Outworld Trilogy – Page 7 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

What readers want

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what science fiction and fantasy readers want in the books they read. I’m in the middle of writing and publishing a series of novellas and short novels, so it’s definitely on my mind. After publishing twenty books and completing another novella series, I think I have a pretty good idea.

First and foremost, I think that readers want to have an experience. The exact nature of that experience depends on the genre, but for science fiction and fantasy readers, that experience needs to be out of this world. They want to be transported somewhere and feel that they’re immersed in the world of the story.

I think I’ve done a pretty decent job of this so far. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from readers who say that they really enjoy the worlds that I’ve created. There’s always room for improvement, but so far, I think I’ve done a pretty good job transporting my readers to other worlds.

Second, readers want characters that they can connect with somehow. That usually means characters that they can relate to, though it can also include larger-than-life characters as long as they don’t feel fake. The characters are especially important for science fiction and fantasy, since they make everything else in the book feel real and authentic. Besides, when you’re visiting a new and unfamiliar place, it’s always good to have a friend.

I think that character is one of my strong points. I love getting into my characters’ heads and showing how they uniquely see the world around them. I also love showing how characters change and grow as they struggle to overcome their weaknesses. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from readers on my characters, even in some of the more critical reviews, so that tells me I’m doing something right that so many readers can connect with them.

Third, readers (especially sf&f readers), want an adventure. They don’t just want an internal struggle as a character wrestles with difficult moral issues, or a transformative growth experience as a character faces a difficult challenge. Both of those can make a good story into a great story, and turn a reader into a fan, but more than that they want stuff to actually happen. They want the plot to move at an exciting pace–to get sucked into a story as they wonder what’s going to happen next.

With the series I’m writing now (Sons of the Starfarers), I’m trying to do just that. Star Wanderers (my other novella series) did pretty well, but I think the conflict was more personal and internal, or had more to do with the relationships between the characters than any sort of adventure that they were having together. There’s a place for that, but I think a lot of readers got bored midway through the series, or didn’t feel a compelling need to finish it. With Sons of the Starfarers, I’ve been careful to keep the action moving at a good clip with every book, and so far almost everyone who reads the second book goes on to the third book.

So those, I think, are the top three things that the majority of readers are looking for. But there’s something else that I don’t think I’ve been as good at, and it has to do with everything above.

I think that most readers, especially sf&f readers, are looking for longer books. They want everything above, but they want it in much bigger doses. The enjoyment they get out of a book doesn’t increase linearly with the page count, it increases exponentially. The longer the book, the deeper the immersion. The characters feel that much more real the longer they get to spend with them, and the adventure feels that much more thrilling.

As I’ve said before, I really enjoy writing novellas. But if my readers want something meatier, I’ll do what I can to satisfy them. I may love writing novellas, but I also love writing novels too. Since they generally take longer to write, with a lot more time between new releases, it’s more of a challenge to market them, but I have enough books out now that I can switch gears.

There are a couple of half-finished novel projects that I’ve had on the back burner for a while. I’ll keep working on Sons of the Starfarers until that series is complete, probably sometime next year, but I’ll also work on the novels in the meantime. Sons of the Starfarers will have nine books (three omnibus editions), and then it will be complete. After that, time to move on to longer books.

Short Blitz #7: Starchild

Title: Starchild
Genre: Space Opera
Word Count: 3,000
Writing Time: about two weeks

I haven’t trimmed or polished this story yet, but I’m calling it at 3,000 words. If I were stricter about following Heinlein’s rules, I would only give it a proofreading pass, but with shorts I’ve heard that it’s best to cut out as many unnecessary words as possible, so I’ll give it a solid pass before sending it out.

Unlike all of my other short stories so far, this one takes place in the same universe as my novels and novellas. Specifically, it takes place in the Star Wanderers universe, at an unspecified system deep in the Outworld frontier. It’s about a girl in the strictly regimented society of an isolated space colony, who decides to be the first from their outpost to win the heart of a star wanderer. More generally, it’s about the cycle of life on a frontier space station and the inevitable loss of innocence from contact with the outside.

