Why I Spent Five Years Writing a Novel

For the past 25 years, I've built companies and led product teams at organizations ranging from Microsoft and Pandora to mid-sized companies like Bark, Yieldmo, and MediaMath. I've founded five companies as 'zero stage startups', written hundreds of strategy papers, and authored countless trade articles about technology and business transformation. But throughout this entire career, I've also been an artist.

I earned my MFA from the University of Cincinnati, studying under the acclaimed writer Josip Novakovich. I've worked in photography, fine art, and digital media. Writing has always been part of my professional toolkit, but creative writing remained something I did on the margins—until 2020, when I decided it was time to write something that mattered.

That something became Legacy of the Bitterroots, a 500-page historical novel that consumed four years of my life and represents the most challenging artistic project I've ever undertaken. At least as challenging as launching startups, as complex as managing global product teams, and infinitely more personal than any business strategy I've ever written.

Today is LAUNCH DAY! Today I release Legacy of the Bitterroots as a Print Book both on Amazon and on Ingram Spark. You can order it from any bookstore, you can order it from my own website (ericpicard.com.) But - the eBook is being offered on Amazon for FREE for the next few days. So there's no excuse, if you want to read it, you can get it for free and read on almost any device. And if you want a print copy, you can buy it anywhere books are purchased, but the easy places are Amazon and my own website.

The Dream That Wouldn't Let Go

The idea began with a dream around the turn of the century (the 21st century, that is.) I found myself hiking through woods and discovering a perfectly preserved 19th-century village, abandoned but intact. An elderly caretaker explained it had been a gold rush boomtown that emptied when the gold ran out. I woke up with that image burned into my memory—fishing hooks embedded in my brain, as I described it to friends.

For years, I carried this vision while building companies and leading teams. I'd sketch out scenes during flights, develop characters during long meetings. The story grew more complex when my wife and I discovered Garnet Ghost Town in Montana during a cross-country drive in 2016. Walking through that remarkably preserved mining settlement, the novel shifted from interesting idea to inevitable project.

When COVID Created Opportunity

In March 2020, after leaving Pandora, two job offers evaporated as the world shut down. Suddenly, I had time—and no excuses. The novel I'd been planning for twenty years demanded to be written.

I quickly learned that my history degree was both blessing and curse. The research became obsessive. I spent five to ten hours researching for every hour I wrote, uncovering layer after layer of forgotten American history. What I'd naively thought would take four months stretched into years of work, interrupted by new jobs, consulting projects, and the reality that serious writing requires serious time.

The story that emerged spans from the Civil War to the digital age, following Irish immigrant families who establish a utopian mining community in Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains. It's a multigenerational saga that asks urgent questions about cultural appropriation, who gets to tell our stories, and whether authentic wonder can survive in an age of commercialized memory.

The Business of Literary Publishing

Publishing this novel has required every business skill I've developed over 25 years. I've approached it like launching a product—with market research, competitive analysis, and a comprehensive go-to-market strategy.

The data is sobering. Amazon ads that work for technology products fail spectacularly for debut literary fiction. Traditional marketing approaches designed for business books miss the mark entirely. Success requires building authentic relationships with readers, earning credibility through both individual and professional reviews, and understanding that literary publishing operates on entirely different metrics than technology businesses.

I'm pursuing professional reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, submitting to literary awards, and building relationships with independent bookstores. The goal isn't quick sales volume—it's establishing credibility for a long-term literary career.

Why This Matters to My Network

You might wonder why someone known for product management and technology strategy is asking you to care about historical fiction. Here's why: the skills that make us effective in business—research, analysis, storytelling, understanding human motivation—are the same skills that create compelling literature.

More importantly, supporting creative work within our professional networks matters. We spend our careers optimizing systems, improving processes, and driving growth. But art asks different questions. It explores what it means to be human, preserves stories that might otherwise be lost, and connects us to experiences beyond our immediate professional circles.

Legacy of the Bitterroots isn't just entertainment—it's four years of research into American history, and a meditation on how stories shape our understanding of ourselves.

A Story Worth Your Time

Legacy of the Bitterroots tells the story of Irish Civil War veteran Eoinn Seeley, who leads six fellow immigrants west in 1867 to establish Crystal Village—a utopian mining community in Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains that becomes one of the most progressive settlements in the American West. With cutting-edge technology, radical social vision, and love stories that defy convention, the village prospers for decades through infamous gold rushes, forging complex relationships with neighboring Indigenous communities. Then the Great Fire of 1910 erases it from history.

Over a century later, former Disney Imagineer Jack Seeley returns to Idaho and discovers fragments of a family mystery that challenges everything he believed about his heritage. Working alongside childhood friend and novelist Susanne O'Connor, Jack uncovers the truth about Crystal Village—a truth involving not just hidden history, but the mythic forces that have shaped the American West since time immemorial.

Meticulously researched and featuring actual historical figures from the mining boom era, this debut novel explores themes of cultural collaboration, intergenerational trauma, and the transformative power of authentic storytelling. For readers of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Golem and the Jinni, and Homegoing, it's a genre-defying work that asks what happens when history refuses to stay buried.

Today Is Launch Day

After four years of writing, research, and editing, Legacy of the Bitterroots launches today in print—available on Amazon, through any bookstore via Ingram distribution, and directly from my website at ericpicard.com. But here's what makes today special: the ebook is free on Amazon for the next five days.

This isn't a marketing gimmick. It's an invitation. I've spent 25 years building companies and products that solve business problems. Legacy of the Bitterroots represents my attempt to create something that explores human problems—the kind that don't have clear solutions but demand our attention anyway.

If you've read this far, you understand why this matters to me. Download the free ebook, and if it resonates with you, leave a review. Share it with someone who appreciates literary fiction that takes history and mythology seriously. Help me discover whether four years of obsessive research and writing can find its audience in a world that moves at the speed of social media.

This is my debut novel, but it won't be my last. Your support today helps determine whether I can continue telling stories that matter alongside building the products and companies that pay the bills.

Legacy of the Bitterroots is free on Amazon through August 1st. For updates and exclusive content, sign up for my newsletter at Https://newsletter.ericpicard.com