Genesis Earth Trilogy – Page 14 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Ebook update

As many of you know, I epublished my first novel two weeks ago, and three short stories a few months before that. How has it been going?

First, let me point out that I have another guest post out as part of the Genesis Earth blog tour, this one on my friend Gamila’s blog. Gamila reviews YA and LDS fiction, and is a big proponent of clean reads. For my post, I wrote about the place of LDS writers in science fiction and fantasy and the unique things we have to offer these genres. Fun stuff; you should check it out.

So now that that’s out of the way, how do the numbers look for my epublishing venture? Not bad, actually. In two weeks, I’ve sold twenty copies of Genesis Earth and gotten two five star reviews on Amazon, only one of which was from someone I know. Not bad–I’m looking to get at least $50 from Amazon come September, which should be very nice.

The short stories have not sold nearly as well, however. Part of it probably has to do with the fact that I’m not a super stellar short story writer, but another part probably has to do with the lack of promotion. The review of “From the Ice Incarnate” by Red Adept Reviews did lead to a few extra sales for all my stories, but only about half a dozen or so. Nothing spectacular.

Part of it also has to do with the sampling system, I think. With ebooks, you can download a free sample (usually the first 10% of the text) and decide whether you want to buy it or not. For Genesis Earth, that amounts to the first three chapters and then some; for the short stories, maybe a couple of paragraphs and that’s it.

So what’s the takeaway? I think that novels work out much better as ebooks than short stories. For one, you can justify charging more for them (I haven’t seen anyone selling short stories for more than $.99), and thus get the higher royalty rate. For another, they work much better with the sampling system; readers are much more likely to get hooked on the first 10% of a novel than the first 10% of a short story. And lastly, I’d say that you need to figure out some kind of way to promote yourself and get your work out there. Still working on that.

All in all, not too bad. But here’s the really cool part (and I mean really cool): at my current cost of living, I estimate that I need to sell only 15 ebooks per day to break even financially. At a consistent average of 25 books per day, I could justify quitting my “day job” (150% of all monthly expenses).

How is that exciting? Well, get this: starting out the gate with very little platform or exposure, I’m averaging a little over 1 ebook sale per day. If I could boost that up to 3 sales per day for 5 books, I’d be breaking even. At 5 sales per day for 5 $2.99 books (~800 total ebook sales per month), I’ll be making a living.

See why I’m excited?

My goal now is to get up to 5 full length novels / novellas out before the end of the year. Believe it or not, that’s very achievable.

First, I’ll be epublishing Bringing Stella Home sometime this summer, hopefully in time for worldcon. Shortly thereafter, I hope to publish Sholplan as a $.99 novella.

My current WIP is the third draft of Desert Stars, and I bet I can have that ready before Christmas. While I’ll put the whole thing out as its own novel, I like Emma’s idea of splitting it into two books as well. I’ll probably title them Dome and Desert and Sand and Stars, and make the first one available for free just to get more exposure.

And at some point in between all that, I’ll finish compiling all my travel journals from the 2008 BYU Jordan study abroad and put that out as its own work. That one should be fun, and a good way to experiment with in-text photos and illustrations.

That’s my plan. The more I put my work out there, the better my chances at making it big. And even if I don’t, if I have enough titles out and they all sell more or less consistently, I can still leverage that to make a full-time living. And that’s my dream.

So yeah, I’m extremely excited.

New title and writing update

Just a quick update before I go to bed.

After much deliberation, I decided to go with Desert Stars as a title. Thanks, Megan, for suggesting it. It’s a little short, and doesn’t exactly wow me, but I’ll try it out and see if I grow into it. The most important thing anyway is what the readers think.

The last couple of days have been going slow, mostly because of stupid writerly avoidance things. It’s a lot easier for me to revise than it is to write new material, and the last couple of chapters have required a lot of new material. But I think I’m through most of it, and will hopefully make some good progress tomorrow.

Genesis Earth has been selling a lot better than I thought it would…which doesn’t say much, but at least it says something. For promotion, all I’ve done is the blog tour, a couple links on facebook, and general participation on the Kindle Boards. In any case, I’m betting that writing is more important than promotion, so that’s where I’m focusing my energy.

