Shhh - don't tell anyone. It's just you and me here, right? I'll bet you're like me, teetering on the brink of giving up because nobody's buying your books. I've been like that for most of the year. Maybe even the year before. You know the feeling. You tried every which-way to get your books noticed. Ads with Book Gorilla, had another go at getting BookBub to accept one of your novels, did blog tours, got into NetGalley, did guest posts on friends' blogs. Even had a series book one as a freebie.
All to not much avail. The figures went down and down until they bounced on the bottom. Some stories didn't make sales in months.
Mind you, the perma-free book (The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy) did make a difference. Sales picked up in that series, with quite a few people buying the subsequent books. Nowhere near as many as those who downloaded the free book, but many people don't actually read free books. And while we're on the subject, I've not seen any discernible reaction to my contribution to the wonderful Portals project.
Anyway, as you know, I recently girded my loins and finished a book. Eye of the Mother. That was about a week ago. Sales weren't great. After all, not too many people not on Facebook would even know about it, because I didn't do any of the things mentioned above. But what has happened is that people are buying all my books. Even stories that have sat on the shelf for the better part of a year have a '1' next to their name. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making any best seller lists, but it's a heartening trend.
So it looks to me that if you haven't published anything new for a while, and you're wondering why your sales have tanked - get on with it. Get another book out there. Go on. You can do it.
I guess it's oddly appropriate that at a time when my country is tearing itself apart and in turmoil over the EU referendum that I finally saw Captain America: Civil War and X-Men Apocalypse. Maybe I should finish it off with Independence Day: Resurgence for the full dose of doom, gloom and destruction. Lol.
I haven't found much to be happy about in any of them. After over an hour of boredom in Civil War, the only highlight for me were two action scenes: the chase with Bucky, Black Panther, Captain America, and Falcon, followed by the odd humorous twist (finally!) during the big airport fight. After that...well, by the end of the film I pretty much hated all of the main characters. I get the film is about friendship, loyalty, choosing to do what you think is right vs what the rest of the world thinks is right (rather like Brexit, and look how that's turning out), and the futility of revenge. But I've never been a Cap fan, and this film didn't change my feelings. I liked the Iron Man films but in the Avengers Stark has become more of a jerk than he started out as (even if he had good reason in Civil War, and that was a great, unexpected twist). My boys enjoyed it, which is okay I guess. But I think I'm done with Avengers films.
I am and have been a much bigger fan of the X-men films, but again Apocalypse left me cold with only Quicksilver and Nightcrawler (and Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult) keeping me watching. I'm confused. Have we now negated everything from the original films? I thought Days of Future Past put the timeline back on track, but Apocalyspe seemed to take it away again. And why didn't Quicksilver tell Magneto who he was?! Surely that would have made for a better turning point that a few memories of Xavier?
Whatever, the characters now seem to have more multiple reality origin stories than Spiderman and Batman. I'm pinning my hopes on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 to restore any faith I had in Marvel. And there's Rogue One coming from Disney: I have high expectations based on The Force Awakens.
As for Brexit... Our PM has resigned, there's no new leader though we're likely to end up with blond buffoon Boris Johnson, our economy is tanking, businesses are abandoning the country, racism has sky rocketed, the Leavers are suffering buyers' regret, and no one knows what the hell is happening next. Apparently not even our government had actual plans in the event of a Leave vote. Kinda thought that was the job we voted them in to do. I'm starting to feel we're entering Neal Asher's Zero Point. O.o Right now we need our very own Toruk Makto to reunite the tribes of our not so United Kingdom. Sigh.
Happenings
The Summer of Magic blog hop starts on the 4th of July, and while there's no fireworks there is a $50 Amazon gift card and ebook bundle giveaway, plus visitors to my blog have the rare chance to pick up a bundle of my short stories. The theme is all things summer so I'm sharing a never-before-published excerpt featuring my characters from Keir's Fall on an all too brief holiday.
And no sooner does the Summer of Magic end than the SFRB Summer blog hop begins! The grand prizes will be three $50 gift cards and book bundles. The theme is Other Worlds so I'll be taking you on a short tour of some of the planets featured in my time travel romance Keir.
