“Getting Paid vs. Driving Downloads”

Every author wants to get paid for their work, if for no other reason than to pay bills and have your work validated by fattening your checking account.  But a few months ago, I set most of my science fiction ebook titles available at Smashwords to free.  Why?

For as long as I have been uploading titles to Smashwords, I have been using download volume as a basic indicator of how successful the title was.  Downloads going up means people are interested enough to take a closer look at your work.  There had been some sales as well, although not that many.   And like most ebooks, following Smashwords recommendations, I had priced my works around $2.99 or $3.99, even $1.99.  Not a lot of money.

Then download volume began to plateau out.  Flatlined in some cases.  I wondered what I should do.  Smashwords is pretty good at offering suggestions on how to drive downloads.  New and better covers.  More intensive marketing efforts.  Crash social media to get word out of your work.  This blog is actually a result of Smashwords recommendations.

But one recommendation stuck with me.  When sales and downloads are flat, Smashwords recommends setting all your titles with prices to zero.  No cost.  The rationale is that this may tempt more people to take a closer look at an unknown author: “Hmmm, this looks interesting…and it’s free…maybe I’ll download all or part of it and take a look.”

I’m happy to report that this worked, even better than I expected.  While some of my titles are still priced at around $2.99, all of my science fiction is now free.  And when I did that, there was an immediate spike in downloads and it’s pretty much stayed that way from the time I did it.  I now plan to continue making my science fiction available for free downloads for the time being. 

As of this post, I am getting about a hundred downloads a week across all titles.  So there is some interest out there.

Fortunately, I don’t need the money.  It’s not that I’m independently wealthy.  It’s just that I have other sources of income and I write stories now because I love to do that. 

Smashwords is a big promoter of doing whatever it takes to supercharge your downloads.  In fact, they have a book marketing guide with 39 tips on good marketing practices for ebook authors.  I’ve taken many of their ideas to heart and tried to put them into practice.  I now work with two blogs, this one and one directly related to my series Tales of the Quantum Corps.  I have a web site on wix.com, though it needs updating.  I’ve set my sf titles to free.  I’ve got a new series called Nanotroopers going, with mentions of upcoming releases and schedules in the front and back matter of the book file.  And I’ve started to add mentions of related or upcoming titles in much of my work, at the end of the book file.

One thing I haven’t done is invest in some new covers, especially for Tales.  I’m sure that would be a good investment and I’m sure I’ll do that pretty soon. 

So for an ebook author interested in gaining an audience, driving downloads is really more important than sales and dollars, important as those may be.  It’s all about getting noticed and gaining an audience, then making it as easy as possible for an interested reader to link to your book and make the sale…or the download.

The next post to The Word Shed will come on August 22 and will cover an update on my Nanotroopers series…where it is now and what’s coming up.  Also, what’s it been like to do a series that uploads a new episode every 3 weeks.

See you on August 22.

Phil B.

“The Old Ones and the Coethi: One and the Same?”

The villains of Tales of the Quantum Corps are called the Old Ones.  The adversary in The Farpool is called the Coethi.   I have used similar descriptions for both.  Should I make them the same entity?  For a storyteller, what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Here are some details about the Coethi:

1.     The Coethi are (thought to be) a race of sentient semi-robotic aliens whose main weapon against Uman forces is something Umans called a starball.  It is directed against the sun or star of a targeted Uman planetary system.  The only known defense is a Time Twister.  When a starball enters or is pulled into the twist field of a Twister, it is flung out of local space-time into the farthest reaches of the Universe.

2.     Umans and Coethi are contending for influence and territory in a region of the Milky Way known as the Galactic Halo.

3.     The main-sequence star Sigma-Albeth B is near the center of a key sector of the Halo.  It has four planets, one of them Seome.  Seome is an ideal site to build and operate a Time Twister to defend this sector, known to Humans as Halo-Alpha.  The sector is above the plane of the galactic Orion Arm, in which most of Uman space is located, including the solar system and its strategic timestreams T-1 to T-99.

4.     The Coethi originated in the Perseus Arm and view the Halo sectors as convenient ways to expand their territory and influence into the Orion and other arms in this quadrant of the galaxy.  But the Umans are in the way.

5.     The Coethi are a distributed intelligence.  They are a swarm of nanoscale robotic elements several light years in extent, drifting through space.

