Alien Invasion

I’m back to the business side of publishing and writing, now that my daughter’s wedding is over. I’m finishing up my ninth book that is in the same universe as the other novels, but it doesn’t take place on the planet Alysia and has a different cast of characters for the most part. It takes place on a starship that is part of a fleet of ships seeking a habitable world.

Lots of fun to write.

Currently, one of my characters is designing robots to make up for the low population due to a recent epidemic. It made me think that finally robots are becoming more and more a part of our society. Years ago Isaac Asimov wrote his famous Caves of Steel, book 1 of his robot series. Even made it into a movie starring Will Smith. He had robots act indistinguishably from humans. We haven’t gotten there, but here is a link to an article that talks about recent strides in the field.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32334571

If you’re not familiar with her blog, yet, then I urge you to look up Kriswrites by Kathryn Kristine Rusch. She and husband Dean Wesley Smith have had a foot in the traditional publishing world and a foot in the Indie world. Together they have written hundreds of books, a great number which are science fiction… And they live in Oregon.

A recent blog talked about the direction of publishing and compared it with television. It’s all good, but the choice bit for me was:

“As Hugh (Howey) and Data Guy have repeatedly shown, writers publishing indie make significantly more money per title (and in general) than writers who go traditional. Not too long ago, traditional publishing’s argument was that they brought the books to more eyeballs.

They don’t. Now the playing field is level. If indie writers publish trade paper books, audio books and ebooks on all platforms, then the writers will make more money on (good well-written well-produced) books than they would if they went to traditional publishing.

Period.

Those of us who have been in this side of the field have known it for a long time. We finally have more than our personal numbers. We have two years of data.”

To read the complete article go to: http://kriswrites.com/2016/02/10/business-musings-money-talks/ and catch up on her other informative blogs.

This week I read The Three Body Problem by Cixen Liu and was puzzled. This book was nominated for a Hugo. I can only suggest that since it was published by TOR, a lot of politicking must have gone on. I never notice Indie books getting nominated, even best selling ones. Hmmmm. Anyway, the author is Cixen Liu and the English translation is by Ken Liu. Cixen Liu is the most popular and prolific writer of science fiction in the People’s Republic of China. He has won their Hugo equivalent eight times already. Reviews on the book were extremely positive.

But I struggled through it, falling asleep repeatedly as I tried to finish. Better than a lullaby.

The first third of the story deals with the politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and has no science fiction elements. The reader learns of the persecution and public murder of young Ye Wenjie’s physicist father and her subsequent framing by a colleague who writes an incendiary book and claims she is the author, not he.

She is sent away to a lumber camp to work for several years, but then is relocated to a secret military installation because of her technical skills. This is during the time when America’s SETI program was popular, and China didn’t want the West to be the one to make aliens their allies. This Chinese secret project sends signals into space and, after a time, Ye makes contact.

Enter the science fiction portion.

Various eras of Trisolaris are experienced by a character named Wang who plays a popular underground virtual game. Soon a group of scientist and others are playing this game and we learn of a world named Trisolaris that is sending the game to Earth. Ye has decided the awful human race needs to be refined by these aliens and signals them to invite them in. Since their world is highly unstable and headed toward an extinction event, they are eager to come to Earth and what looks like paradise.

Eventually a group on Earth forms to prepare Earth and help the aliens conquer the planet. Another group tries to seek out and eliminate these radicals who would destroy Earth by encouraging unknown aliens to take over the planet. Lots of spy games and violent arrests ensue.

Needless to say, politics fill the book. However, Liu doesn’t shy away from his hard science either, incorporating a lot of physics into the story. While I embrace science in a science fiction story, for me, the story dragged. In addition, the names were confusing. There was Yang, Ding, Wang, Shi Quang, and Ye Wenjie to name a few main characters.

Somehow, contact is made through this virtual game that gives the reader an idea of the world of Trisolaris, but as a story plot, it didn’t seem realistic. Still, an unstable world that has to deal with three erratic suns has its interesting side.

This is the first book in a trilogy not completely out in translation, and I’m debating on reading the rest. After all the commotion of advancing aliens, Ye still waits for them in the end, leaving the reader curious as to what might happen when they finally do reach Earth.

And thank goodness, the science fiction elements make the book more interesting.

