Writing the End of the World

What does military service teach you about leadership, survival, and the decisions people make when the world falls apart?

In this episode of After the Fall, I sit down with U.S. Army Reserve veteran and author Eric Smith, creator of The Last Regiment series. Eric shares how his military background influences his post-apocalyptic fiction, from realistic tactics and crisis leadership to the human cost of conflict and the resilience of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances.

We discuss why post-apocalyptic stories continue to resonate with readers, how military experience shapes authentic storytelling, and the challenges of building a readership as an independent author in today's crowded publishing landscape.

Whether you're a fan of military thrillers, post-apocalyptic fiction, preparedness, or the writing craft itself, this conversation offers a fascinating look at what it means to write believable stories about the end of the world.

Topics discussed:

•  Military experience and realistic storytelling 
•  Leadership during crisis and collapse 
•  The human side of war and survival 
•  Why readers love post-apocalyptic fiction 
•  Independent publishing and audience building 
•  The inspiration behind The Last Regiment

Guest: Eric Smith, author of The Last Regiment series

Connect with Eric:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheLastRegimentSeries

I would probably title the episode:

Writing the End of the World with Eric Smith | Military Experience, Leadership, and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

What happens when a military veteran turns his experience with leadership, service, and crisis into stories about survival after the end of the world? Tonight, I'm joined by Eric Smith. He's the creator of The Last Regiment. Eric is a U.S. Army Reserve veteran and a member of both the VFW and the American Legion, and a writer whose novels explore biological threats, military strategy, and the difficult choices people face when society begins to unravel. So we'll talk about the influence of military experience on fiction, the growing popularity of post-apocalyptic storytelling, and what it takes to build a readership as an independent author in today's publishing landscape. This is after the fall.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

The word apocalypse doesn't mean the end of the world. In the original Greek, it meant something very different. It meant a revelation.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

So hi, Eric. Glad to see you tonight. Glad you're on the show. Welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Well, thanks for having me. I'm really excited about this opportunity to tell about my story and my life experiences. So my name's Eric Smith. I'm a U.S. Army Reserve veteran from Indiana. I'm a member of the American Legion. In fact, I'm a I work at national headquarters in downtown Indianapolis for the American Legion. I'm the Central Region Liaison. I'm also a life member of the VFW, and I'm currently attending Purdue Global Law School. I'm also the author of the Last Regiment series. It's a military post-apocalyptic thriller. It's a series that combines realistic military action with stories about survival, leadership, and the human cost of war.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Nice. Nice. How how did so you were in the reserves? How did you get started in the reserves? Let's go back a little bit. Let's talk about younger Eric. How did how did you make the decision and when did you make the decision to go in the military?

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Okay, so well, I was always in sports throughout school. Always played football, varsity football. I wrestled. I ran varsity track. And my grandfather was a Navy veteran who served in World War II. My uncle was a Vietnam veteran who served in the Army. I had a fear of sharks drowning. So being around those individuals in my life, I decided I was going to join the military. Of course, I, you know, with that fear of sharks and drowning, I was in no way gonna join the Navy. So I decided to join forces with my uncle, joined the Army. I did the late entry program in high school and uh went to basic training and AIT in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, right after graduation. I did two years after duty because I had a two by six contract and I finished up the rest of the time in the reserves. I was able to get my membership to the VFW through deployment training, not combat deployment, but deployment for training in South Korea in both in 99 and 2000, where I did a lot of war exercises. What happens if North Korea invades the South, that type of thing, and what are our plans, how are we going to respond? Uh we conceded that we would lose Seoul, South Korea. So our primary mission was to evacuate, evacuate, counterattack. I worked on some evacuation teams uh as part of my training there. So that was a lot of fun. We got to drive a lot of different vehicles, including the military vehicles, civilian vehicles, anything that might happen in an attack scenario. So those things were pretty realistic and cool for me. And I ended up getting out in 2004 is when my service contract expired. Uh, I didn't decide to re-enlist, just wanted to try other things in life.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