6.     The basic element of the Coethi is a nanobot.  An autonomous, nanoscale assembler/disassembler of incredible sophistication and complexity. 

7.     Nobody knows how the Coethi came to be, even the Coethi themselves.  As an organized superorganism of bots several light-years in extent, they have existed for a substantial fraction of the age of the Universe.  Best guess by Earth scientists is 4-5 billion years old. 

8.     The Coethi are a true superswarm of vast proportions.  In size and extent and connection density, it exceeds the complexity of all the human minds that have ever lived on Earth combined.  It is a thinking sentience, whose true environment is now interstellar space. 

9.     There is an archive of knowledge within the Coethi, a sort of computational cloud or main memory, which retains all information ever created or experienced by the swarm. 

10.  Within this Archive is information indicating that the Coethi originated on an actual homeworld, somewhere in M75 cluster in Sagittarius.  The data show that the homeworld was destroyed by a nearby supernova and the surviving elements dispersed into space in a sort of interstellar diaspora.  As humans reckon universe time, this happened at least 4-6 billion years ago, at a time when the Universe was approximately 7 billion years after the Big Bang.

11.  There is no known head or leadership group or body.  The main part is called the Central Entity.

12.  Nanobotic elements of the Coethi engage in some specialization to ensure that the swarm survives and the Central Entity is maintained.  Bots can specialize in such tasks as logical processing, communication, maintenance, archiving and memory, internal transport, navigation, world-seeding, orientation, etc. 

13.  Part of the Coethi swarm is organized as a vast logic array or processor, capable of quantum computation on a stupendous scale.  Effectively, this could be considered the Central Entity.  IT people would call it a galactic scale CPU.   But the truth is that the Coethi are a true collective entity whose behavior evolves from relatively simple rules applied to a vast congregation.  Most sentience and observable behavior emanating from the Coethi is emergent from the complexity and scale of the nanobotic connections. 

14.  It’s not too farfetched to consider the Coethi as a sort of galactic brain, although it certainly doesn’t encompass the entire Milky Way galaxy. 

15.  But the Coethi have an Imperative of Life which compels them to grow and expand the swarm.  Ultimately, they want to unite all world-based instances of swarm life which they have seeded into a giant, galaxy-spanning swarm or hive mind (like a neural network or computational cloud).  To the Coethi, this is the Imperative of Life itself.  The Imperative of Life is that life absorbs chaos from the Universe and adds or builds structure or order.  Life is anti-entropic. 

16.  In order to get their heads around the idea of the Coethi, some descriptors Uman scientists have used have been: galactic brain, interstellar neural network, computational cloud, galactic internet, and universal web.  The basic organizing principle or topology of the Coethi is unknown and can only be speculated about. 

17.  The general physical dimensions of the Coethi swarm have been estimated to vary anywhere from a few billion kilometers in breadth to several light years.  Cosmologists say that a number of organized structures in the Universe are that big.  Astronomers point to some nebula, gas and dust clouds, even black holes as objects of that dimension or larger.  There are some cosmologists who question whether the Coethi swarm is truly alive in a traditional sense.  Even biologists say the proven existence of the Coethi stretches the definition of life and sentience nearly to the breaking point. 

18.  The Coethi can manipulate quantum states of the subscale fine structure of space itself to communicate and affect matter at great distances. As one scientist says, “If the Universe were a great quilt, the Coethi can yank on a fiber at one end and untie a knot at the other.”  Their ability to use quantum entanglement as a means of manipulation is eons ahead of Umans’ ability to understand, let alone emulate. 

19.  The Coethi launch a starball weapon by amassing vast, concentrated quantities of what Uman scientists call fusium.  They concentrate the fusium and focus it using part of the main swarm, then launch the starball at a star or sun. 

20.  The starball affects the balance between outward pressure of fusion in the star’s core and its gravity.  Basically, the starball slows down or inhibits the fusion reactions so that gravity slowly wins out.  The star collapses and may, if massive enough, go supernova. 

 

My descriptions of the Old Ones (from Tales of the Quantum Corps) are very similar.  What are the advantages of using the same adversary in both series?

 

Advantages:

 

1.     I don’t have to re-invent things.  Basic details are already thought out.

2.     Using the same adversary gives me the option of some day blending Tales of the Quantum Corps and The Farpool Stories into one story universe, if I want to.  That decision has not been made yet.

