready, I hope. The second printing will be for 2,000 books, and hopefully I'll keep doubling the orders for a while.

Anybody who doesn't know what this novel is about can read the first 20 chapters any time on the book's website. This is plenty to get the full flavor of the book, and understand one way we could lose our RKBA very quickly. Enemies Foreign and Domestic is not "X-rated" like Unintended Consequences, it is recommended for anyone teenage and up, men or women.

Meanwhile, I'm working on the sequel to EFAD, called "Domestic Ememies." It's going to be set five years after the end of this book, in a fictional America that is much further down the road to being a virtual police state. Some of the characters from EFAD will return in Domestic Enemies. I don't know when it will be finished, but I hope it takes less than the three years EFAD took me to write!

Matt

 

[Henry Bowman]

Just in time! I'm almost finished reading my autographed first edition and will need a couple of "loaner" copies.

 

[Balog]

"Meanwhile, I'm working on the sequel to EFAD, called "Domestic Ememies."

Will there be any amimals involved? Just kidding, I can't wait to get my copy.

 

[Owen]

Congrats!

owen

 

[ballistic gelatin]

very, very cool.

 

[Intune]

Well done! We knew him when!!!

 

[Greg L]

Keep the printings growing by leaps and bounds.

Greg

 

[garrettwc]

Very cool. Congrats on the success of the book.

I was hoping the significant other would make it a birthday present next month, but maybe I better get one before they become collectors items.

 

[R-Tex12]

Hey, Matt -

The check's on its way!

Rick

 

[Travis McGee]

Garrettwc: don't worry, 2,000 more books are coming in a few weeks. The only difference between the first and second editions will be no typos, and I learned to spell "airplane hangar!"

Matt

 

[erikm]

Nice to hear your writing is popular enough to warrant a second printing, Travis.

Do you have any updates on the E-book version you have mentioned? I'd like to get your book without paying extortionate (not on your part ) shipping costs.

Cheers,
ErikM

 

[Travis McGee]

ErikM: I think an Ebook version will be ready in about a month.
Matt

 

[Don Galt]

How is unintended consequences "X rated"? Or what is the distinction between the two you're drawing. I'm a little confused on your comment there.

FWIW, I enjoyed the sample chapters, and didn't know it was selling thru amazon. Will pick up a printed or ebook copy eventually, just working my way thru a stack of books previously bought.

 

[Travis McGee]

Dan Galt,
In UC, there is lots of raunchy sex that really had nothing to do with the plot. Bowman has a girlfriend who's an escaped stripper/mafia moll, who brings along her lesbo girlfriend for 3 ways with Bowman, and even pals of Bowman at the machine gun shoot. Not to mention brutal rapes described in great detail, murder by fellatio in the car in DC and so on.

Now to me, this greatly limited the potential reach of UC for two reasons. A high % of shooters are conservative and/or religious, and this kind or writing is a no-go. And even if they read it, they will NOT recommend it, or pass it on to many friends. This really kills the way a book spreads by word of mouth recommendation.

The other way the X-rated stuff hurt UC was by turning off almost any women who might have read it. In my experience (married, 8 sisters) women don't enjoy books where the women are just walking vaginas there for the pleasuring of the studly male heroes. That's why I not only refrained from explicit X-rated stuff, but went out of my way to create a strong and sympathetic female protagongist.

In my opinion, UC was a great book, but it could never reach beyond the RKBA "choir" and it couldn't even reach all of that group, losing the religious and women. My intention was to write a book that the shooting husband would give to his wife, who would give to her girlfriend at work, who would give to her husband, a shooter or a non-shooter. I want EFAD to be read beyond the "RKBA choir," so I felt like I wasn't losing much by skipping the 3 way sex with lesbo strippers.

Matt

 

[Don Gwinn]

Uh, Don, have you read Unintended Consequences?

Did you forget about the graphic straight, lesbian and three-way sex scenes between the various protagonists and sex slave/stripper/assassins?

Those scenes have long been an issue for some people, especially those who would like their children to read a novel about freedom and the gun culture. Mr. McGee is not sandbagging UC; he's just pointing out that if you have those concerns with UC then you might prefer his book.

 

[Orthonym]

I believe Mr. Ross said that his female readers tended to complain that there wasn't ENOUGH sex in the book. It's on his Web site.