That's really cool that you were doing some uh some disaster planning, some sort of evacuation planning in Seoul. That's interesting that they sort of conceded that they were gonna lose Seoul and just planned around that. That's that's neat. I I interviewed a guy, uh actually one of the first guys I had on this podcast. He's an Australian in the Australian Army, he's a police officer over there now, and his novel is about China invading Australia. And it's funny, like from an American's perspective, we don't always think about how other countries see an invasion or how other countries imagine, you know, what what their struggles are, because we don't think about Korea invading here, we don't think about China invading here, but it's it's real to those folks, right? I imagine that's a pretty real thing to people in South Korea. It's a constant concern.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yeah, absolutely absolutely. And uh you you could have a lot of conversations, especially with the South Korean regular army. Uh we got to work hand in hand with those individuals, and you'd hear a lot of their stories, and uh, they're really appreciative of our presence there for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Very neat. Okay, so so fast forward. So we got out of the we got out of the army in 2004, and at some point along the way, you decided that you wanted to write post-apocalyptic fiction, right? It was was that always a dream of yours? Did you always want to be a writer, or did it kind of come on you later? How how did that work?

SPEAKER_02 4:54

I've always wanted to be an author. And in fact, back in 2016, I actually published my first book. It was a self-help legal form book. So it went over everything, lawsuits here in Indiana State Courts. It covered First Amendment, Eighth Amendment, Fourth Amendment, those type of constitutional rights that you might encounter and I don't know. I I wanted to put together realism with my military experience, and I've always wondered what would happen if you know, victory, we obtain victory, but then there's a cost factor to it. Um there's a lot of questions that I wanted to cover um with my military experiences, like how would leadership react under certain situations, and what would be the realistic responses to those situations. Um so I've always had a passion for writing and just working back in the American Legion, get involved in the VFW inspired um these type of books to be written. And I just thought they would be a really fun thing to do. So I just went at it. I was able to write my first two books in the series. Uh book one is No Mercy. It obviously starts the beginning of everything, and it leads into book two, and I had those books already written. So I published No Mercy in late March and then did a fast launch with book two uh like a week later. From that time, I I already had about I already had about half of Plague Front written. So I just finished that not too long ago, and I'm releasing book three Plague Front in uh on June 26th. So I just I wanted to get out there. I I I really enjoyed the series. I enjoy writing the series. Um so it's just it it was a good experience for me, and I'm I'm I'm glad that I was able to bring my military experiences and education into it and just create something fun for people.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

So it's been a really neat experience for me too, because I just published back in February, so I uh you know I had a similar experience, but I I definitely did not have my second book. I'm about halfway through my second book writing right now, so hats off for you uh you haven't. That's pretty cool. It would be nice to have them back to back to back like that, just to be able to get them just that continuity. And I know one of the things that people have told me is that people tend readers tend not to trust you until you have at least a couple books out. So I think that that's probably really good for your momentum. That's very cool. Yeah. Yeah, neat. Where did the idea for last regiment come from? Where did it, was there something specific that that sort of prompted it, or did you just sort of sort of brainstorm it? How where did it come from?

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Well, I've always enjoyed stories in military history. So over time I began asking myself, like, what would happen if America faced a catastrophic invasion and ordinary people had to rise to the challenge? That idea eventually became the last regiment, and what started a single story grew into an entire series. Um, so what is the last regiment about? It's obviously a military post-apocalyptic thriller series, um, and it's just about ordinary Americans forced to survive after a devastating invasion. In this book, it's a realistic thing that could happen. North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran all form an alliance. That realistically could happen today. Um, a lot of those countries do not like the U.S. in English-speaking countries. You see a lot of China, you know, heavy presence near Australia, along their coastal territories and that type of thing in the oceans. You see their presence in the Philippines trying to, you know, do things over there. So it's just something that could realistically happen. And while there are battles and military action, the series is really about leadership, sacrifice, resilience, and the human cost of war.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

That's one of the things that I like about the post-apocalyptic genre is that it's almost like it's this blank slate, and people tend to think it's about the end of the world. You know, why are you why do you want the world to end? And it's it's not like that, right? It's a you're really just writing human stories. You're writing how do we react when all the guardrails that we live in in modern society, when they're pulled away, you're left with what you really are, right? And and and how do we react to that? So I think that's cool. Yeah. Why do you think the post-apocalyptic genre is so powerful today? You know, you have the Walking Dead, you have all the books that are out there, you have all the just why do you what what do you think it is about post-apocalyptic writing and media that resonates so so deeply with people today?