3.     I now even have the option of doing stories from the perspective of the Coethi/Old Ones themselves. 

 

Disadvantages:

 

1.     Is having the same or very similar villains in two different series plausible?

2.     Do the villains have enough ‘depth’ or can I develop enough to make it work?

3.     Do I really want to draw these two series together into one universe?  Yes, it adds many story possibilities and a lot of conflict potential, but still….there would be a lot of details and questions that would have to be resolved.

 

I leave the idea with you for the time being.  Readers of this blog should not be shy about weighing in on this question.  I’m open to suggestions.

 

The next post to The Word Shed will be come on August 15 and will cover a topic dear to any writer’s heart…getting paid vs (for an ebook writer) making your titles free. 

 

See you on August 15.

 

Phil B.

 

 

“Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin”

The final title in my science fiction series Tales of the Quantum Corps is entitled as you see above.  I plan to start it in August or September 2016 and finish the first draft in late spring 2017.

What’s it about?  Here are my notes for the Prologue and the first 2 chapters…

PROLOGUE: (March 20, 2155)

Johnny Winger finds himself on the ‘planet of bots’ where he believes he has been before.  Is this a dream?  Is he disembodied, a virtual avatar?  The planet is covered with open fields of plants that are nothing but bots.  Winger is actually a swarm entity now. In the middle of this vast field, he comes to an open lake, with a small white wood frame bridge, where a whirlpool is churning.  Jumping into this whirlpool transports Winger to a time and place in his childhood when he and his Dad were at a fishing camp in Colorado.  Late at night, Johnny Winger and the other kids are supposed to be asleep. But they sneak to the edge of a room, where several tables are set up and Jamison Winger is playing cards with other men.  One of the card players is out of view, in shadow.  The kids call this player the Shadow Man.  For every question Johnny has in his mind, this shadowed player talks to Jamison Winger or the other men in such a way that it is clear he is answering Johnny Winger’s questions.  The questions have to do with who is The Shadow Man, is this fishing camp real? is this actually the ‘planet of bots?’, am I dreaming?

Remember that Winger’s original identity is maintained by the ANAD clone Doc III in a small, non-descript file in his swarm config buffer module. 

The Shadow Man informs Jamison Winger (actually Johnny Winger) that he has an important mission to perform.           

CHAPTER 1 (March 25, 2155) Farside Observatory, Korolev Crater, the Moon

The story opens in late March, 2155 A.D. as astronomers at Farside observe the approach of the Old Ones’ Mother Swarm with growing dread.

Astronomers Nigel Course and Lilly Fong received a Sentinel system alert.  It’s an all- sector alarm…something big has appeared in the outer solar system.  It’s billions of kilometers away but coming this way.  Course and Fong manipulate Sentinel to get a better view and discern the nature of the object or objects.  They eventually decide, from analysis of their readings and running the data through the computers (the system is called ALBERT) that the detected anomaly is a diffuse mass of small particle-size objects with a thermal signature consistent with a large swarm. 

ALBERT has concluded that the anomaly, provisionally known as KB-1 (Kuiper Belt One) may well be the leading edge of the Old Ones mother swarm, moving toward the inner solar system.  Course and Fong send an advisory to UNISPACE, per protocol.  The UNISPACE Watch Center, at Gateway Station, advises them to activate Sentinel defenses as a precautionary measure.  Course and Fong do this.  Sentinel Defense 3 is set (SenDef 3).

CINCSPACE General Mahmood Salaam, attending an awards dinner and function in Paris, is also advised.  CINCSPACE returns immediately to his suite of offices at UNIFORCE Hqs at the Quartier-General in Paris to monitor the situation and issue orders.

CINCSPACE orders immediate preparations be made at Phobos Station (Station P, Mars orbit) and at Titan Station (Station T, Saturn orbit) for two UNISPACE frigates to get underway.  The frigates were built, equipped and staffed for just this purpose: reconnaissance and initial probes into any swarm mass moving toward the inner solar system.

The frigates, UNS Korolev (from Station P) and UNS Tycho (from Station T), get underway. 

