R.A. Flannagan calls himself Canada's only geopolitical military fiction author. Four books and 1,800-plus Amazon reviews later, the title is hard to dispute. In this episode, Ryan sits down to explain how the loss of his university career pushed him toward the keyboard, why he built a series aimed at Commonwealth readers and openly at men, and how fast real-world drone warfare and tactical-nuke brinkmanship have caught up to fiction he began drafting back in 2021.

In This Episode

* A career ends, a writer begins: Ryan describes the devastating loss of the university vocation he expected to keep for life, and how writing (and his wife) gave him a focus when things were at their worst.

* The niche nobody was writing: Military thrillers are almost entirely an American genre. Ryan spotted the gap and built CANZUK at War around Canada and its Commonwealth allies as the protagonists, not the sidekicks.

* The market that flipped his assumptions: He went in certain the 330-million-person U.S. market was the prize. Instead, UK, Australian, and Canadian readers embraced the books while American sales stayed at “crickets,” and he unpacks why.

* Why Americans won’t read a civil war: Ryan connects his U.S. sales problem to the lukewarm reception of A24’s film Civil War, and to how differently foreign readers and American readers read the same story.

* Writing for men, without apology: Of the emails and comments he’s received over the years, essentially none come from women, and Ryan makes the case that traditional publishing walked away from an audience that’s still hungry.

* When the headlines catch up to the manuscript: Ukraine, tactical nuclear weapons, and the explosion of drone warfare all appeared in his books before they dominated the news, and he talks about writing near-future fiction that reality keeps overtaking.

* What three years in the reserves actually taught him: Ryan was infantry, not special operations, and he’s candid about how far listening to hundreds of audiobooks carries him toward writing operators convincingly, and where the research has to take over.

* The anti-MVP approach: Before publishing a single word, Ryan spent roughly a year absorbing podcasts on craft and the business, hired a developmental editor and a copy editor, and argues that new authors owe it to themselves to write six to ten books before quitting.

Guest Links

* Read The CANZUK at War Series: https://amzn.to/3P3ynJ3

* Website: https://raflannagan.ca/

Kristin’s Links

* Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com

* Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com

* YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin

Timestamps

00:00 - Meet Ryan Flannagan.

01:24 - Career Upheaval and Writing.

03:05 - Learning the Indie Path.

04:51 - Momentum and Mindset.

07:25 - Finding a Canadian Niche.

12:40 - Anglosphere Market Strategy.

14:27 - Why Americans Don’t Bite.

19:13 - Reserves Lessons for Fiction.

20:46 - Military Banter Realism.

22:28 - Researching Special Operators.

25:09 - When Fiction Meets Reality.

27:19 - Drones And Future War.

29:20 - Writing For Men.

33:56 - Defense Blogging Passion.

37:49 - Lessons From Four Books.

40:24 - Editing And Craft Standards.

40:53 - Where To Find Ryan.

41:36 - Amazon Exclusivity Farewell.

About This Podcast

Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them.

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