SPEAKER_02 9:36

I think mainly the reason why people enjoy those. One, they're just entertaining. Everybody loves the what-ifs. Like, if this happened, how would we survive? It's it's something you can talk about, spend time with, and it potentially use that information to survive, you know, for this example, war invasion. Uh, there's some things that, you know, you might read in a book and, like, wow, I remember that. I wonder if this would work. And like what I was getting into with the main character, Raven Bear, his name is Alex Michaels, but he becomes known as Raven Bear in the book. This guy is just those doomsday preppers. He comes from a military family. His father and grandfather were in the Navy. They leave him with a bunch of money, and being the guy is calling paranoid, call him whatever, but he builds these bonkers. He's one of the he's one of those guys, I want to be prepared for any situation, the what if guy. So he has fun with it, makes something of it, and it turns out his bonkers end up saving a lot of people. And because he's the owner of these bunkers, he becomes the de facto leader. So he's in a group of survivors, soldiers of lost units, and they eventually turn what is known or what becomes known as the last regiment. So it's pretty interesting to see his story, just a regular guy. Yeah, he has that military background with his family and familiarity with that, but he's just a regular guy wanting to be prepared. And hello, he's prepared, and when stuff comes his way in a negative fashion, he's there to step up. And he goes by ten rules, too, and he calls them the the ten deadly sins. And in the book, it lists each rule and it explains why that is a rule for him. So throughout the series, he's always thinking of these ten rules and how he's going to use them to win, survive, and just move on from any threat. So it's pretty interesting how he takes these rules, and that could be realistic rules for anybody. For example, rule two, better to be safe than sorry. I think a lot of people can resonate with that. Yeah, I'd rather be safe than sorry, kind of like how people, I'd rather have a gun and not need it versus needing a gun and not have you know not having it thing. So a lot of people understand these rules and they could realistically use them as a survival guide in some kind of post-apocalyptic, you know, nightmare. And I I think that's why a lot of people really like those genres. You know, I know probably the Walking Dead stuff, the zombies probably couldn't happen, but you never know. It's still fun to talk about. Uh, I just think people love survival stories. You know, we have the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, where we learn different things to survive in the wilderness. I think people they're they have so much training, they want to be able to use that training somehow, make a difference, help, help out, survive. And I Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

No, I I agree. I agree. I think it's becoming more popular because it's realistic, right? People are actually concerned about they look around the world and they see these problems out here and they realize that it's there's so many ways that it can happen. We really we live probably closer to the edge of disaster than most people are willing to accept. I read a really good book recently by uh Annie, I think it's Annie Jacobitson. I might say that wrong. It might be Annie Jacobson, but it's nuclear war is the name of the book, and it just takes you through everything that is uh you know possible out there in terms of how how close we live to nuclear war every day, and most people don't understand that. So, yeah, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

And just to end on that, you know, po post-apocalyptic fish fiction, I don't think it's really about the end of the world necessarily. It's about human nature, and when everything's stripped away, you discover who people really are. And I think that's what fascinates not only me, but other people as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you're exactly right. I think you're spot on. I do uh when I when I introduce this show, it's funny my introduction talks about the word apocalypse, and it says, you know, that it's it you people tend to think that it's about the end of the world, but it's not. The word apocalypse originally meant a revelation, right? It's a revelation about who we are as as people and a revelation about things we don't know already. So I I think that's really cool. Do you align yourself? I always hate to use the word prepper when I talk to people because some people kind of I don't know, it's sometimes it has a negative connotation to it. But do you consider yourself a prepper? Are you preparedness-minded? Do you sort of do that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Kind of the not to the extreme, but as the main character reading. Uh, I have some things ready as a contingency plan, but I'm not hoarding or stockpiling, you know, ammunition or anything like that. Um, I do have a contingency plan, though. If something really happened, what would I do? Uh so I I have things like that in in mind, but nothing to the extreme that Raven Bear has done, who spent millions of dollars building these underground bunkers stocked with rations, supplies, medical kits. I mean, you the whole 10 yards, this guy's got it. You know, it was just fun putting that together.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah, I think a lot of people fall into that category where they, you know, we we understand that something bad can happen. And I, you know, I'm I'm I I like to think that I'm pretty prepared, but I I don't know. You know, it's uh it's an ongoing process. It's a constant sort of process of reevaluating your plans and reevaluating your stockpiles and thinking about what you do and don't have. I I talk a lot. It's interesting that your character has 10 rules because I I I have another book. It's a it's a uh it's a nonfiction book, and it's called By Endurance We Conquer, and it follows Aaron Ernest Shackleton through the uh Antarctic, and it's about ten principles, right? It's about it's about survival mindset and being able to be prepared for hard things. And that that's sort of what it is, right? It's like having those rules so that when you come up against bad things that you're you're prepared for them in your mind. I think a lot of people tend not to be as ready as they think they are. So yeah, that's cool. Very neat stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