The idea came to me while I was on vacation, so I didn’t do much with it for the first week. I dabbled with it while I was out at the Cape, writing a little here and there, but it wasn’t until I was on the train headed back that I dedicated some serious time and effort to it.

My sister lives in Iowa, at almost the exact midway point between Massachusetts and Utah, so I decided to stop by and pay her a visit along the way. I finished the story this afternoon at her house, and I plan to print it out and submit it to F&SF while I still have access to their printer. What can I say … I’m cheap. :p

I don’t think this will be the last short story that I write in the Star Wanderers universe. If I could write a few good ones that get picked up by a major magazine like Asimov’s or Clarkesworld, that would be a great way to bring in more readers. I figure a story in the same universe as my other books will be much better at that than a generic short story, and since self-publishing is my bread and butter, the more I can get my short stories to serve that, the better.

In any case, now that thing one is done, I can focus all of my attention on Sons of the Starfarers. If all goes well, Book III: Strangers in Flight will be published in the next couple of weeks, and Book IV: Friends in Command
will be finished (at least the rough draft) by mid-October. This was a nice project to work on during vacation, but now that it’s finished, it’s time to get back to work!

Thoughts on declining sales and the summer slump

According to conventional bookselling wisdom, summer is the slowest time out of the year for book sales. But is that really the case? I’ve heard David Gaughran and Ed Robertson argue that that’s just a myth perpetuated by New York publishers who are completely out of touch with their readers. Sales don’t fluctuate with the season so much as with promotions and new releases, so the argument goes.

Well, it’s been three years since I started self-publishing, and I still have no idea whether there’s a slump or not. June was my best month ever, but sales have fallen off sharply since then and it looks like August is going to be the worst month of the year. I wish I could blame that on the summer slump, but last year, June was also my best month, and sales after that held more or less steady.

It’s a hard thing to watch your main source of income fall more than 50% over the course of seven or eight weeks. More than anything else, it’s reinforced to me that I cannot afford to rely on just one income stream. Most of my sales come through Amazon, but I need to figure out ways to promote and market my books on the other venues. Relying almost exclusively on Amazon is like putting all your officers in the same shuttlecraft.

How much of the decline has to do with the launch of Kindle Unlimited last month? I don’t know, but it’s making me nervous. None of my books are available through KU because Amazon requires exclusivity in order to be enrolled in the program. That’s not something I’m willing to give them, at least with my already published books. But I may enroll one of my future books in the program, just to see what it’s about.

Honestly, though, I think the slump has more to do with my own lack of promotion and the fact that I haven’t had a new release for two months. When Strangers in Flight (Sons of the Starfarers: Book 3) comes out next month, I hope that will change things around.

I think it’s also good to remember that books don’t spoil. In a certain sense, it doesn’t matter when a book comes out–when a reader discovers a book for the first time, to them, it’s something new. My Star Wanderers series has been out for a while, but there are still a lot of people who have never heard of it and would probably enjoy it. I’ve got to find ways to get at least the first book into those people’s hands.

I really, really suck at marketing though, as you can probably tell from the fact that I’m blogging about writerly business stuff that isn’t all that interesting to the average fan. 😛 Until now, I’ve been relying mainly on the strength of my writing to sell itself, but that probably isn’t the best strategy.

And that’s one of the other problems with the idea of the summer slump–it lulls you into thinking that things will pick up on their own once the summer is over. Well, that’s one rude awakening that I’d rather avoid if I can help it. In this case, the path of least regret is to assume that the slump is a myth and get back to work, dammit. Because even if it isn’t, it’s not like the extra marketing is going to hurt you.

Enough with the boring business stuff. Here’s Grant Thompson doing the ALS ice bucket challenge with dry ice. Enjoy!