 

In another scene, outside Paris, reporter Dana Polansky is arguing with her daughter Jana about attending an Assimilationist rally in Paris.  Dana thinks her daughter has been brainwashed by the Assimilationists.  Jana thinks it would be cool to be deconstructed and become an angel, a para-human swarm of nanobots.  The argument grows heated.  Jana storms out of their apartment.  Dana is livid…and worried Jana might do something drastic.  She has previously arranged through contacts at UNIFORCE to plant a spybot on Jana, something she can’t detect and wouldn’t suspect.  Now, with Jana gone, Dana calls up the spybot and sees Jana is indeed heading right for an Assimilationist “church” in a Paris suburb.  She debates on whether to engage the spybot to morph and change configs to a personal MOBnet, containing her daughter where she is, until Dana can get there.  She decides to engage the MOBnet feature and watches from a dronecam overhead as Jana is ensnared right on the doorstep of the Assimilationist church.  She dashes out the door to retrieve her estranged daughter. 

CHAPTER 2 (March 26, 2155)  UNIFORCE Hqs, the Quartier-General, Paris

            General Lamar Quint is in the middle of composing a report to UNSAC about what Sentinel has detected beyond Pluto when an apparition appears in the corner of his office.  At first, Quint thinks he is imagining this, but the apparition grows into a recognizable human form.  It’s clearly a swarm that has somehow breached UNIFORCE security screens.  That alone is cause for concern and just as Quint is about to sound the alarm, the form becomes recognizably Johnny Winger…a blast from the past.  Winger was thought to have died on Europa in 2121, during the Jovian Hammer mission.  But here is a swarm likeness, an angel, showing up 34 years later.

            The angel appears real and insists it is Johnny Winger, in fact.  But Quint is dubious, to say the least.  The angel reports that Winger is alive and well and working as a spy and saboteur inside the mother swarm of the Old Ones, to prevent the Old Ones from destroying or absorbing Earth .   The angel wants to deliver some intel on the intentions of the Old Ones in the coming months, now that the mother swarm has reached the outer solar system.  Winger describes the Prime Key and what it will mean for Earth and all life on the planet, and also describes the Old Ones’ plans to build a forward base on Mercury and a ring to intercept much of the Sun’s output to facilitate their disassembly and absorption of the solar system.  He indicates that he has some room to maneuver inside the mother swarm and that he can do things to sabotage these plans.  But the intel needs to get to UNSAC and plans should be gotten underway to equip and launch an expedition to stop these efforts.

            Quint is dubious, thinking he’s dreaming or had too much to drink, but promises the angel that he’ll pass this intel on to UNSAC.  When and how can he be in contact in the future? The Winger angel says he’ll let Quint know; he’s running a grave risk doing even this much, but he has to do what he can to stop the Old Ones.  Then, the Winger angel disperses and Quint is left wondering if any of what happened actually happened.

            He goes upstairs to UNSAC’s suite and requests a meeting with Angelika Komar, the Security Affairs Commissioner.  Quint is shown into the UNSAC suite of offices and Komar offers him a drink.  Nighttime Paris is on display outside and they step out onto a veranda, protected by the faint veil of a nanobotic barrier.  Quint describes what has just happened.  Komar is doubtful and thinks Quint has imagined the whole scenario.  She tells Quint it’s either a trap laid by elements of the Old Ones or a stress reaction to all that’s going on.  “Sign yourself into sick bay tomorrow for a checkup, Lamar,” she orders.  “We need our top staff whole and hearty for the days ahead.”

            Quint leaves.  He thinks maybe UNSAC’s right.  “I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.  And with what Sentinel is now reporting, anybody would be spooked.”

            He resolves to do as UNSAC has suggested and returns to his quarters, intending to take something to help him sleep. 

            As this is going on, Dana Polansky has arrived at the doorsteps of the Assimilationist church to find her daughter, whom she thought was caught in a MOBnet, nowhere in sight.  She goes into the church, asks some questions, receives noncommittal and evasive answers, and comes back outside with the dawning suspicion that Jana has already gone off somewhere and been assimilated.  But how to find her?  How to find out?  Dana is frantic.  She decides to follow the recorded footage of the dronecam.  Studying this, she finds that several people from the church have collapsed the MOBnet, rescued Jana and taken her inside the church.  The church claims not to know anything about her.  But the video evidence proves otherwise.

            Furious, determined to get to the bottom of this and rescue her daughter, Dana barges back inside the church.

