One of my writer friends passed away suddenly last month. Dan Hobbs published under the pen name Ben Leiter. He was an emerging writer who had published four books and was working on a couple of others (click here for his books on Amazon). I was a beta reader for two and an editor for another. He didn’t always take my advice, but I was okay with that because he was determined to stay true to his vision. He never forgot that his project gave him the final edit. I know that he was happy as a writer, and with the decisions he had made. Sure, he would have liked more commercial success, but sometimes that’s not what fate has in store for us. Given the number of new titles published every month, perhaps the best any of us can hope for is a fragile immortality and the knowledge that we’ve been true to the stories within us.
Luck and wisdom!
Lani Longshore's Blog 
Sorry for the loss of your friend and fellow writer. It is always too soon and we are never ready.