{"id":40338,"date":"2016-07-28T10:28:08","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T14:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=40338"},"modified":"2016-07-28T10:31:07","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T14:31:07","slug":"brock-grad-topping-amazon-charts-with-sci-fi-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2016\/07\/brock-grad-topping-amazon-charts-with-sci-fi-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock grad topping Amazon charts with sci-fi books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"page-intro dropcap\">A Brock University Humanities grad has put his English literature degree to work, becoming a top ranked science fiction author.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Michael Chatfield says his time at Brock made him a better, more productive writer.<\/p>\n<p>It also taught him to go after what he wants, rather than waiting for good things to happen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt gave me the push to start publishing instead of just waiting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Chatfield self publishes his books, which gives him more creative flexibility and control over his own release schedule.<\/p>\n<p>The Burlington resident has penned seven books, which are available on Amazon as e-books or in print.<\/p>\n<p>His book <em>The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet<\/em> is the No. 1 bestseller on Amazon UK in the aliens section of the science fiction genre.<\/p>\n<p>There are six books in the Free Fleet series, with the final book \u2013 <em>War\u2019s Reward: Free Fleet 6<\/em> \u00ad\u00ad- released earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of August, he will publish three more books.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_40339\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-40339\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40339\" src=\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/MCphoto-e1469715894681-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Michael Chatfield\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-40339\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael Chatfield<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Chatfield estimates he\u2019s sold more than 70,000 copies of his works. Judging by sales so far, he says the new series <em>Harmony War<\/em> will be more popular than <em>Free Fleet<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrock gave me the confidence to go and pursue this,\u201d he says, noting he recently left his job with the Canadian military to write full time.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from helping develop his writing skills and understanding of publishing, Chatfield says university helped him become a faster and disciplined author. Writing papers and assignments prepared him for a career in writing. He says he writes about 6,000 words a day.<\/p>\n<p>The science fiction genre suits Chatfield\u2019s writing style and imagination.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are allowed a lot more creativity,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about the what ifs? There are so many possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chatfield says the characters come first and live in his head before he starts writing.<br \/>\n\u201cHalf the time I don\u2019t know what is going to happen until I write it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>For more information about Chatfield\u2019s work, visit his website by clicking <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelchatfield.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Brock University Humanities grad has put his English literature degree to work, becoming a top ranked science fiction author.<br \/>\nMichael Chatfield says his time at Brock made him a better, more productive writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":40340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,3319,37,1,4],"tags":[30,4329],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40341,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40338\/revisions\/40341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}