The temp job I’m working is pretty good. I listen to stories, writing podcasts, and lectures all day while doing data entry. One of the most interesting ones is this presentation from Gencon, all about story structure and the hero’s journey. Good stuff; it’s helped me figure out a lot of things with my current WIP (Desert Stars).

I’ve also been listening to a lot of trance music, especially Armin Van Buuren. I know my Dad will think it’s crap, but hey I like it! I think I’ll leave you with this track, where Armin teams up with the guy behind Owl City. I’d tell you how many times I’ve listened to it, but that would be embarrassing. So anyways…good night!

Genesis Earth is now live!

That’s right! Genesis Earth, my first epublished novel, is now available on Amazon for $2.99. Check it out, post a review, tell your friends!

I decided to price it at $2.99 for a few reasons:

First, that’s the lowest price at which Amazon allows a 70% royalty rate. When you buy the book, I get $2.05, which is a very nice royalty even for a traditionally published book. A lot of readers like to know that their money is going to support the author, rather than the people exploiting the author, and that’s only really possible at this price point. I might drop the price to $.99 at some point in the future, but only for a short period of time for a special promotion.

Second, there’s the question of value perception. I don’t want people to think that my book is worth less than a cheeseburger at McDonalds. Sure, I might get more buyers if I price it lower, but I don’t want to attract people who will buy it and never read it; I want to attract people who will read it, love it, and buy all my other stuff–and I plan to put out a lot more work before the end of the year!

Third, and perhaps most importantly, I fully believe that this book is worth that much. It’s worth at least that much. Granted, if I didn’t have to worry about money, I’d gladly give it away for free (and what an awesome world that would be!), but even so, if you’re a person who enjoys thoughtful, character driven science fiction, I’m confident that you’ll come away from Genesis Earth feeling satisfied.

So yeah, Genesis Earth is finally up! Buy it, read it, blog it, tweet it, facebook link it, start format…er, yeah, you get the picture. Wheee!!

I’m going to start guest blogging on a bunch of other blogs, but don’t worry, I’ll keep this blog updated as well. I also need to get back into writing my next novel, so I’d better do that now. See you around!

AHHH! It’s uploaded!

That’s right; just a few minutes ago, I uploaded Genesis Earth to the Amazon Kindle store. It’ll take about 24 hours to show up on the site, at which point the entire universe will implode and we’ll all become robots fighting for survival in an artificial reality. So get ready!

That beautiful image on the left is the cover, by the way. Pretty awesome, neh? It turned out even better than I was hoping it would.

Genesis Earth is my first epublished novel, and as such, I feel happy, nervous, excited, and ecstatic about it all at the same time. The short stories were one thing, but this–this is the real deal. This is me jumping in with both feet and not looking back.

It’s been a long and arduous road to publication, and I want to thank all of you who have been a part of it. I plan on sending out a free copy to all of my first readers as a thank you gift; if for some reason I miss you, please let me know and I’ll get that sent out to you.

Finally, if you still want to get in on the blog tour, let me know and I’ll sign you up. I’m not going to set up a strict schedule, but I’ll probably do three or four blogs a week, so either send me a topic to blog about or a set of interview questions, and I’ll get back to you as promptly as I can.

Man, this is exciting! I’m sure that the road ahead won’t be easy, but at least things are now in motion. This awesome novel has sat on my flash drive for far too long–time to put it out for people to discover. It might take months for it to find its natural readership, but I’m confident that it eventually will.

Expect a post in the next 24 hours with more details. Until then, prepare yourselves!

Stoked for CONduit and a sneak peek

CONduit starts tomorrow in Salt Lake City, and I am so stoked!

This will be my third year in a row, and it looks like all the usuals are going to be there: Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Dave Farland, L.E. Modesitt, Tracy and Laura Hickman–in other words, a whole bunch of awesome people. It’s gonna be fun!

As usual, I’ll be recording all the panels I attend. Shoot me an email if you want the mp3s. I’ll also try to give a report on this blog, though it might be a bit sparse.

This year, I’m hoping mainly to get the ball rolling for the ebook release of my novel Genesis Earth. Local cons are great for networking with other writers, and hopefully I can get a few more people to sign up on the blog tour I’m trying to get started.