That's why I think training is so important too, because if you're training to do certain things, like for example, I was a certified combat lifesaver. I got certified in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Um, and you're doing these things repetitively, you're put under pressure situations, and you're just constantly training, training, training over and over, repeat, over and over, repeat, oh, you know, over and over again. It's just constant. And I think training is so important and it can help people prepare. So if you have certain training, use that in any survival situation.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I agree completely. I had a gentleman on last week that was all of our two weeks ago that was all about training. That's what he does. He has a medical group where he trains for, you know, down in North Carolina, where he basically trains people to respond to disasters and, you know, CPR classes and the regular things, but also the, you know, the the deeper sort of tracking and and that sort of stuff. So I agree a hundred percent. I went to Mountain Readiness in North Carolina a few months or a month or so ago, and it was fantastic. Like all the classes and the stuff that you could take and the just the people that you could network with. I it was it was a great, great, great conference. So tell me about independent publishing and your writing process. Like how how did how did I I know independent publishing is definitely a a unique thing, and I think people out there tend to think that it's maybe easier than it really is because it sounds glamorous, right? I'm gonna be an indie author and I'm gonna write my own book and I'm gonna publish it. But I once we go through it, we we find that there's just a lot of hard work involved. How how did you experience that and what were some of the lessons you learned through that process?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

