Free Stuff Gone

During the night, the promotional period of Sci-FU ended with a total of 496 sales, and over 300 of those were from just the first day. Have to admit, I'm proud of that. Easily bested the previous promo period which only got about 300 sales for both days. It even bester a few other books as it reach #1 for Technothrillers and #7 for the Science Fiction genre. Quite an improvement from #3 and #19 during the last sale, don't you think.

With this period done, the book now sits at what will remain its price; $3. Hopefully others will agree with me that it is a reasonable price and buy some copies.

Free Stuff Coming!

Yup. What the title says. Well, maybe not what you infer from the title, but I don't care what you infer. If you're right, good for you, and if you're wrong, that's your problem.

Monday, August 20, marks two years since I finished the first draft of my first published book, Sci-FU. To celebrate, I am making the Kindle version free for that day, and possibly more. I did the same thing six weeks prior on July 9, which was two years since I started writing that same first draft. That first day I had, if not 200 sales, really close to 200 sales, so I extended the free period for another day, which netted me just over 300 sales. Sure, I didn't make any money from that, but still, getting 300 sales in just two days is pretty cool for one's first published work that has had little advertising (I'm better at writing than marketing). Still, those sales with those before pushed my book to #19 in the Free Kindle Store for the "Science Fiction" genre and #3 for "Technothrillers." Wouldn't exactly call my book a technothriller, but hey, reaching #3 on a list at Amazon is pretty cool!

I'm also dropping the price of the ebook to $3, so if you miss this promotional period, you won't have to spend too much to rectify that problem.

Now that I've shared that, why not share a little more? After all, this is the second anniversary of my completion of the first draft of my first book; there's got to be a story to go with that, right? Of course there is! It just probably isn't as interesting as the story itself. (I have a low opinion of of interesting I am to people.)

As I said above, somewhere, I wrote the first draft of Sci-FU in exactly six weeks. During those weeks I worked fairly regularly on it, either on my desktop at home or on my laptop when it was boring at work. Despite it being the first draft though, I was very, very happy with it, so the published form is actually just an edited and slightly rewritten version of the first draft. (Version 1.2.1 was the original published item, and the current version is 1.2.2.) That first draft was 63,735 words while the current version is 88,020, including the front matter, appendix, and epilogue, but 77,279 words without those. That means that from the first to final draft, I added 13,544 words. Not sure how many corrections that amounts to, since some of those corrections are to corrections I made in previous versions (1.1, for example). That is a lot of words though, and I can immediately think of one part that is a decent chunk of that. Then ending of Chapter 10, where Amy is on the phone (and Jim listens in as best he can) was actually a very late addition.

During one of the last read-thrus, I realized that Chapter 10 ended kind of abruptly and really, I should have not only some more stuff between Jim and Amy, but also I should have the mother's involved more. After all, I would expect the new mother-in-laws to be quite present, in one way or another, during the early part of a marriage between two people who met just days before the ceremony. Phone calls, dinner, whatever, I would expect that to be the case, so it made sense to add something. Of course, I then just had fun with making it silly. Jim listening in and making his own responses to half the conversation, then trying to sabotage the call, only to have his mother-in-law shock Amy by knowing what happened perhaps too well. Eh, maybe it doesn't come off as silly to my readers, but I like it, and in the grand scheme of writing, that's what matters. Authors should only write for themselves, because we only know how to please ourselves.

Of course, that's not to say an author should not respond to a reader's criticism. I got one piece of actionable criticism before I published and one after (and one unactionable piece after as well). Before publishing I was actually told, by a female friend of mine, that there was too much love in it. Yes, a woman who would normally be interested in that in a story, told me there was too much. Now, if you were to read that first draft, you'd agree with her. It really did come off as too much. It may still be too much, but it's better. She also told me the science stuff in it was too dense, which was definitely true in some specific sections.