 

This story will bring Tales of the Quantum Corps to an end, at least for the time being.  As I indicated in a post several weeks ago, there are some loose ends that need to be tied up to successfully close the series…that’s the nature of series writing.

In this story, our intrepid hero Johnny Winger now exists only as a para-human swarm entity (this happened in Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary).  What’s it like to live life as such a being…not human, but resembling human?  Read Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin next spring to see for yourself.  And stay tuned to The Word Shed for notes and excerpts on this and other upcoming works.

The next post to the Word Shed will be on August 8.  In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the central enemy of my Farpool series…a race of machine entities called the Coethi.  They seem a lot like the Old Ones from Tales of the Quantum Corps.

Hmmmm….

See you on August 8.

Phil B.

“The Future of The Farpool”

This post will cover some details about where my newest science fiction novel The Farpool is in its short life as an ebook published through Smashwords and where I want to take this story in the coming months and years. 

1.     Current downloads for The Farpool as of 7-25-16 are now at 350.  Interestingly, the change from the previous week is an increase of 23…in other words, 23 additional downloads in the last week.

2.     As I have described previously, The Farpool is about an adventure experienced by Chase Meyer and Angie Gilliam, in which the two teenagers travel through a wormhole to another world (Seome), a world of marine creatures who face an existential threat that only Chase and Angie can stop. Below is the long description which you will see at the Smashwords ebook store…

a.     Teen-agers Chase and Angie witness a waterspout off Scotland Beach, Florida.  After it’s gone, they investigate a whirlpool nearby.  They spot two marine animals, clad in suits.  The creatures blind them with some kind of device, then disappear into the whirlpool.  The teen-agers are trapped in the vortex and wind up catapulted six thousand light years, to an ocean world called Seome.  The Seomish call it the Farpool.  It’s a wormhole.  Chase and Angie arrive in this world, riven by conflict, wracked by sound and vibration from a base on a small island, a base set up by Umans, star-faring descendants of the teenagers’ own human race.  The Umans operate a Time Twister.  The Umans are fighting off a malevolent enemy called the Coethi; one of the side effects of the Twister is the Farpool.

Now Chase and Angie find themselves in the midst of an existential crisis, a race against time and destiny.  Chase wants to stay behind, to learn more about this amazing world and to help his new–found Seomish friends defend themselves. Angie wants to go home.  But the challenge is this: Farpool depends on the Twister working.  If it’s shut down, the wormhole will be gone.  Chase and Angie now must decide: stay with their new found Seomish family, or attempt to go back through the Farpool before it’s closed forever.

The decision may send them back through time and space to their home world. But the same decision may well doom their Seomish friends to complete annihilation at the hands of the Coethi.

It will be the hardest decision Chase and Angie have ever made.

 

3.      I am about to embark (late summer or early fall) on the final story (book #7) in my series Tales of the Quantum Corps.  So this series will be coming to an end next spring.  But The Farpool is intended as a series too and it’s just getting started.  The Farpool is title number one.  In follow-on titles, we’ll encounter Chase and Angie again.  The main story arc of this series revolves around using the Farpool itself, a wormhole in space and time, to travel back and forth from the doomed world of Seome and Earth (or other places).  Because their world is doomed, the Seomish have concocted a plan to emigrate en mass to Earth and take up residence in Earth’s oceans (they are marine creatures).  This of course will lead to being discovered and also will lead to considerable conflict, as another intelligence equal to human now is emigrating to our world.  The two races will somehow have to learn to live with each other and this will become increasingly urgent as the same enemy (the Coethi) that the Seomish faced which doomed their own world is soon coming to Earth as well. 

This is the overall story arc of my Farpool series.  Here’s how I hope to carry the story forward….

4.     Planned upcoming titles

a.     The Farpool: Marauders of Seome

b.     The Farpool: Exodus from Seome

5.     Additional titles and story ideas (there may be a total of 7 titles including the original The Farpool)

a.     Human and Seomish deal with conflict and learn how to live together on one planet (Seome is destroyed when their sun Sigma Albeth B supernova’es) (The Farpool: Terran Union)

b.     Human (22^nd century) and Seomish work together to deal with approach of the Coethi (more battles and wars in voidtime and alternate time streams using the Time Corps) (The Farpool: Coethi Diaspora)

c.     Possible genetic/technological blending of human and Seomish physiology.  Hybrids develop, able to live on land and in the ocean. (The Farpool: Convergence)

d.     Coethi infiltrators threaten historical Earth time streams.  Human-Seomish  hybrids must combat changes to Earth’s past by combating infiltrators in periods and locales of ancient Earth history where amphibious hybrid troopers could make a difference. (The Farpool: Sabotage)

 

6.     This is my current plan and I don’t intend to carry the story any further than indicated here.  These titles will take 3-5 years to write, so don’t expect the series to be over any time soon.  But the story and setting details are rich enough with possibilities that I believe this series is worth doing.  And, as with anything fictional, changes are likely.

