My first novel – historical military fiction – made it to the top 10 of 9 of Amazon's bestseller lists. Via my blog I share what I have learned while writing two more.
Twenty years ago when they were building the house in which we live — which is on a steep slope — they belatedly decided to add a walk out basement. The only way to add it to the house’s design, though, was to punch a 6-foot square hole through the first floor and put a spiral staircase in. At the bottom of the stairs is a short hallway into a dark room which you pass through to get to the well-lit basement.
We’ve made the dark room you pass through our study, which is where I do much of my writing.
The prior owners added wall sconces to lighten up the descent and chamber. I thought it fitting to swap them out for something that looked a bit more like torches. My family thinks I’m easily amused.
I think I’m just a writer entering my next adventure…
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.
As I promised almost 4 years ago when I first published my little novel about the 173rd Airborne Brigade during the Tet Offensive in part to thank the soldiers — mostly Vietnam Veterans — who contributed so much to my development as a young Army officer, I am continuing to donate half of my earnings from Youth In Asia.
With a generous matching contribution from my employer, this brings the total to about $2,300. And I am again donating to the VFW National Home for Children and Families. There are a lot of good charities staffed by hardworking, caring individuals. This is the one I picked to donate to. I value the focus on helping familes get back on their feet, and taking care of children.
From one perspective, $2,300 is not much money. From another — that of an aspiring novelist — that my first work of published fiction has done so well is gratifying.
Sales have certainly slowed, and last month (November of 2018) was the first month out of 45 months that I sold less than 1 copy a day. December has been a better month of sales, and I’m going to be back above 1 sale a day. The trend though is clear: sales are continuing to slow.
Of course, it is never too late to buy a copy to help me generate more money to donate, and leave a 5-star review to help drive more sales. 🙂
I can’t complain about how it has done so far. Almost 4,000 copies sold, 4.4-star rating from 67 reviews on Amazon US, more reviews WW (4.3-star rating from 16 reviews in the UK, 5.0-star rating from three reviews in Canada, etc.), and 105 reviews on GoodReads with a 4.1-star rating. All and all, it has been well received and I have gotten some good feedback on how to write a better story next time.
My goal when I published it was to sell 365 copies and get no less than a 4-star review average. My more important goal was to learn as much as I could about self-publishing, and I certainly have.
So in all ways this has a been a huge success for me and modest help to a few charities. With that, I’ll call it a good year.
And a big thank you to everyone who has bought a copy and left a review which helps me reach more people.
There are many ways to consider We The Living: As a Historial view of post-Revolutionary Russia. A love triangle. A tragedy. Rand’s autobiography (to a point). The nascent presentation of Rand’s developing philosophy.
All would be right.
On the surface, the novel is a grand telling with profound nuance and insight of the destruction of human spirits brought on by the denial of human rights. It is about rapidly maturing Soviet Russia starving and learning to starve its populace into obedience. In the early 1920s — much like North Korea today — it is a wrenching depicting of life being wrung out of every man, woman, and child to force reverence to the state and the dictators who run it.
And it is about the corruption and private repudiation of what such regimes stand for by their own leadership because such regimes simply can’t function without corruption and black markets controlled by the ruling elites. It is the most glaring and brutally dishonest contradiction and a key element on which Rand’s plot turns.
It is difficult to imagine that Rand finished such a complex and complete novel at the age of 29 and as her first novel no less. There is so much insight and so much detail that few veteran writers could compare favorably.
Impressive? Let’s not forget that English was not her first language.
Arguably some of the secondary characters are a bit contrived and their motivation too simplistic. But given its large cast and the novel’s massive scope, these are minor (and debatable) shortcomings.
By modern standards it is wordy and there is too much “head hopping”. The style is also thick with “telling” rather than showing, but what it does not tell is the emotional destruction or the implications of what is happening — that you have to discern for yourself, and it takes some work. It is a very tightly woven narrative. This is my second reading and the nuances are clearer to me now as a result.
It is a hard story to read precisely because it is a very sad depiction of a large family descending into the ash, groveling to live while (some of them) attempt to hold on to basic values of human rights. And it is a depiction of how the intellectually weak and those without an understanding of morality turn on their own families, offering them up for execution to win favor with the state’s leaders.
I’m a fan of all of Rand’s “big three” novels, though in many ways this is my favorite. Where Atlas Shrugged is her resounding triumph in a variety of ways, it is grinding and relentless in making her political points. In contrast, We The Living is more “literary”, a more fluid and emotional read.
It was a pleasure to read it again after first reading it 30 years ago. I’m sure I’ll read it again before another 30 years go by, and I will enjoy it even more.
It is an important, timeless depiction of what happens when human rights are denied.
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…
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…
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.
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.
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?