After publishing I was told the ending was too abrupt. This prompted me to write the Epilogue which, as I state in the amended author's note, is only written in response to the criticism, not created. What is in the Epilogue is what I wanted to take place after Sci-FU ended, I just, at the time, did not choose to commit it to paper. It now is.

The unactionable criticism was that the relationship between Amy and Jim seemed like they were just dating, not newlyweds. Well, in my defense, Miss (yes, another woman criticizing romance in my book), they met two days before getting married, so what do you expect? That they behave like they have been life long friends? Still, I could have changed it if I had that criticism before publishing, but my friend read it too late for that to happen. Ah well. I like it how it is though and I even hope to keep some of that flavor of romance throughout any future stories involving Jim and Amy because that is how they love each other. They love each other completely, so characteristics that come out that they may not like in a friend, they love in that person because they are in love with that person. I don't know if that's how it actually works, but I hope that's how it works.

Can't give any updates for my other stories at the moment. Been too busy with other things to get enough done to make a post worth my time writing, or your time reading. If you're interested in that though, sorry, but we both have to wait.

I hope you haven't forgotten the purpose of this post, if you've made it this far down the page (I do have a tendency to write on and on, don't I?). If you have though, it is to let you know that on Monday, my first published book, Sci-FU, will be available for the Kindle for free. After that promotional period, it will be just $3 (currently it is $5). There are multiple links to the Amazon page on this page, so if you want a copy, just click on stuff. You'll probably find it. (Seriously though, don't just click randomly on webpages. Viruses and other pieces of malware can actually infect your computer that way. There are two links in this post, at the beginning and end, at the title of the book: Sci-FU. Also, it is under the "My Books" section on the right of the blog.)

Sometimes it Just Works

Been somewhat busy since my last post here, but I haven't forgotten. I know I warned the Internet (is that really possible? To warn the Internet?) that I may lose interest in this blog, but I haven't yet. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the blog has lost interest in me! I'm a boring person.
Since the last post though, I have completed my first editing pass of The Death of Heroes. I have to say, my favorite part of writing a short story is how quick it is to edit! Did the entire pass in just one day. It won't be the last pass, but still, I'm use to writing stories the length of novels. Also, I spent about three hours to make this:

The original image is actually larger much larger than that, both in resolution and what it shows (but what's cropped out isn't interesting). Personally, I really like the cover in part because I am not a good artist. Really, I am amazed that I was able to make it as good as I did. (No, it isn't great, but it isn't as bad as I would expect my skills to produce.) It probably helped that I knew what I wanted, so I guess it just goes to show you that sometimes, it just works. (See how I worked the title of this post in there? Yeah, it makes sense now.)
Oh, I also have started another short story; or restarted, depending on your viewpoint. No, I have not finished The Death of Heroes (there are still more editing passes and such to do before it is truly finished) but I wanted to get started on this other, more typical story to give me a break. Sometimes taking a step back helps, and that's what this other story, Professional Witness, is doing for me.
Some quick information on Professional Witness. I originally had the idea about, oh, two years ago I think. Around the same time I thought of The Death of Heroes and like DoH (I don't feel like writing it out again) I had originally written done some content for it back then. However, this time most of it I had to get rid of. (DoH I was able to use essentially everything I had written earlier.)
The premise to Professional Witness is more in line with typical science fiction (at least when compared to Sci-FU), and while it will be a surprise within the story, I don't mind sharing what it is. The main character is part of a group that travels back in time to right 'minor' wrongs however they can. Falsely convicted persons or guilty parties being released due to an error are the kind of thing they look for, but they have to be careful. They could not, say, go back in time and stop Jack The Ripper because that character has had such an impact on multiple cultures. The unnoticed crimes that don't make the news though, those are things they look at.
There is some more to it than that, but I don't want to spoil it all, and this post is already getting long. Well, I guess one more thing won't hurt. The members of that group call themselves professional witnesses, because they consider it their responsibility to reveal the truth.
Hopefully it won't be so long until my next post.

