If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes at least that many people to nurture a book from a vague idea to a finished product sitting on the shelf of your local bookstore. And since this book has two authors, the number of people we need to thank totals something approaching a small town.
We’ll do our best.
Although we’re both graduates of the United States Naval Academy and former US Navy officers, we only met in 2013 at an alumni breakfast event in Minneapolis. We struck up a friendship, and a few months later, we were asked to speak to the local Minnesota chapter of the USNA Parent’s Association about careers post-graduation from Annapolis. At the time, David had recently left his corporate job to write science fiction full-time and J. R. was retired from a twenty-one-year career as a naval intelligence officer. After hearing our dueling biographies, one of the parents raised his hand and suggested we write a book together.
Our first thank-you goes out to the Naval Academy parent who unknowingly launched two writing careers.
For our first two novels, Weapons of Mass Deception and Jihadi Apprentice, released in 2015 and 2016, we didn’t even bother looking for an agent. Instead, we crowdfunded and independently published them to build a readership. Our first forays into publishing yielded modest results. We sold a few thousand copies and garnered dozens of kind reviews that compared our storytelling to “early Clancy,” which is the highest possible praise, in our opinion.
Our second thank-you is for all those early supporters. They are too numerous to list here, but if you can find a print edition of our early novels, we thanked them all by name.
Along our path in independent publishing, we worked with some true professionals to produce the best possible work product in all forms: digital, hardcover, paperback, and audio. Thanks to Sarah Kolb-Williams, our editor; Steven Novak for his fabulous covers; John Hamilton, fellow writer and our photographer; audiobook narrators Aimee Kuzenski and Clay Lomakayu, and our team of technical experts and beta/advance readers: Jennifer Schumacher, Chris Pourteau, Pete and Cami Bruns, Maria Lenartowicz, Doug Baden (West Point ’88), Dr. James Densley, Charly Salonius-Pasternak, Jackie Olson, Ed Wallin, Shena Crowe, Shemi Hart, Will Swardstrom, Caleb Lang, Bob Mayer (West Point ’81), and Steve Konkoly (USNA ’93).
There are a few local champions who really assisted us in our early marketing efforts. These include fellow USNA grads Chip Sharratt (’74), Alex Plechash (’75), and Chris Bentley (’79), as well as Mike Farley (West Point ’88). Also, a big thanks to WCCO radio hosts Roshini Rajkumar and Al Malmberg.
Before we even finished writing the novel that eventually became Rules of Engagement, we decided to see if we could interest a major publishing house in our little story. Once again, our connection to the US Naval Academy paid off as fellow author Rick Campbell introduced us to his agent, John Talbot of the Talbot Fortune Agency.
John had a plan for us from the moment we signed with him, and he worked tirelessly to get our manuscript in front of the right editors. To our good fortune, Keith Kahla, editor at St. Martin’s Press, saw a diamond in the rough and gave us this chance.
We want to especially thank John and Keith for all the support they’ve given us as we worked through the final draft of Rules of Engagement.
And that brings us to family, the center of our village of thanks. For David, that includes parents Dick and Regina Bruns, sister Jenny and brother Pete, daughter Cate, and son Alex, who suffered through shooting and producing videos for two Kickstarter campaigns. J. R. would like to thank his mother Pam, brother Doug, and sister-in-law Jackie.
Finally, our wives gave us lots of room to pursue this writing dream and we are grateful beyond words to have their support. All the hours spent in story meetings, research, writing, editing, and everything else—it’s finally paid off.
Thank you, Christine and Melissa.
If you’ve read this far, the role that the US Navy has played in our lives is obvious. We are privileged to have attended the finest service academy in the world and have served our country in the finest navy on the planet. It is no exaggeration to say that without the Naval Academy, this book would not exist.