Yay for short stories!

So for the past three weeks while waiting for my first readers to get back to me with their comments on Strangers in Flight, I’ve been working on short stories. It’s a great way to stay busy and productive between projects, and feels really gratifying too because it only takes a week or two to finish things.

The really gratifying thing for me, though, is sending off my stories to the magazines and having half a dozen or more on submission at any time. I love self-publishing, but for short stories, it makes a lot more sense to shoot for publication in one of the traditional markets first. They don’t buy exclusive rights, so you’re free to self-publish later, and they put your writing in front of a new audience, giving you some great exposure–all while paying you!

So far, the only market I’ve cracked has been Leading Edge. But the more I write, the sooner that will change! And since I still have the option to self-publish, the rejections don’t feel quite so discouraging. Instead, it’s almost like a friendly competition with myself to see how many rejections I can rack up, and how many stories I can have on submission at one time.

Lately, I’ve been working on a Sword & Sorcery story titled “A Hill On Which To Die.” It started off as a short story, but then it morphed into a novelette–not quite as long as Star Wanderers: Outworlder (Part I), but long enough that most of the markets won’t take it. It’s also long enough that it will probably need a revision once it’s done, and I may run it past a reader or two. It’s definitely turned out to be more work than I’d bargained for.

There’s another story I’m working on about a naturally occurring time portal in rural Pennsylvania, and how the Amish are so isolated from modern society because they’re the ones guarding it. Then I’d like to rewrite “The Infiltrator,” to cut out most of the stuff at the beginning and dive straight into the action. That should take only a day or two. And then, there’s that story about the uplifted Deinonychus that my girlfriend really wanted to read …

Gah! So many ideas to play with! I cannot possibly write fast enough to keep up with them. It’s the most frustrating thing in the world!

I suppose for most of my readers, this talk of short stories is kind of frustrating too, since they probably won’t be available for you to read for a while. But one way or another, they will come out eventually! And it’s definitely better to write something while in that weird space between projects. At least I’m finishing stuff.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. I’ll probably finish “A Hill On Which To Die” in a day or two, then work on “That Which Is About is” until it’s finished. It’s an Amish sci-fi romance–I can barely wait to get it all down on the page!c And after that, I’ll probably move on to Strangers in Flight, making the revisions and getting it ready to publish in August.

Don’t worry, I’m still alive

Wow, has it been more than a week since my last post? I think this is the longest I’ve gone without updating this blog since coming back from Georgia.

I wish I could say life has been busy, but it hasn’t really. Just another lazy summer in Utah. I did start dating someone recently, which probably explains where all my time has gone. But don’t worry, I’m still writing–in fact, the first draft of Strangers in Flight (Sons of the Starfarers: Book III) should be finished next week. It’s taken me a lot longer to write this one than I’d expected, but now that I’ve buckled down, it’s really coming together.

Comrades in Hope (Sons of the Starfarers: Book II) should be out by the end of the month, barring something crazy like my editor or cover designer dropping off the face of the Earth. Once they get back to me, all I’ve got to do is run through the edits (which shouldn’t take longer than a day or two) and format the thing (which also shouldn’t take longer than a day or two). So if you’ve read the first book and are eagerly awaiting the second, you shouldn’t have to wait longer than a couple of weeks!

I’m not sure what cons I’ll be attending this summer/fall. I thought I was going to Westercon, but it turns out my parents are going to be in town that week, and considering that it falls on the fourth of July (which also happens to be my sister’s birthday–who also happens to be pregnant), it looks like I have more important things to do that weekend. Besides, I want to start a new 4th of July tradition with my girlfriend this year: watching Gettysburg.

In any case, it looks like I won’t be doing too many cons this year. Maybe Salt Lake Comic Con, but I don’t know about that one yet either.