If you’re a blogger / blogging writer and you’d like to participate, here’s how it works: you give me either a topic for a blog post or a list of interview-type questions. I’ll write it up post and send it to you, along with the cover image for Genesis Earth. In the post, you include the image and a link to amazon where people can find the novel. When the post goes live, I’ll mention it here and put up a link so my readers can find it.

You get a free guest post, I get publicity for my book, and we both cross pollinate readers and build our blog audience. Win-win-win all around.

So yeah, shoot me an email if you want to participate. Genre-wise, Genesis Earth is a YA science fiction romance; basically, it’s a coming-of-age love story with starships, wormholes, and first contact. If you think your blog readers would be into that kind of thing, I’d be more than happy to put you on the tour list!

Finally, I have some eye candy for you: my cover artist, Hideyoshi, just sent me the final proof and it looks pretty friggin sweet. Check it out:

Aaahh! I’m so stoked to get this book out!

First review and an announcement

So shortly after I joined the Kindle Boards, Michelle from Red Adept Reviews contacted me for a blog interview to go along with a review she was doing for “From the Ice Incarnate.” The review and interview were posted over the weekend; you can find them here.

The review is generally positive, though I think the criticism is pretty fair; I’m much better at writing novels than writing short stories. It was a pleasant surprise, however, to have a reviewer come to me, and to come so quickly. I honestly wasn’t expecting that, so thanks!

“From the Ice Incarnate” is based on a scene from my novel Genesis Earth, which I will be epublishing very soon. I just got the initial sketches from the cover artist I selected, and they look really good! The only other holdup is my copy editor, and he should be finished by Wednesday, so hopefully the novel will be out in a week or so.

In order to spread the word, I’d like to put together a blog tour. If you have a blog and would like me to write a guest post, that would be awesome! Just email me with a subject to discuss, or a list of interview questions, and I’ll let you know when I can fit you in. I’ll also post a link on this site, so my readers here can find your blog.

So anyhow, that’s what’s going on here. I’m very excited to get Genesis Earth out, and also that my work is starting to get some attention. Hopefully, that will continue to build; in the meantime, I’ll keep on doing what I always do: write.

Rocking the rewrite

I am well into the third draft of Worlds Away from Home, and oh man–it is so much fun! That might seem a bit counter-intuitive (revising = fun?), so let me explain my process.

In a first draft, I have a ton of ideas, but it’s hard for me to keep track of them all (and they also tend to change even as I write them). I’ll cobble together a story out of them, but it’s a rough, misshapen story, with subplots that go nowhere, characters who seem schizophrenic, scenes set in the wrong point of view, and setting details that are inconsistent. The main throughline is still there, but it’s buried under a ton of crap, sometimes so much that even I can’t see it.

In a second draft, I cut out the worst of the crap and try to dig out the core story elements. I’ll cut entire chapters and subplots, throw out characters, rework the world, and fix as many of the glaring errors as I can.

Some writers call this a “triage edit,” and that’s as apt a term for it as any. I’m not doing surgery yet; I’m applying the field dressings that will get the wounded from the battlefield to the operating table.

But the third draft, by far, is my favorite. That’s when I take a hard look at the story and figure out how everything connects. It’s like dumping out a new Lego set and opening up the instructions. This is where I iron out the major character arcs, where I start to intertwine the subplots properly, where I get a sense of the book’s themes and figure out how to make it insightful and thought provoking.

Writing the third draft is absolutely glorious, and I love it.

Right now, I feel so immersed in the world of my novel, it makes me want to lock myself in a room and do nothing but write. I have to force myself to go to bed, otherwise I’d be up until 4am writing. Even with some of the major changes I need to make with this book, I wouldn’t be surprised if I average 4k or 5k words per day for the next two weeks (about all the time I have before I have to go back to work).

I finished the third draft of Genesis Earth in less than three weeks. I finished the third draft of Bringing Stella Home in considerably more time than that, but that was partially because of other real-world stuff out of my control (like a nightmarish internship), but between that and the fourth draft, it was much the same thing.

So anyhow, I’m having an awesome time revising Worlds Away from Home, and the finished draft is going to be AWESOME. And next to changing someone’s life with one of your books, that’s probably one of the best feelings you can have as a writer.