A Self Publisher Markets and John Scalzi’s latest

This self publishing gig isn’t as easy as it’s cracked up to be.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” you mutter.

There is a world out there willing to give advice, but how good is that advice for your situation?
Who knows?

I can only tell you what works for me…and what doesn’t.

With some success last month, I once again threw myself into the marketing fray. Since I had extra funds in the marketing budget, I decided to advertise two places during my KDP Select free book week.

Robin Reads has been getting buzz lately as an upcoming site still reasonably priced. For $20, I got the number one spot. That was sweet. My criticism of Robin Reads as a reader is that I haven’t figured out how to select out the genres I prefer, so every day I get a list of all types of books which is a pain to page through. I’m not into steamy romances or zombie thrillers…but many readers are.

However, as an author and advertiser, I received fourteen hundred downloads in one day (9/19) for my anchor book, Caught in Time. Not great, but better than I expected for the price. Now usually, a program like that is immediately followed by retail sales of other books in the series.

Crickets.

Added to Robin Reads, I spent $70 at Freebooksy for one day (9/21) where I have had great success, so I was rubbing my hands together in excited anticipation. I got almost a thousand downloads that day. So, over two thousand plus free downloads.

Retail sales? Crickets.

April Aasheim author of The Witches of Dark Root,  reports good luck advertising on Facebook. I’ve been reluctant to try. Anyone having good luck with that?

Meanwhile, The Fussy Librarian sent this out in their newsletter. I thought it interesting. It talks about an article that claims paperback sales are picking up and Ebook sales diminishing.

Seriously? I find that hard to believe. My sales are mostly in EBooks, although paperbacks are readily available.

http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=1fa68a8fb20ec8a1817392970&id=a8f7a5bbb8&e=d0ae4f54e9

This week I’m suggesting a favorite author. John Scalzi is deeply entrenched in traditional publishing in many forms: hardback, paperback, iBook, audio, short story serials etc. He recently came to Powell’s again to promote his new book The End of All Things.

Now there’s a catchy title. It’s available in hardback for $24.99…thank you, big publisher (TOR)…or free at the local library, no taint involved in the free price.

This science fiction soap opera takes place in The Old Man’s Universe, meaning in the universe of his John Campbell Award winning book, Old Man’s War.

True to form, Scalzi does something different. Humans have expanded into space, only to find it populated with thousands of alien species. The Colonial Union formed to protect humans but kept Earth ignorant of aliens so as to provide colonists and soldiers by using consciousness of old people in repurposed bodies.

Many of the alien species threatened by these superhumans formed their own alliances called the Conclave.

Then Earth found out it was being used and got angry. It stopped providing experienced conscious minds and bodies. Without Earth to provide bodies for fighting, the Colonial Union found itself in trouble.

Unbeknownst to the Colonial Union, bitter infighting and politics now threatens to tear the Conclave apart.

The first story of the book is told by the sole survivor of an ambush on the ship the Chandler. A mysterious splinter group known as the Equilibrium has been secretly pitting the Conclave and the Colonial Union against each other. This secret third faction is made up of individuals from the different groups who plan to overthrow all other contenders. While all on The Chandler and any escape pods are ruthlessly killed, Rafe Daquin, recently hired as third pilot on the Chandler, is allowed a consciousness in order to pilot the ship, but he is separated from his body and reduced to operating as a brain in a box.

So your narrator for the first section is a brain in a box who tells the events of the attack and how he thwarts his enemies working without a body.

The second part of the book tells events from the point of view of Hafte Sorvalh, the second most powerful individual in the Conclave, or the advisor to Tarsem Gau, the Conclave leader. This story is political theater at its best and Scalzi is a master of clever dialogue. Subtle nuances of behavior by politicians during a Conclave Congress reveal that this powerful body of aliens has its own problems, and act more like humans than most imagine.

The third section brings in favorite character Harry Wilson from the other books in the series who thwarts an Equilibrium attack and interrogates one of their leaders in an attempt to unravel their plans. This section reads more as a spy thriller.

Scalzi admits to frantically trying to finish writing on time and missing deadlines as he travels around for signings and marketing. It makes the book choppy. You can imagine him writing a section, dusting off his hands and sending it in.

Still…

I enjoy Scalzi’s interesting science and clever dialogue. He makes reading science fiction both fun and enlightening…

And that’s the way it should be.