Once I’ve finished Strangers in Flight, I’ll probably take some time to work on a novel. There are three projects that I’m thinking about working on:

Star Wanderers: Children of the Starry Sea — I’ve been wanting to write a Star Wanderers novel for some time, but haven’t actually started it yet. It would definitely be fun to revisit the characters from that series, and it seems that a lot of my readers would really be interested in it too. It would also be a good way to tie things in with Sons of the Starfarers, and give some direction to the later books in that series.

The Sword Bearer — I explained the plot of this one to my girlfried, and she really liked it. That got me excited about it again, so I’m thinking very seriously about taking that project off of the back burner for a while. It’s a long-form epic fantasy that will probably turn into a trilogy–very different from the stuff I’m writing now. Still, it has a lot of potential, and the story is definitely solid. If I do pick it up, I’ll probably rename it The Sword Keeper, so that book 2 will be The Sword Bearer, and book 3 will be The Sword Wielder.

Star Wolf, AKA Heart of the Nebula — I’ve been meaning to finish this one for some time, so I might as well knock it off. With the last round of revisions, I got about halfway through, but it’s still very messy, so this would definitely be a project. However, this is the one that is closest to actually being publishable.

So that’s what I’m up to right now. I’ve got a lot more to say, especially about my girlfriend, but for now, I think I’d better get back to writing.

Familiar vs. original vs. WTF?

In writing, you’ve always got to strike a balance between things that the readers find familiar and things that might be original or new to them. Every genre has its own standard set of tropes, plot twists, character archetypes, and other such story elements, and even if the readers can’t explain them all to you, they know them well enough to tell when something is off.

Different genres strike different balances between the original and the familiar. Romance tends to lean more toward the familiar, with happily-ever-after (or happy-for-now) endings a fairly ironclad rule. Fantasy tends to have a little more originality, depending on the subgenre, but there’s still a host of familiar tropes and world-building elements that you can usually expect to find. Anime tends to go pretty crazy with the original elements, but even in a wacky show like Hetalia there are still a bunch of anime-specific tropes that ground the story in a degree of familiarity.

A great way to introduce originality is to pull a common trope or story element from a different genre and adapt it to a genre in which the readers are much less familiar with it. This is what Suzanne Collins did with The Hunger Games: she borrowed elements from suspense and thriller, and combined them in a novel that was solidly grounded in YA. As much as I hated the book, I have to admit she did a very good job blending those elements into another genre.

So combining familiar elements in unfamiliar ways is one way to create originality. But another way–and potentially a much more risky way–is to throw in something that the reader has probably never seen before.

I don’t know why, but as a writer I seem to be drawn to these stories–much more so than I’m drawn to them as a reader. As an example, when I wrote Star Wanderers, this weird polygamy element got woven in, with the best friend of the female protagonist trying to convince her to share her husband. I have never read a story where anything like that happened, but that was where the story wanted to take me, so I followed it as best as I could.

The danger in throwing in something that is so far outside the realm of familiarity is that the readers will go “WTF?” and get thrown right out of the story. With Star Wanderers, I tried to do my best to develop the characters and convey their motivations in order for it all to make sense, but it was still really hard to write because I didn’t know if the polygamy thing was something that they’d swallow. And when you’re worried how the readers are going to respond to you story, it can be very hard to write it.

I suppose I should give more credit to my readers, though. Their experience is probably a lot broader than I think it is, and their hunger for strange new experiences may actually be stronger than I can ever fulfill. With Star Wanderers, I got a handful of reviews saying that I should have taken the polygamy thing further, or that I should have paired up characters in ways that I’d never even considered. I’m sure there were others who were disgusted by the whole thing, but the books are still selling, so it’s clear that I didn’t alienate everyone.

Right now, I’m writing Strangers in Flight (Brothers in Exile: Book III), and I’ve got another element in there that you don’t really see very often in any genre–at least, not in the way I’ve chosen to play it. It flirts with the taboo a bit and I’m sure it will make some people uncomfortable, though probably not as uncomfortable as it will make me to know that people are actually reading it.