 

[rock jock]

Someone please provide a review of this book. One of my biggest complaints about UC (in addition to the gratuitous sex) was that it was wayyyyy too long. Too much detail. Reminded me of Sum of All Fears where Clancy spends something like 100 pages going into the minutia of building a nuke. Ugghh! I have only a limited about of time and read an average of one novel every 2 years, which ideally, are about 350-450 pp long. Anyway, I don't want to sidetrack this thread but I would appreciate some comments from those that have read the entire book.

 

[AJ Dual]

On one hand I agree about the sex in UC, while not bothering me personally, some wasn't helpful in the political/RKBA sense, or furthering the message of the story.

Using rape to explain that bad things can happen to anyone and giving characters motivations was fine. And the stripper using sex as bait and a plot device to demonstrate how immoral some politicians were before being done away with was helpful, but the consensual stuff between the protaganists wasn't.

OTOH, as to turning off "conservatives", Heinlien had plenty of wacky stuff going on in his books, including a time-travelling immortal who does his own mother, cloned-twin daughters... Certainly didn't keep him out of the parthenon of fiction authors...

 

[Travis McGee]

Here is a link to ten Amazon reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...v=glance&s=books&n=507846&vi=customer-reviews

There are more on the reviews page on the www.enemiesforeignanddomestic.com website.

Matt

 

[Travis McGee]

Andrew W:

UC has sold 60,000 books in about 8 years, which is pretty good, but it has never had any impact beyond the already hard-core RKBA choir. The raunchy sex IMHO, along with 200 extra pages of "the history of gun culture" trivia really kept the book from reaching the wider audience. I can't tell you how many people have told me they'd like to give UC to a teenager or female friend, but would not because of the gratuitous raunchy sex. A similar number tell me the gun culture chapters put them to sleep and they had to skip ahead.

(Yes, many loved the sex and gun culture stuff in UC. I know it! But did they GAIN or LOSE more potential UC readers?)

As far as Henlein, when I have written 20 or 30 books, I'll be able to write about any damn thing I please also. But as a first time author, my marketing strategy has to be extremely judicious. Shooters are my first target niche audience, hence the snake/rifle cover. Many RKBA folks are conservative and or religious, and I would lose far more readers than I gained by including off-plot rauchy sex scenes. And 200 pages of "gun culture history" would totally lose the non-hard-core shooters.

I am hoping that EFAD reaches an eventual audience far beyond the already dedicated RKBA choir. That's the only way the book can move the RKBA debate in our favor! Not one paragraph in the book is accidental.

Matt

 

[Balog]

Matt: I agree about the sex. At times it seems more like he's living out his own wet dreams than trying to advance the story. I'm rather ambivalent about the history.

A question about EFAD I have is about the cover. Why an M-16/AR-15 variant?

 

[rock jock]

OK, good enough for me. I just ordered it. This will be my one novel for 2003.

 

[Travis McGee]

Balog:

Actually the cover art is by THR's own gun-fuciuos, so he picked the AR-15, not me. I saw his drawing years ago and always admired it, and arranged to use it on EFAD's cover.

But I think I would have picked that rifle anyway. An AK-47 would have brought in the whole Russian/commie/arab terrorist flavor. Other rifles (FALs etc) are not well known, and not American. An AR-15 is an "All American" battle rifle, which comes in full auto military and semi auto for civilians, so I think it's a perfect rifle example for this novel.

Matt

 

[Don Galt]

Yes, of course I've read Unintended Consequences... that's why I was confused by the comment. I'd give that book an R rating, not an X rating.

The only thing there that was more explicit than one would like was the Rape, but the rape was a necessary plot device that I think the book would have lost a lot for not having.

FWIW, my girlfriend liked it. (And by the way, women who have sex with men and women are not "lesbos" they are bisexual.. and they are not that uncommon.)

Didn't mean to start a debate between the two books, just didn't know what was X rated about UC, and now I know what you meant.

Regarding the review of history in UC, I really liked that aspect of it. My girlfriend, on the other hand didn't.

 

[Travis McGee]

Don Galt:

In my opinion explicit genital descriptions of 3 way sex gets an "X" rating. If you "show it" in a movie, it's X, if you describe it in a book, it's X.

I'm glad you liked UC, so did I. It's just that I feel the explicit off-plot gratuitious sex scenes and 200 pages of off-plot gun-lore lost Ross more readers than it gained him.

Matt