Bert Carson, author of Fourth and Forever, provides his insight and opinions into the state of today’s indie books with this week’s Guest Blog.

I don’t have a thing against werewolves, vampires, dragons, or zombies.  I just don’t know enough about them to write about them.  Neither does my wife, Christina, nor our good friends, associates, and fellow indie writers, Caleb Pirtle, Stephen Woodfin, and Jack Durish.

We all write mainstream fiction – historical novels, women’s novels, adventure, and thrillers – legal and otherwise.  As close as we get to the supernatural is an occasional foray into esotericism and time travel, and I have to take responsibility for that departure from the straight and narrow.

There are more than 700,000 indie writers, if you can believe the experts.  The five of us fall into that group.  We decided that in order to be found by potential readers, we should identify ourselves more precisely.  We could have said that we are not youngsters, which, with the exception of Stephen, is true.  Of course, many would say that at age 59 he isn’t a youngster either.  We could have said we were guys, but Christina is anything but a guy.  We could have said we are from the south, but there’s Jack in California.

There is only one thing that is common to the five of us – we do not write about werewolves, vampires, dragons, or zombies.  There’s nothing wrong with those critters, and they sell about a zillion books every day; we just don’t write any of those books.

Christina Carson writes some of the very best novels about family, relationships, and truth available on Amazon.  Her books are entertaining, thought provoking, and contain powerful life lessons.

Jack Durish brings the past to life in his historical novels.  He tells the “the rest of the story,” and everyone wants to know that.

Stephen Woodfin writes legal thrillers that are second to none I’ve ever read.  He writes about murder, and football, too.  His words will keep you turning pages until the sun comes up.

Caleb Pirtle writes some of the most captivating fiction you’ll ever read – here’s a line from the beginning of A Place of Skulls: His left arm had been broken in three places.  He possessed no wallet, no papers, no passport, no name, no memory, no past.  There’s nothing I can add to that.

And me, Bert Carson, I write about Vietnam Veterans: one who at age 44 becomes the starting quarterback for The University of Montana, four who form a detective agency called Southern Investigation and with the help of President Ronald Reagan, break a group of POWs out of Vietnam, and one who loves dogs so much he becomes an Army Scout Dog Handler and risks everything to smuggle his scout dog partner, Whispers, out of Vietnam.

That’s who we are, and that’s what we write about.  We call ourselves The Power of 5, and we invite you to check out our books and our web sites.