I wanted to think to myself, okay, well, if I write these books, what makes my books different than other books? So I had a mindset, okay, I'm gonna try to balance realism with entertainment. And I wanted readers to take, you know, to care about the people as much as the battles. The heroes are superheroes of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. So that was my first thing. And then I've, you know, I Googled, did research like anybody else. How could I make my stories a real thing? How could I publish a book? And obviously, Amazon has a platform uh through Kindle Puppeting. Uh, it's a great platform. I really like it. They make it super easy, super easy to do that. So, with that platform, I now had a way in. And a lot of people think, oh, you know, you have to be super rich, you have to have a literary agent. Those things might help. And in some cases, they do help, especially if you want to get to the bigger level. Yeah, you may need a literary agent. But if you're starting off and you just care about getting your story out there, and if it's a good story, share it with people. And so I had that opportunity, and it's a learning process. Um, you are gonna make errors, and that's okay. Uh, just factor that in. Don't be frustrated by um somebody who is wanting to write a book series like me. I would I would probably give him this advice, you know, don't wait for perfect conditions to start writing. Learn constantly, accept setbacks, you know, as part of the process. And don't give up on your story. Get it out there, you know, you know your story, try to perfect it as much as you can. Make sure you insert page breaks at the end of each chapter that's really important for your formatting, especially if you're gonna put in your Word document with a platform like Kindle Publishing. And as long as you do that, you can create it basically pretty simply and then set your pricing and get it out there. Now, I think the hardest thing about being a self-publisher, being a one-man show is the market. You can have a great story all day long, but if people don't know about it, what's the point? So you have to keep that in mind as well. You're gonna have to work, you're gonna have to take you're gonna have to wear many hats in this process. You're gonna have to be a YouTuber, a TikToker, you know, somebody on LinkedIn, somebody on Facebook. You're gonna have to be comfortable with public speaking because what I've also done, in addition to creating YouTube, TikTok, and that to get my story out there. I've done events at bookstores. Um, I have them coming up at the VA Hospital in Indianapolis. I did one at the American Legion Post in Beach Grove. I did one at a car show, and you'll get sales in those events as well, and you'll get people to engage with you. So you gotta wear a lot of hats. You can't just oh, it's on Amazon and yeah, whatever. It's you're not gonna sell books like that, unfortunately. It's not that easy. It takes a lot of work. I've even gone as far as um sending information to Shark Tank trying to get some help with the series. And the other thing that when you're when you're doing this, you're gonna be able to collaborate with people such like you. Um, also with Jade Matthew, who's a musician who's writing songs for the Last Regiment series. So collaborations are important. Speaking with people, sharing a story, making people know that hey, you are real, and you're just uh somebody that's really inspirational and excited about their writing, and they want to get the story out there, they want to share it with you. And if people take that in, you're gonna be successful. And if you're not successful, it doesn't matter, you still wrote a book. Book is good you, you'll have that with your family, and maybe something like let's use Tom Clancy, for example. I I researched him and it it took him, I think, like into his 30th novel before he got big time. He had a lot of actions in the beginning. So he it took him a long time to get there. So if you don't if you're not getting there in the time you want, and I'm only what I started in March with my with my first book, you know, in the last regiment series, I'm still new to this too, but I'm learning so much. And I just want people to know if you're going to do this, don't get frustrated. It is a process. You're going to make mistakes and learn from them. Um one of the mistakes for example with me I was getting the audio book done with narrator Dale Buchanan. He's out of Alabama. Ex a really professional and I had a brain fart with my manuscript. He caught some errors with the the time lapse. It's like wow thank God because Fellow check doesn't catch that. So I was able to correct that but unfortunately he wanted a step away from the project me being a newbie and all I guess I scared him away but he saved me in a way too. So you're going to make mistakes but it's okay. As long as you correct them in time and get it fixed, move forward. Move on. Uh you're you're only a human and one day hopefully you'll get there. And that's what I'm trying to do. I I'm really you know my ultimate goal is to have this series made into a TV show, a video game and or a movie. There's a lot of characters. I I can just visualize it and that's kind of one of the reasons why Jay Matthew got involved with my series because he saw the same thing. And when I heard his songs I was super excited and it's going to get you passion. It's going to get that energy going like let's go. So take that excitement and use it for your writing use it for your series use it for your fans and just push through it. And at the end of the day you'll see where the cards lay.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah no I think that's a great attitude. I think that's a very cool and I think it's very cool for people that are out there that want to consider writing a book because I think that's important, right? That it's not a if if Clancy didn't do it until his 30th novel then there's nothing really to think that we're going to be you know sort of flash in the pan successes overnight. This is a process and there's a lot to it that and and a lot of it is like if I from my perspective I think and I think this is what you're saying too if you're not kind of in love with the process like if you're not enjoying what you're doing and you're just waiting to get to the end of it and you know be a be a famous author and sell a thousand, you know, or two thousand copies or whatever, if that's what your goal is and you're not enjoying the process, then this is going to be a miserable slog for you. You've got to enjoy the learning of it. You've got to enjoy the networking and the getting in front of people and the explaining it. And you're right the idea that at the end of it, you know, even if if if this goes mediocre, you've got a book like you've done something a very small percentage of the people in the world have ever done you've written a book, you've published a book and you've got that there for sort of posterity and for your family. I think that's a great outlook. Yeah. Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

