Why I Haven’t Written A Truman Lord Book In A While

My Superhero Detective series featuring licensed superhero and private detective Truman Lord was the first series of superhero books I wrote. For those of you who haven't read the books (how dare you, btw), they are a mashup of the superhero fantasy and crime fiction genres. They were a lot of fun to write.

The problem is, they didn't sell that well. There are a lot of reasons for that, one of the principal ones being I didn't advertise them much when I released them.

But another reason, I thought, was that the superhero reading audience tended to be more into the traditional superhero story. That is, a young person somehow develops superpowers, and then sallies forth to fight the bad guy.

As a result, I put the Superhero Detective series on hiatus in 2016 and started writing the Omega Superhero series instead, which is more traditional superhero fare. Its main character, Theodore Conley, starts off as a teenager who suddenly develops superpowers. The books show him struggling to cope with not only his superpowers, but all the other things young people have to learn to deal with as they grow up--sex, love, loss, friendship, adulthood, adult responsibilities, etc.

I suppose I was right about what the superhero audience wants, because the Omega Superhero series outsells my Superhero Detective series by a lot. For example, Sentinels (the third book in the Omega series) made more money in the first two months of its release than the first Truman Lord book made in two years.

With all that said, I haven't given up on Truman. I love him as a character (that's one of the reasons he makes an appearance in Sentinels), and I think of new story ideas for him all the time. I have a Word document where I save them all for future reference.

Once I finish the projects I'm currently working on, maybe I'll return to Truman and we can all find out what he's been up to.