And as that ends on the 15th of July, there'll be a stellar SciFi Romance sale event coming up. To receive details on that, please sign up to my newsletter HERE.
In less than three weeks I'm off to the Europe Star Wars Celebration, and I'll be meeting up with another fellow Brigader - Patty Hammond. I'll be going in cosplay, and my equally Star Wars obsessed 11yo will be joining me for one day in his Hux cosplay. I'm so excited!!!
Status Update Gethyon is ready to go back to my editor but she's taking a well deserved holiday right now. Revived and Reunion are still awaiting my attention.
The Rey cosplay is coming along nicely, but I'm now being held up by lack of funds to buy more fabric. I need to tweak my own Jedi outfit for the Star Wars Celebration in less than three weeks! Then a week later I'm off on my seven week social media break. Eep! Too much to do! *runs away*
Writing a novel set in the 2040s--just a little over a couple of decades from now--has presented some ongoing challenges for me as a writer. Our current technology is changing and evolving so quickly, it's hard to envision what we'll really be capable of in twenty years.
Think back in time. What was technology like in 1996? Back then, 16MB of ram was cutting edge, Apple was a failing company, MP3 didn't exist, CD-RW was just announced and DVDs wouldn't be invented for a year or so. Monochrome computer monitors were pretty much the standard. Cell phones were called "bricks" though some had a nifty flip-phone design. A very early version of digital cameras existed, but they weren't affordable (and they definitely weren't integrated into cell phones). GPS had just become fully operational in 1995 and Google Maps wouldn't be on the scene for another nine years (launched February 8, 2005). Things that we take for granted today as part of our everyday lives were just beginning to evolve.
In order to create the world of the 2040s, I had to consider the leaps in technology we've had in that time span and launch my imagination an equal number of years into the future. But technology has frequently caught up with (and sometimes validated or invalidated) my world-building.
In The Outer Planets, the astronauts spend the first part of their voyage to Jupiter in stasis--what they also refer to not as cryosleep, but as hypersleep, suspended animation or S/A. It's hardly a new idea in science fiction (Aliens, 2010, Prometheus, Red Dwarf, etc.), and the reasons for taking this measure are pretty clearly explained in Chapter 2 of my novel:
Stasis. Suspended animation. S/A. Hypersleep. No matter what you called it, it was a necessary evil.
Lissa took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm her jitters.
Humans did inefficient things like breathe, eat and drink. Hypersleep conserved massive amounts of air, food and water—precious commodities where they were going. Robot supply ships would arrive at intervals with fresh provisions once they were revived, but putting the crew into stasis for the year of travel both outbound and inbound made the five-year voyage possible.
Lissa fixed her attention on a middle-aged male being wheeled away in a sleeper, his body in a state of near-perfect suspension. His pale, lax expression reminded her of her father resting in his coffin. She clenched her jaw against a sudden surge of grief.
Not the time to be thinking those thoughts.
The current NASA planning only calls for a duration of two weeks, where my crew is put into S/A for about a year...in both directions.
It works for both the reasons stated above, and also plot-wise, because what reader needs to slog through a year of their journey before they actually get anywhere interesting?
NASA though is looking at utilizing cryosleep to get astronauts to Mars, not Jupiter, so the duration is estimated to be only six months each way, rather than the year from Earth to Jupiter and Saturn to Earth (yes, Saturn is hugely further away than Jupiter, but a gravity assist from Jupiter will give them a lot of added velocity, plus they have this nifty tech called Gravity Gain that amplifies the Sun's gravity and only works for inboard flights within our solar system).
But this is where things start to get really exciting. And troubling.
On another front, science is exploring the EmDrive--a "propellant-less propulsion system" that shouldn't work...but does--which could get us to Mars in about 70 days (give or take on the orbital positions of the two planets). Now combined with cryosleep, we might really have some range. If we can reach Mars in 70 days, pairing the cutting edge propulsion technology with hypersleep--er, cryosleep--could easily make exploration of the entire solar system a reality by getting a human crew there in a matter of months--much, much faster than is currently feasible.