The message that I hope readers take away from any book, any story, any author, no matter how dark things become you know hope, leadership and human resilience still matter. Ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things. And you're going to learn so many things from different books, whether they're educational, the how-tos, you're going to be entertained by many books. You're going to be inspired by many books. So take that with you and just enjoy them.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Yeah no absolutely I think I think that's huge. I think that's a that's a big deal that it's it's you've got to enjoy the process you've got to enjoy what you're going through. It can't be about an end result. And that's probably a bigger lesson for life right that's probably not just about writing that's probably about everything that we do. If you're not enjoying the process then you're you're missing out. Tell me about Jade Matthews. So I'm not intimately familiar with his music. Tell me about how that came about that's really cool that he's making music specifically for your series.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yeah so Jade Matthews he's out of Nebraska he is currently a county sheriff for the area that he lives in and he was running for sheriff. He had started um a music channel got on social media and that type of thing and he saw my AI videos that I create on TikTok. One of them I think it might have been with Plaguefront. He might have watched the book trailer for that. And he just private messaged me and said hey I really love this son this the series and by the way I wrote a song about it. And he sent me the the the audio clip of the song and I listened I was blown away like I've never known this guy and here he is he he just followed me and now he's a fan and he loved the books so much he wrote a song about it and he wants to be the guy that if this does become a big thing, you know, we all hope that but if it does we've got more to it now more more things for the fans to enjoy and you just you just create this universe and it just keeps expanding and and I think with Jade he he does a lot of country music uh he does other songs as well and he he's a really good artist. He's got a really good studio and so I I was excited to learn about a little bit about his personal life too. And now we're friends and uh I'm helping him with we're thinking about coming out with a gift box uh maybe next month you know it's going to have his songs included it's going to have some dog tags some paperback copies of the book. It's going to be a collector's edition. We're all going to make about like 250 but he's very professional and he is very willing to help other people that's willing to help him. And I really appreciate that about him because he's he's all business he's all passion and he's good at his art and I told him I was like look you do your music I'm not going to tell you anything how to write songs about the last regiment. That's your art. That's your skill my art my skill is the writing the story yours is the music so have fun with it. You know let my stories inspire your music. And that's what he did and I'm like you do your thing I'll do mine and we'll come together as a team and hopefully blow up big and uh I I really like Jade. He's still new on social media so if you haven't looked him up go ahead and um check him out at Jade Matthew on TikTok he's got a YouTube channel too but he's fairly new still so don't be uh shy or you know push back from his followers or subscribers because he just literally started maybe like a few weeks ago maybe last month. So that's Jade and I'm happy to have met him.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah very cool. That's that's neat. That's I think you're you're touching on something there and you said it earlier that you know like collaborating with people like you and I both being authors and then meeting people and I was in you know I talked about mountain readiness and meeting people in North Carolina and so many different connections that I'm making through this that's one of the most fun things about it for me I think is just it's it's part of the process but you're meeting other people and getting different perspectives and and different, you know, with him being professional and and that's very cool. I think that's really really neat. I think that's a very cool collaboration. Yeah very neat. Well tell me what's next for the last regiment what's what's next for for Eric Smith? What a what uh are you are you you have another book coming out soon, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Yeah so I have book three coming out it's releasing June 26th you can pre-order now on Amazon of course um so this in this story it continues from book two the crossing in book two uh Raven Bear in the last regiment they have to deliver a payload on the enemy base otherwise the enemy base is going to further worsen conditions for people that are kind of like in a safe zone and they're going to be able to expand their threat expand the territory and just drive deeper into our nation so they have to deliver the payload and they're victorious but victory has a cost there's a price for that and this leads into plague front the North Koreans are now infiltrating hitting the pressure points and work their way into Indiana because the book takes place in Indiana um and the lieutenant general from the North Korean army he is the type of person I'm not going to defeat you with tanks bombs and bullets I'm going to defeat you through yourself through your fears through you not trusting the people next to you so he introduces a a first series of biological warfare it's called ADV1 which means American destruction vector and it's the first in this little plan he has and it's the first makes you sick makes you potentially die from it if you have a weak immune system. But it's just to make people weary like what's going on that trust and it kind of make people think what's going on here now oh great we have to worry about this now. So why biological warfare? You know history has shown that disease can and fear can sometimes be just as destructive as armies. And I wanted to explore how people respond when the threat isn't something you can simply fight with bullets. So that's where Lieutenant General Kane comes into he's a pretty ruthless guy pretty dark and uh he's got a lot of plans for the last regiment and now Raven Bear they're going to be darning up in mop gear bioweapon gear. I try to throw a lot of twists like things you wouldn't see and for the fans and for the readers just like the Walking Dead nobody is safe in this series.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Nice. Nice I like that I like that I like the twists and turns I like the plot twists I like the uh I like that that it's not a that you don't know at the beginning what the end's going to look like and that nobody's safe. That's very cool. Tell me where tell readers where can they find you? What's the best way to find you you what were your your YouTube channel you have a website.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