Man, writing is so much fun. 🙂

Back in Mass

Mass = Massachusetts = “back east,” for all you unwashed Utahans!

My sister’s wedding is this weekend, so I’m back at my parents’ place helping them get everything set up. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow, but I’ve got my netbook and will probably get a couple good hours of writing in.

I managed to write a bit on the plane today, but not as much as I was hoping. My goal is still to finish Into the Nebulous Deep 1.1 by May 14th; I’ve got about 15k-20k left to go, and since I’m taking the next few weeks off to work on writing projects, I shouldn’t have any problems meeting that deadline.

Yesterday, I took the unedited manuscript of Genesis Earth and formatted it nice and pretty so my friend Laura could read it on her Kindle, and…man, it looks like a real book! There’s something about seeing your work in the actual form that people are going to read it in that is just…well, for lack of a better word, magical. It’s definitely motivated me to get GE up quickly, as well as Journey to Jordan. More on that in the next few days and weeks to come.

It’s getting late out here and I’d better get some sleep, but before I do, I want to put a plug in for my new favorite webcomic, The Zombie Hunters. Ross Wolfe, Quark’s renowned zombie expert, introduced me to the comic a couple months ago, and I have been totally hooked ever since.

The comic is set in our world after the zombie apocalypse, where a band of five thousand survivors struggles to rebuild civilization on an island that was previously the site of a major research campus. The zombie plague has a dormant phase, where the infected can live normal lives, but turn into zombies when they die.

The infected live in segregated barracks as second class citizens, but teams of them regularly venture out into the wastelands to salvage supplies from the zombie-infested ruins. The comic basically centers around one of these teams of zombie hunters; their struggles and challenges, their relationships with each other, and their hopes and dreams for the future.

The storytelling is fantastic, the characters are engaging and real, the post-apocalyptic setting dark, gritty, and yet totally immersive and frighteningly believable–man, it’s just awesome. And the longer it runs, the better it gets! I can’t wait to find out how Charlie the half-life fits in with his ability to communicate with the zombies, or to get the full backstory with Jenny and Milo. And I love the banter between Jenny and Sammie, her alcoholic sociopath best friend.

Right now, though, the main storyline is on hold while the author works through some business problems, but the short story is absolutely fantastic. I love her fantastic use of point of view–how she gets into the little boy’s head and shows the apocalypse unfold from his perspective. And the kid’s grisly end…man, zombies are even freakier when you never see their faces! I wouldn’t be surprised if I have nightmares tonight about it–I have in the past. Crazy awesome zombie nightmares, heh.

As a side note, may I point out what may quite possibly be the perfect weapon for the zombie apocalypse, the AA-12 shotgun. All it needs is a bayonet and like a bajillion clips of ammo. A must-have for any zombie contingency plan.

But yeah, let me just say I am in awe of The Zombie Hunters. Awesome, awesome story–every time it updates, I get immersed again in the post-apocalyptic world, and it is amazing. If I ever end up writing a zombie apocalypse story (which will probably involve starships and space travel in some fashion), I would be tickled if it’s even half as good as this excellent webcomic.

Goals for May

The last two weeks have pretty much decimated my writing routine. Between family stuff and a 40 hour per week temp job, I’ve pretty much fallen behind on everything.

However, the good news is that with the money from the temp job, I can afford to take a month off to work exclusively on writing projects. Here’s what I plan to accomplish, in order of importance:

Finish Into the Nebulous Deep 1.1.
Finish the online TEFL class.
Publish Journey to Jordan on the Kindle.
Finish >50% of Worlds Away from Home 3.0.
Prepare Genesis Earth for publication.
Release the short stories on Nook, Smashwords.
Switch to Linux.

A hefty bill, especially considering that my youngest sister’s wedding is next weekend. However, I think I can definitely do it. I’ve got about 18k words left in ITND, and with the feedback from my first readers, I’ve got tons of ideas for WAFH. That project is going to be fun.

Journey to Jordan shouldn’t be too hard, either. I found a good WYSIWYG html editor and played around with some test files today until I figured out how to make it work. Now, I just need to play around with an actual Kindle to see how small I need to make the interior illustrations/photos to make sure they look good. After that, it’s just copy and paste from old blogs, with a little spot editing and some time to write a foreword.