 

The next post to the Word Shed will come on August 1, 2016.  This post will cover plans for my upcoming final installment of Tales of the Quantum Corps.  It’s entitled Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin.

 See you August 1.

 Phil B.

“Wrapping up Tales of the Quantum Corps”

In May 2014, I embarked on a new venture for me in the world of publishing.  I uploaded the first episode in Tales of the Quantum Corps to Smashwords.  This title, Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor, began a series of books that has spanned six titles and will be drawing to a close in the next year with episode number 7.

As of July 11, 2016, total downloads for the entire series have reached 2870. 

This series has explored the life and adventures of one Johnny Winger, a cadet and later a nanotrooper with United Nation Quantum Corps.  As originally conceived, the series was to cover the exploits of UNQC, Winger and a tiny nanoscale robot called ANAD, a molecular assembler who could build large swarms of copies of itself or anything else it had configuration templates for in short times.  I intended and I think I have achieved a series of stories in which action is king.  I actually had in mind the old Tom Swift Jr. series of scientist-explorers when I originally drew up plans for Tales.  However, Johnny Winger and the Quantum Corps are by design a supra-national military-law enforcement organization.  I hoped to put Winger and ANAD and his fellow nanotroopers into all kinds of adventures, missions, and predicaments with every book.  And pervading the entire series of Tales is the presence of an extraterrestrial race of bots called The Old Ones, who finally reach the Solar System in the last story and we’ll see what happens. 

Now it’s time to bring this series to a close.  In order to do that, I have to allow the Old Ones to come fully into the forefront of the story, which means I have to pin down and define what they really are.  I’ve used them as a sort of myth in previous stories, as well as a religious icon, even a sort of God-image. People have projected their best and worst fantasies on the Old Ones.  But the time has come to be specific about what they are and what they mean to do.

Wrapping up a series means tying up loose ends.  I have a number in Tales of the Quantum Corps.  I have to pin down the exact nature of Johnny Winger himself, who has allowed himself to go through the assimilation process (being deconstructed into a swarm being) so as to fight the Old Ones from within.  I have to elaborate Winger’s relationship, not only with the Old Ones and with Dana Tallant and his fellow nanotroopers, but also with the Doc III bot who now maintains his original identity in a small non-descript file inside the Mother Swarm.  And I have to pin down and explain Johnny Winger’s relationship with himself.  Is he going to stay a swarm being?  Is it even possible for him to come back and become a single-configuration entity again…there are many who doubt this is possible. 

One of the problems of writing a series is that you are increasingly constrained the further you get into the series by what you’ve already written.  You have to keep good notes (I do, generally) and constantly check back on facts and names and dates and stuff.  This is all part of being consistent.  To this continuing effort, you have to add the effort it takes to advance the story, to tell an entertaining story, develop engaging characters and put them in peril. 

So far, about 2800 downloaders feel that I’ve done that. 

I recently found a Writer’s Digest piece by Rachel Scheller that deals with the need for consistency and continuity in writing a series.  Specially, Scheller describes 5 bad habits that writers of series fiction should not fall into:

1.     Oversights - catchall category for anything in a plotline, character, or setting that concerns illogical, unexplainable, or unrealistic courses of action and plot holes, including coincidence contrivance (writer needs it to work and so creates the groundwork on the spot to patch up a means to force it to work) and convenience justifications (it was the only way to make A fit with B, so I had to do it, didn’t I?).

 

2.     Changed Premise - This category includes information given in one episode that directly contradicts information in another. In a series this can be fatal. If your book series has a Changed Premise from one book to the next, readers will lose respect.

 

3.     Technical Problems - If your character always speaks in a certain dialect and suddenly stops in a subsequent book, that’s a technical problem. Names and jobs can also accidentally change through the course of a series. If your character’s hair color or eye color changes, or if he was 6’5″ in the first two books in the series but drops an inch in later stories, you have what may be considered technical problems.