For that reason, writing this book has put me in a weird mental headspace that’s making it very difficult to finish the thing, no matter how many deadlines I give myself. I’m still going to write it, and unless an unforeseen disaster happens I’ll finish it in time to publish it before the end of the summer, but it won’t be easy.

That said, this is a really fun story. Aside from all my fears about how readers are going to respond to it, I’m having a blast writing it. So maybe I should just put that other stuff out of my mind and focus on what I enjoy about the story. Because if I enjoy the story, then you probably will too.

Looking ahead

Sorry not to post anything new in a while. This past week has been rather busy/disorganized for me, which isn’t helped by the fact that I had my last wisdom tooth pulled today. I’ve swallowed so much blood that my mouth tastes like I’ve been sucking on an anvil, and I can also feel a piece of exposed bone with my tongue. Awesome.

So I’m in the middle of Strangers in Flight (Sons of the Starfarers: Book III), and it looks like I’ll have to do a fairly substantial revision. That’s going to throw off the publication schedule a bit, but hopefully not more than a couple of weeks. Comrades in Hope (Sons of the Starfarers: Book II) will be out by the end of June, and Strangers in Flight will be out sometime in August. After that, I’ll take a break to work on some other projects and write the next three Sons of the Starfarers books.

I really enjoy writing in series of novella-length books. I know that a lot of readers complain when writers chop their stories into parts rather than packing them all into one full-length novel, but novellas come a lot more natural to me than novels. I probably won’t go any shorter than Star Wanderers: Outworlder (Part I), which technically is a novelette–novelettes lean more toward short stories in terms of structure, whereas novellas have a lot more room to play with (but not so much that you get lost in it).

What I’m thinking about doing from now on is writing novellas to start off with, and if a series does well (like Star Wanderers), to write a couple of full-length novels with the same characters. I can put out novellas a lot faster than I can put out novels, and putting them in series is a great way to build traction across a whole lot of books. And if the series is successful enough, then I know that a novel with the same characters will do fairly well too.

It’s kind of like Star Trek, in a way: it started as a TV series, then spun off a bunch of movies with the same characters. Which makes me wonder, why didn’t Voyager ever get a movie? Voyager was my favorite Star Trek series, and I totally think it deserved a movie or two.

In any case, I definitely want to write a Star Wanderers novel bringing back some of the main characters from that series. I’ll probably work on that after finishing Strangers in Flight, though with how long it takes me to write a novel, it may be a year before it’s ready for public consumption. It’s definitely on the list of books to write, though.

In the meantime, Sons of the Starfarers is going to consume all of my attention for the next month or so. I’d better get some sleep so I can work on it tomorrow. So much to do, so much to write … but I think you guys are really going to like it when it’s done!

New STAR WANDERERS covers!

Let’s take a quick break from the Brothers in Exile excerpts to show you the awesome new cover art for the Star Wanderers books! These ones are for Dreamweaver, Benefactor, Reproach, and Deliverance, and I think they turned out quite well.

The cover designer here is Libbie Hawker, who also did the other covers (except for Outworlder and Tales of the Far Outworlds. She’s also got a lot of great books of her own, so be sure to check her out!

In just a few days, I should have some art for Brothers in Exile to show you guys. I think you’re going to like it!

Okay, back to work

Well, the Blogging from A to Z challenge was fun, but now that it’s May it’s time to switch gears and focus on other things. I’ve got about a bazillion projects going on, so it’s definitely going to be a full month! Here’s what I hope to accomplish:

Writing

Finish the first draft of Strangers in Flight (Sons of the Starfarers Book III).
Revise Comrades in Hope (Sons of the Starfarers Book II) and get it ready for publication.
Start writing Star Wanderers: Wanderlust (Part IX).