Journey to Jordan is going to be a lot of fun. It’s a travel journal, not a science fiction novel, but my experiences in the Middle East definitely shaped my writing style, and it might be fun for readers of my novels/stories to see where the influences came from. If all goes well, I can have it up by the 14th.

But above all else, my priority is going to be writing. I want to get back into a steady routine, plugging out a good +2.5k words each day until ITND is finished. The deadline for that is the 14th, but I want to have it finished sooner if possible. It’s going to be hard with my sister’s wedding, but I’ll do the best I can.

Of course, this is all assuming that I can take the whole month of May off. However, Pioneer Book called me up on Saturday to set up an interview–they’ve got a position open, and I’m pretty optimistic that they’ll want to hire me.

If that happens, great! I’ll just push some of this stuff back into June and juggle part time work with these writing projects. Full time work is much harder to juggle, but if things don’t work with Pioneer Book, the guys at the temp job want me to come back in June. So either way, I won’t be broke (inshallah).

The ultimate goal, of course, is to make the writing pay the bills. That seems more possible to me now than ever before, but it’s still a ways out there. 2015, though–that’s the goal. I want to me making a full time living as a writer by 2015.

But for now, I’d better get some sleep. After all, I want to write +4k words tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Disappointment and a shift in direction

So the latest round of judging for the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award came out today…and Genesis Earth didn’t make the cut.

Oh well, at least I made it to the quarter finals. Most of the reviews were encouraging, though the one from Publisher’s Weekly made me wonder if the reviewer had something against science fiction in general (or was perhaps underpaid and overworked, as seems to be common in traditional publishing these days).

I did notice that none of the previous years’ winners (or finalists, so far as I could tell) were science fiction–which is not to put down their quality, or the quality of the semifinalists. It does make me wonder, however, whether part of the reason Genesis Earth didn’t move on was because of the tastes of the audience.

I’m not discouraged though. My novel has garnered a lot of positive feedback, not only from alpha readers, but from agents and editors as well. I know it’s got potential; just hasn’t come into its own yet.

The thing is, Genesis Earth is a YA science fiction romance novel, and the YA market is much harder to break into without an agent than adult sf&f. I could probably find an agent if I queried around long enough, but after reading Dean Wesley Smith’s series Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing, I’m convinced not to go that route.

At the same time, ebooks are revolutionizing the publishing world much faster than anyone had predicted. We may pass the 50% mark in the next few months, if indeed we haven’t already. Combine that with increasingly unfavorable contracts with traditional publishers and some disturbing accounting discrepancies at the major houses, and self-publishing is looking better and better every day.

So I’ve decided to put up Genesis Earth as my first indie published novel. Expect to see it sometime this summer, probably in June or July.

If you’re an editor and would like to hire out your services, send me an email at joseph [dot] vasicek [at] gmail [dot] com. I’ll send out a few test pages and ask about your rates (preferably per word). I don’t have a whole lot of money, but I’m willing to pay for professional quality work.

If you have any ideas for cover art or a cover artist, let me know as well. I’ll be spending a lot of time trawling Deviant Art and old Leading Edge issues, as well as analyzing traditional book covers to get a feel for that end of the business. I’m a firm believer in the tradition of high quality science fiction and fantasy art, and want my own work to be a part of that, even if it costs a little extra.

I felt uneasy with going indie a few months ago, but right now it seems, if nothing else, like a very smart calculated risk. The worst that can happen is that it takes a long time to find its audience, leaving me out a few hundred bucks in freelance costs until it does. The potential benefits, on the other hand, are tremendous.

In the meantime, I’ll keep blogging about the process to share what I’m learning. And if you want to support me, feel free to pick up one of my short stories on the Kindle and review it / blog about it / share it with a friend. The links are on the sidebar. In the next couple of weeks, I’m going to put them up on Smashwords and B&N, so if you prefer those formats, they’ll be available soon too, I promise.

In unrelated news, my cousin Angela just got a publishing deal for her poetry chapbook! Awesome! I’m glad to see that someone else in the family is having some publishing success–good luck!

(Image courtesy postsecret)