And that opens up all sorts of possibilities for space exploration of our solar system ala The Expanse.
But it does raise some potential problems for this author. The Outer Planets has a particularly tricky timeline where certain events must happen at certain points, and if EmDrive capabilities do prove to be feasible, the faster transit time to Jupiter and Saturn would definitely render my next novel obsolete (along with many, many other science fiction stories by much more famous authors). Though I've frequently had to "spiff" the near future novel as new technological advances are unveiled, the EmDrive would change everything.
I'll be keeping a close eye on these two evolving technologies in the months (and years) to come.
Is:
Talk about Interstellar Rescue Squad! Apologies to FIGHT CLUB, but what good is
an online group to share information and fun with other readers of the
books you love if you don’t talk about it?
As
most authors who have a “professional page” on Facebook have discovered, it’s
difficult to get your message out to all the folks who have Liked your Page
simply by posting. There are “rules” and “algorithms” and the "Evil Facebook
Gnomes” to overcome to reach all the fans who you want to reach every time you
post.
Some
authors skip FB altogether and use an email newsletter. I choose to use a private
FB group dedicated to my books and readers. I post news about my upcoming
releases, cover reveals, blog posts, events and other exciting author stuff on
the group page, and the page is open for members to post about my books if they
are so inclined.
Anyone
can see the page, anyone can join the group, but only members can post to the
group. And the best part? Anything I post actually gets seen by all the group
members. Right now that number is small, but I hope it will grow!
The
group serves a double purpose, too. As soon as I post something to my Author
Page, I Like it and Share it to my Interstellar Rescue Squad Page. (I also Like
and Share as Donna Frelick on my personal timeline.) That gets picked up as
activity by the FB algorithms. So the post gets sent to more of the Likes on my
Author Page. Ha!
I’m
overdue for some work on my group, it’s true. But some truly cool author news
is coming soon. My Rescuers will be the first to know, even before I post it
here! Wanna be in with the In Crowd? One of the cool kids? At the top of the
A-List? It’s easy! Just follow this link to the Interstellar Rescue
Squad Page to check it out, then message me at DonnaSFrelickAuthor on
Facebook to request membership!
After far
too long I've finally hit the 'publish' button on a brand new story, set in the
Dryden Universe. I've posted a few articles about it already, so everyone
should know it's on the way.
Eye of
the Mother features
brand new characters Brent Walker and Tian Axmar, with a guest appearance by
Admiral Ul-Mellor, who starred in A Matter of Trust. Here's the blurb:
A distant
star has exploded. The ripples of its passing will rock the Empire.
When fate
throws Brent Walker and Tian Axmar together, it's strictly a business
arrangement. She's an Imperial agent with a problem to solve, he's a space
jockey with an empty bank balance and a tramp freighter for hire.
Somebody's
murdering Yrmaks and Humans, and leaving a mysterious calling card. Somebody
wants interspecies war. Tian hires Brent to help her investigate, delving into
Yrmak customs and beliefs to understand what's going on. It's an increasingly
dangerous game, with more than just lives at stake. Before it's over Brent and
Tian will be faced with choices which will change both of them forever.
This book
is a little bit different from most of my other space opera romances. The
Iron Admiral, Morgan's Choice, A Matter of Trust, and Starheart
all had alpha characters, AKA 'hot admirals'. Be warned, this one doesn't.
It's a different sort of romance that (needless to say) I hope works for
readers. It certainly worked for me.
For
anyone who might be disappointed in this new tack, rest assured I'm not over hot
admirals. I'm sure you'll LOVE Admiral Jak Prentiss, whose story is developing
in my current WIP.
Meanwhile,
I hope you'll all fall in love with Brent. He's a very nice guy.
Anyway, as you know, I recently girded my loins and finished a book. Eye of the Mother. That was about a week ago. Sales weren't great. After all, not too many people not on Facebook would even know about it, because I didn't do any of the things mentioned above. But what has happened is that people are buying all my books. Even stories that have sat on the shelf for the better part of a year have a '1' next to their name. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making any best seller lists, but it's a heartening trend.
