IrSaa’s Prelude

*IrSaa spends much of her early life on a massive space station, the Westport Torus.*

To condense the story some of you know, I joined the online writing community www.CritiqueCircle.com site about 4.5 years ago (seems like a long time!) after I started writing again. In three months in late 2013 and early 2014, I cranked out a sci-fi novel, which my wife and kids liked, so I wrote a sequel in the next three months, which my wife and kids also liked. Both novels needed fresh and critical eyes, though.

I then found CC and submitted the first novel (Lonely Hunter), which gave me a ton of constructive feedback. I was delighted that some aspects were well recieved. But it was clear I had a lot of work to do.

Reblogging: The Lost World of Socotra: The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth

I thought this article by Ancient Origins — and especially the photos — is very cool. In my own sci-fi, I strive for unique but believable new flora and fauna. Sometimes good examples are right here on Earth…

Dragon's Blood Trees, Socotra Island, Yemen

3 SEPTEMBER, 2017 – 19:03 APRIL HOLLOWAY

The Lost World of Socotra: The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth

The landscape of the remote island of Socotra looks so foreign that it could almost pass as an alien planet. Its native flora is so rare and unique that the island looks like something out of a science-fiction movie. But Socotra is very real, and is home to over 1,000 unique species of fauna and 825 rare species of flora , including varieties of plants that have been on earth for over 20 million years.

See the entire article and their amazing photos at the Ancient Origins site…

Kindlepreneur’s write-up of a boatload of Writing and Publishing courses that are on Sale

Ever think you need help with the entire writing and publishing process? Have you ever thought about taking an online course, but you don’t know where to start and they look too expensive? Here is some great news…

Dave Chesson — the owner-operator of Kindlepreneur — has put together a very nice summary (including the review ratings) of about 50 of the courses most relevant to writers, and better yet, they are all on sale for $9.99 until 28 August.

Even if you don’t get the news on the sale until after the 28th of August, Dave’s write-ups are still a fantastic resource to help you make sense of a lot of great Udemy content.

As always, I have no affiliate relationships. So there are no kickbacks for me on this. Rather, it looks like a good deal and Dave’s summaries are super helpful so thought I’d share to help you on your writing and self-publishing journey.

Head over to Kindlepreneur for all the details. Good luck!

A trip into the Home, World and Books of JRR Tolkien

Last month we were in southern England, and we spent a week in Oxford. One of the primary reasons was to visit the JRR Tolkien exhibit at Oxford’s famous Bodleian Library.

The exhibit is impressive and still open. It is free of charge, but you do have to book your tickets. To learn more, see their site. As you would expect, it features many JRR Tolkien books and details of his life. Beyond that, I was surprised by how much art he generated.

Below are a number of pictures from our Tolkien-oriented travels around Oxford. Besides the exhibit, we visited the pub that he and CS Lewis frequented, his grave, and his home.

Continue reading “A trip into the Home, World and Books of JRR Tolkien”

Do Self Published Authors Suck?

Yet again, I was party to a discussion about traditional publishing fiction vs. self-publishing fiction. The question was if self-published authors are any good? And yet again, the discussion had several flawed assumptions:

– If you are traditionally published you write well. If you write well you will be traditionally published.

– If you self-publish, you can’t write and you did a poor job of preparing your manuscript. People who self-publish do so because they are not good enough to traditionally publish.

As in most such discussions, there is some truth to all assumptions, but when the generalizations become gospel thoughtful discussion ends. So what is the truth of the matter?

Continue reading “Do Self Published Authors Suck?”

100 Goodreads Reviews

This morning, after rolling out of bed on this 4th of July, I saw that my first novel had gotten its 100th review on Goodreads and its 66th review on Amazon. From the same person, and only 4 stars, nonetheless it was exciting to hit 100 on Goodreads. That is just one of many metrics that can describe my book’s success in the market.

Continue reading “100 Goodreads Reviews”

Peter Gabriel and one view of his 27 Best Songs

I wanted to share a great article I came across about Peter Gabriel and 27 of his most notable songs. Gabriel and Genesis are just two of the many influences on my writing and creative thinking.

Continue reading “Peter Gabriel and one view of his 27 Best Songs”

The Writer’s Life: Sunday morning walk near our home

It is too nice to sit inside and stare at a computer. Took the dog for a walk in a greenbelt near our home in Austin. And one of the challenges of the writer’s life is sitting around too much, so figured I’d get a walk in before it gets too hot.

The first novel — Lonely Hunter — in my upcoming Science Fiction novel has a lot of action in rural settings. I have long enjoyed being outside while I was in the military, to include my time as an infantry officer in the Army. So it feels very comfortable to include such settings where it makes sense.

Three things to do to ramp your Book Sales

Two and a half years after I published my novel, it is still selling several copies a day.

Earlier today it had a sales rank of 50K (see the above screenshot). Sales have certainly declined from where they peaked about nine months after I published, but sales continue at a steady pace. And my novel is in a pretty small niche, so book sales have only so much upside in this niche.

My book is priced at $1.49, and it has been at that price for almost the entire time it has been for sale on Amazon, so I’m not wracking up sales by selling it at $.99.

Below you can see my Author Rank as tracked by Amazon. Even two and a half years after I launched my book it is still doing better than it did the month after I launched it. Again — see my blog on keywords. That dip the month after I published my book was because I did not know what I was doing (like most indies) with keywords. After that, I got my keywords figured out and my sales did much better.

I’m going to cut to the chase on why it continues to sell so well. There are three primary reasons, three things that anyone can do ramp their book sales and keep them up. Continue reading “Three things to do to ramp your Book Sales”