Please Check This Out. It's for Charity and You

As this blog is still very young and I'm not exactly an interesting person, I don't know if this will reach many people. But that's no reason to not try!

Today Humble Bundle started the Humble Music Bundle. For those of you who don't know, Humble Bundle is a company that gets content developers to provide their content in a collection that is offered only for a limited time. Okay, that's not too special on its own, but there is more to it. The collections are only available for a limited time and when they are YOU pick the price you pay for the collection. That's right. If you want to spend just one cent you can or if you want to spend $1000+, you can. You also get to decide what happens to that money. The money can go to the content creator, Humble Bundle itself, or charity in whatever split you want. Maybe you want to help the two charities (Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play), so you set it so most or all of the money. Maybe you want the creators to get a larger share, so you move that slider. It is up to you! You can even decide which creator or which charity gets how much money. Want all of what you pay to go to Child's Play? You can do that.

Also, all content in a collection is DRM free. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management and is what covers a spectrum of technology. The purpose of DRM is to make it difficult or impossible for someone to take some content and share it without the creator's permission. The catch is DRM can also prevent people from legally doing things they would think they can do. For example, if you have a digital copy of a movie but the format is only useable on your desktop. Now you've got yourself an iPad or other tablet, and want to watch it there. Well, that might not be possible because the file would have to be converted for the tablet, and the DRM prevents you from doing so. My personal opinions on DRM can be the topic of a different post.

Now, what makes the current Humble Bundle collection interesting is how it differs from every previous collection. Prior collections featured video games, and often included their soundtracks as well, all DRM free. This collection has no games. It is just music. Six albums specifically:

• Calling All Dawns by Christopher Tin
• Album Raises New and Troubling Questions by They Might Be Giants
• Jonathan Coulton’s Greatest Hit (Plus 13 Other Songs) by Jonathan Coulton
• Favoritism by MC Frontalot
• Best of the Valkyria Chronicles by Hitoshi Sakimoto
• Twelve Remixes of Four Songs by OK Go

The last album listed here, Twelve Remixes of Four Songs is actually tied to a little game the Humble Bundle collections have always had. You can pay however much you want to pay for most of the collection, but part of it is only given to you if you beat the average price everyone is paying. At the time of my writing this, the average price is $8.03, so if you want that sixth album, you will need to pay at least $8.04. It's a pretty clever system, isn't it, to make sure customers spend more than just a penny on the collection.

And remember, you can have all of the money you spend on the collection go directly to charity. The charity benefits and you get good music. What's not to like? Here's the link again, in case you don't want to scroll up for it: The Humble Music Bundle.

Took Longer Than I Wanted, But It Is Complete

Just finished the first draft of my first short story, The Death of Heroes. Now comes the exceedingly fun part of editing, revising, and rewriting it, as needed. Also making the cover image and other front material for it. There is more to self-publishing a digital book than writing, as I discovered last year and fortunately all of this should be easier to do than it was for Sci-FU, thanks to that experience. Except for the cover that is. Never been good at drawing, but the idea I have for the cover I think isn't too far beyond my skill level.

Since I've finished the first draft, I think I'll share a little more about this story than I have already. It is set in the fictional Old West town of Scurvy. (Considering some names of Old West towns, I'm surprised I never found Scurvy when I was checking to see if there was a real town.) The story shifts between the protagonist's first experience in the town and his speech directed to the reader, as though he is telling you the story himself. I felt this would be an appropriate way to break up the main segments of the story, without formal chapter breaks.

Hopefully those of my friends I send this first (and admittedly rough) draft to will find the time to read it and let me know what they think. It's style and story are different from what I normally work with, so their feedback will be invaluable.

The primary characters are John, the protagonist, Sheriff Jimmy (I'm still bad at making up names), Rose Carey, Mayor William Simon, Father Lettery, Sam, and Robert. Hopefully I can get this polished and all the work for it completed soon, so everyone interested can read it and meet this people. I don't think any of you will regret it.