 

4.     Continuity - In a classic Star Trek episode, the creators decided to establish that the Romulans had stolen the design of Klingon ships—so they could use a Klingon ship they’d already created. Not only that, but the Romulans also used Klingon weapons. Cheaper for the creators, yes, but viewers can’t help but groan at these production issues. If you’re doing anything “halfway” with your series simply because it would be a hassle to find a better, more creative way of handling it, you’re making your own production problems. Readers will feel your impatience and probably wonder why you skimped.

 

5.     Unanswered questions - If the author is never going to answer a nagging question, why invest anything, especially time and passion, in the series? Leaving a series arc dangling isn’t something an author can do in a book series unless she sets up the series from the first as an open-ended one that probably won’t have definitive closure. While each book in the series must have satisfactory individual story arc resolutions, all series-arc questions must be answered in the final book of the series or readers will be furious, perhaps enough to ban you as an author for life.

 

I’ll have to deal with each of these matters in wrapping up Tales of the Quantum Corps.  I have my work cut out for me.  Look for Episode 7 in Tales of the Quantum Corps, entitled “Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin,” sometime in the spring of 2017.

 

My next post to the Word Shed will come on July 25.  In this post, we’ll go back and look at what’s coming up for my new SF series The Farpool, which continues to be off to a pretty good start in downloads.

 

See you July 25.

 

Phil B.

“Early Returns are In…The Farpool lifts off!”

My new science fiction novel The Farpool was uploaded with no previous marketing or fanfare on June 24.  It’s gotten off to a rousing success. 

The ebook, now available at Smashwords, Apple ibooks, Barnes and Noble and other retailers, went straight into Smashwords’ Main Catalog and after a week and a half, has been downloaded 267 times.  In fact, in the early days, it was being downloaded at a rate of 5-10 downloads an hour.  This is very gratifying for me, as an author.

Smashwords has helped by launching their own mid-summer discount with most retailers.  In this promotion, they’re recommending all interested authors discount their priced books as much as 30-50%.  In my case, many of my works are already free (I am a relative unknown, so I’m trying to build an audience), so I just set everything I have uploaded to Smashwords to free.  We’ll see what happens.

My latest weekly downloads analysis shows that downloads across all my titles from the week from 6-27-16 to 7-5-16 increased by 319.  Significantly, exactly 100% of that increase was in science fiction titles.  My other titles are, at the moment, flat in downloads.  I think this says something about the types of readers who browse, download or buy ebooks.  More on that another time.

I have also uploaded in the last few days the latest episode of my serial Nanotroopers, done on July 1.  Episode 9 is at 59 downloads, after 4 days.  It’s been a steady mover, this series, but it has been slowing down lately.  I have planned some 22 episodes in total, so there may be work to do in juicing up downloads in the future.  Total downloads for the whole series are now at 2038, presumably many of these are the same downloaders from one episode to the next.  As mentioned in this blog before, Nanotroopers is a new departure for me, as I have included the upload schedule in the front matter of every episode, with title and date, etc.  I’m attempting to generate reader interest and downloads this way.  It seems to be working fairly well, but there’s a long way to go.

Upcoming work: 

I will continue to upload Nanotroopers episodes on the published schedule.  Episode 10 goes up to Smashwords on July 22…I’ll be done with it in a few days.   Writing a serial seems to be a good discipline for me, with the schedule, the need to move the story along smartly and keep it interesting and on track.  Mostly I already have this outlined ahead of time, but I’ve not hesitated to veer off course if I think the story needs it.

My next major work will be the final installment, the final story in Tales of the Quantum Corps.  The title is “Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin”.  It brings this series to a close after seven books.  This is the same character who stars in Nanotroopers but later in life and painted on a much broader canvas.  In essence, Nanotroopers is a slice of Johnny Winger’s life just as he joins Quantum Corps and becomes a nanotrooper.   Tales of the Quantum Corps is his entire story, from beginning to the end…?

The next post to Word Shed will be on July 18.  In this post, I’ll be talking about Tales of the Quantum Corps and what it will take to wrap this series up in story #7.  By the way, I expect to begin the first draft on or about August 11.  With any luck, I can finish the first draft next spring.

See you on July 18.

Phil B.