Publishing

Finish redoing the covers for the Star Wanderers ebooks.
Put all the Star Wanderers books on Google Play, All Romance eBooks, and DriveThru Fiction.
Typeset The Jeremiah Chronicles and Tales of the Far Outworlds for print.
Publish Brothers in Exile (Sons of the Starfarers Book I).
Finalize all the print editions for Star Wanderers I-VIII.

That’s pretty much it. Some of it, like redoing the Star Wanderers covers and putting those books up on Google Play and ARe shouldn’t take more than an afternoon. Others are going to take a lot more work to fully realize.

The thing I’m most excited (and nervous!) about is getting Sons of the Starfarers ready for publication. I’ve had an awesome time writing these books so far, and I think you’re really going to love them. Brothers in Exile is with my editor right now, and I’m working with a new cover designer to come up with some awesome cover art. If all goes well, it should be out by May 15th.

In the next few days, I’m going to post some short 250 word excerpts from Brothers in Exile to give you a taste. I’ve never tried something like this before, so let me know what you think! I’ll probably post the first one tonight.

Here’s the book description:

TO WAKE A LOST GIRL FROM THE ICE, TWO BROTHERS MUST FACE AN EMPIRE.

Deep in the Far Outworlds, a derelict space station holds the bones of a long-dead people—and a beautiful young woman locked in cryofreeze. When the star-wandering brothers Isaac and Aaron find the sleeping girl, they soon realize that they are her only hope for rescue. If they don’t take her, then slavers certainly will.

With no way to revive her, they set a course for the New Pleiades in the hopes of finding someone who can help. But a storm is brewing over that region of space. After a series of brutal civil wars, the Gaian Empire has turned its sights outward. A frontier war is on the verge of breaking out, and the brothers are about to be caught in the middle of it.

They both harbor a secret, though. Somewhere else in the Outworlds is another derelict station—one that they used to call home. That secret will either bind them together or draw them apart in

SONS OF THE STARFARERS
BOOK I: BROTHERS IN EXILE

Pretty cool, huh? Keep an eye on this space over the next few days for more!

A few quick updates

So I thought I would post the Y post today for the A to Z challenge, but I didn’t get around to it so it looks like I’ll be doing Y and Z tomorrow. And yes, I know that “expectations” was a cop-out for X, but hey, at least I didn’t spell it “x-pectations.”

As far as other stuff goes, I’m still at work on Sons of the Starfarers, though I’ve been doing a lot more publishing stuff than writing stuff recently, mostly proofing and formatting. Once the second batch of covers for Star Wanderers comes in, I’ll take an afternoon off to update the rest of that series.

It’s nice to have someone else doing the cover art for you, though it’s still very collaborative since you have to approve everything and give feedback for tweaks. Still, these cover designers are doing a much better job than I could on my own.

Speaking of Star Wanderers, I’ve been getting a lot of reviews lately from people saying that they’re disappointed the series is over and wishing that it could continue. Well, be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it! I already mentioned that I’ve been thinking about writing a full-length novel, but I’ve also got some ideas for additional parts with some of the other characters.

Right now, I’m working on Strangers in Flight (Sons of the Starfarers Book III), but I should be finished with that one in May, with an open schedule for a couple months. That should be time enough to write Star Wanderers: Wanderlust (Part IX). I sketched out a couple of scenes for this one last year, but I think I’m going to toss those and start with something new. In particular, I have a great idea for an opening scene with Samson and Heloise (yes, Samson is going to be the star of this one. The title “wanderlust” should have given that away, lol).

Beyond that, it would be interesting to write a story from Captain Elijah’s point of view, and another from Master Korha’s. I suppose it would even be interesting to write a story from Salome’s perspective, though that would be a tough one. If I’m going to expand the Star Wanderers series, I’m going to write at least another four books, so if you guys have suggestions for characters to bring back, let me know.

That’s just about it for now. There are other projects I plan to work on, but Sons of the Starfarers and Star Wanderers should take up most of my focus for the next few months. Hopefully that means I can get the books out to you faster! I’ll certainly do my best.