Today we’re continuing our Featured Fiction Friday series, and celebrating one of the authors that helped make the our contest possible. Introducing Kerry Nietz!

Q: Kerry Nietz, can you tell us a little bit about your new book?

First, vampires in space. And now…zombies. Really? Jebediah and the others are trying to get over the horrors they faced in deep space, and now this. It’s been five years, and the Amish colony on Miller’s Resolve has finally gotten settled. Jeb and Sarah have a son. Elder Samuel is happy not being in charge. Darly has a private practice. And Greels is out of jail at last. But when a mysterious ship from space arrives on Resolve, it unleashes a horde of undead that might spell the end of the survivors and their dreams of peace. Will the specters of the past save them, or seal their fate?

Q: Do you have any writing advice for the MBT Audience?

The last time I was featured on this site, I said the key to being an author is perseverance, and I still believe that is the key. Another important characteristic for an author, though, is perspective.

I see so many people that get into writing because they have a story to tell and are enamored with being an author. Deep inside, though, they also hope that their story will catch on and they’ll be financially successful. That they’ll be able to quit their job and write for a living—writing only those things that delight them.

Perspective, writer.

If you want to make a living as a writer, you may not be able to write what you want. You may have to write technical manuals or Amish fiction. If writing for a living is your goal, study where the needs for writers are, and fill them.

If you have a story you need to get out, though, if you feel called to be a writer for that reason alone, then by all means, write your story. Make it your goal to wrench free that plot and apply it to paper. Get it done.

But keep your perspective.

If the finished novel doesn’t sell, if you don’t get to quit your day job, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer, or even that yours is a bad story. What it means is that people either aren’t finding your book (Selling books is hard!!) or they aren’t interested in that particular story right now. That predicament happens to nearly every author. Most authors aren’t bestsellers!

You made a conscious decision to write what you wanted, remember. You set that goal, and met it.

If folks don’t buy what you wrote, that’s unfortunate, but it isn’t the end of the world. God isn’t punishing you. Be realistic. Keep your perspective!

And if you still want to write, reevaluate your goals, and persevere.

Kerry Nietz is a refugee of the software industry. He spent more than a decade of his life flipping bits—first as one of the principal developers of the database product FoxPro for the now mythical Fox Software, and then as one of Bill Gates’s minions at Microsoft. He is a husband, a father, a technophile, and a movie buff. Amish Zombies from Space is his sixth novel.