What's the best way for people to buy your books and reach out to you obviously they can start with going on amazon.com and buying the book through Amazon. Uh all they have to do is look up the last regiment uh no mercy last regiment the crossing of the last regiment series by Eric D. Smith they'll find my information they can follow my author page from there they can email me at Vfw5626 at gmail.com and I respond to all meme emails promptly uh so they want to get information that way I'll certainly entertain them with that through a response. My books are also available on Walmart.com. Walmart picked up the books which is kind of exciting and I'm also working on trying to do an in-store project with them at the moment with one of the local Walmarts but if they wanted to reach out they can also go to my YouTube channel. I currently have 291 subscribers still building it so you can find me that way I've got a lot of cool trailers on the books. I've got a lot of shorts and then I've got other military stuff uh dealing with the American Legion the VFW that type of thing it's a channel not just for the last regiment but other military related information. And then of course I've got a TikTok which is the last regiment books. They can find me there I do a lot of deals like right now if you buy book one and book two I'm giving everybody a free PDF copy of book three playfront. And all they got to do is show me proof of the purchases I email them the PDF. So again VFW5626 at gmail.com they can reach me there and they can send me that receipt okay good to go I've already done that to numerous fans already uh and they're enjoying it I have got one fan and it it's really cool because she's 27 years old and autistic and you would think wow an autistic person is enjoying these books she has so many questions about the series like what what's going on here what's going on I really love that because when you get emails like that you know that you've got something going good um so respond to your people if you're gonna respond to me I'm gonna respond to you I want you guys to be fans of the series I want you guys to be entertained and I want us all to win in this and uh so the best way is get the books if you want to contact me we'll make it happen we'll do something fun uh you're gonna collaborate even I'm even open for that so I'm I'm pretty easy to get along with uh there's no six of me no scams no nothing fake um and I just really enjoy writing and I just want to get my story out there.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Very cool is there anything that we didn't cover tonight Eric that you want the world to know about you or is there anything you covered quite a bit right there. I think that's great. Really cool stuff you have going on really uh appreciate you coming on. Is there anything that we missed tonight?

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Maybe the characters like so my favorite characters in the book series is probably Raven Bear. He's he's my favorite because he's just an ordinary man he's thrust into extraordinary circumstances and he represents resilience and the determination to protect those he loves and I see a lot of clarities in him in myself like we kind of mirror in a lot of things especially with the training better to be safe than sorry um having that military family background uh being familiar with guns and weapons and that type of thing so I think with me having characters that I really enjoy and love the fans are going to have those same characters that they love as well and you'll get a lot of characters that you think oh man they're gone they and surprise they're back. So you get a lot of good surprises too in the stories. You don't it's not all just gloom and doom. There are some good moments uh where one of your favorite characters maybe you think bit the dust but not so fast and you get to enjoy to see how they survived their situation. So look for those twists as well and it's just love the book and uh I love where it's going and like I said I hope it becomes something big but I can only do it with the help of all of you all of the fans I'm nobody without you guys so I give you all my gratitude and thanks beforehand. And if we make this happen I've already told a lot of my fans this if if by some miracle the series becomes a number one seller and we get into movies and things I'm gonna do everything I can to allow my fans to audition for roles in the series whether it be extras whether it be main characters I'm gonna try to give them that grace because if it wasn't for them none of that stuff would have happened. Um so I've got a lot of dreams and aspirations just want to thank everybody uh first and foremost for the for what's coming ahead and what's been it going on right now.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Yeah no that's fantastic. I I think that's so neat. I think you're right you know none of us doesn't matter what we do if we if we don't have the people out there that care about consuming the stuff that we create then you know we're we're just sort of making it for ourselves. And you know that's cool I guess if we're making it for ourselves and we're gonna, you know, show it to our kids, but it is we're we're never going to do anything else without the fans and people to actually read what we uh what we write and I I think that's one of the coolest pieces about what we do. So no I really listen Eric I really appreciate having you on tonight and I I'm a fan of what you're doing. I looked at some of your covers I have not got a chance to read any of your books yet and I that's because I am covered up in a mountain you can you talk to so many people in this industry that you just keep stacking up these books and books and books and books that people are and you talk to them and you have their book now I'm probably six or seven books deep that I have not got through yet. And you find that when you write all as as often as we have to write you your kind your time for listen listening to podcasts or listening to other people's books or reading definitely it goes down the drain. So uh so hopefully I've got your I've got you on my read list and I can get around to it and maybe uh maybe we'll come back around in a in a year or so and and revisit this and see where we're at and kind of craw cross notes and compare notes and see what what's going right and what's going wrong. But I really appreciate you having on the podcast tonight. I appreciate you coming on and the best of luck to you and keep in touch and God bless. This has been After the Fall conversations about post-apocalyptic fiction, science and survival. If you enjoyed today's episode follow the show and share it with a friend. And if you'd like to experience the story that inspired the podcast check out my novel Seasons of Ash. Visit JohnMichaelane.com for more information.