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X.HoYen's Author Newsletter (27 Apr 2024)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :)

* Catching up
* The standard stuff


===Catching up ===

Back in February, shortly after COSine ‘24, my knee started disintegrating. Long story short, we had to wait for donor tissue for surgery, and an allograft like this takes time to “set”. I’m still only allowed 50% weight on this leg, which means now I can finally stand on two legs without the walker or crutches. I’m now allowed to walk at home with just the brace, but out and about I must use one crutch.

It disrupts everything. Getting to/from the bathroom has been a big production with a brace and a walker. And I haven’t been able to carry things (except some things that can be carried in a shoulder-strap bag). For weeks I had things strapped to my leg that had a major impact on my ability to sleep. These are privileged people problems, I’m not complaining. But it definitely has caused and continues to cause a slowdown in my story development work for ‘Attendants of the Future’. I want and need to continue to improve upon my writing, so I will not rush it.

Shoutout to fellow author Mike Torreano, who’s working through a hip replacement right now.

I’ve written a couple more non-fiction articles on substack over these months. You don’t/can’t post these things on social media. https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/

Author Levi Jacobs sent me some material for inclusion in the next episode of ”Space Autistic Author”. I was hoping to include some female authors in the next couple of episodes, so as not to give the wrong impression. K. Anderson, how about you?

I’m quite proud of what I accomplished with Episode 2. If you haven’t watched it yet, do check it out. It’s only 8m52s long, including credits, but it’s quite a production for one person to have put together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzj4_b4OvK4&list=PLu6INAkWYUJk4SDGWglzEBruaKoT88bzQ&index=11

We’ll be attending at least one Science Fiction Convention this year. For guerrilla marketing/promotion purposes, I’m putting together a ‘Richard Castle’-esque ‘fashion tactical’ vest:

I found a police supplies vendor to make those custom, high-reflection patches in an ‘official’ looking font and with hook material backing. Now I just need to sew the loop material onto the vest.
Jade and Jennifer have graciously offered to help me with this DIY project. Thanks, friends!

The Booklife Prize 2024 evaluator of "Minimum Safe Distance" rated it better than did the 2023 evaluator. The 2023 evaluation was 8.75 out of 10, and the 2024 evaluation is 9 out of 10. Nice!
(link: https://booklife.com/project/minimum-safe-distance-82907)
They wrote that at times the writing is “stiff”. Well, yes, I gave the SelfMades a stiffer ‘voice’ to reflect their highly organized, precise, advanced thinking processes. One is supposed to be intimidated by the SelfMade. In any case, 9/10 is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a debut novel!

When I was 11 years old I somehow obtained one of these fresh off the presses —>:

It probably changed my life. I was just coming out of my ten year autistic fog. One simple book of puzzles and trivia, set in a fictional world rather than abstract and standalone, restructured my brain and opened up whole new realms. Thank you, James Razzi.

For years I've wanted to pay it forward by making a (non-Trek) puzzle book of my own, also for tweens+, also set in a fictional world. My Space Autistic Author innerverse might make a fun setting. Now I've finally decided, yes, I will, I must. Any artists out there wanna help?

As you may recall, after COSine in January I decided that it was time to perform a serious scrub of my branding graphics. I didn’t really have branding graphics before, I was just using the art I’d commissioned from Casey Weeks that was ultimately used on the cover of MSD.

It looked like this, and this was at-a-glance interpreted as military and/or space opera subgenres, despite the words at the top:

Well, after searching for design artists to help me with this task, and failing to get any traction at all, I ended up giving MiblArt a try again.

I've used this Ukrainian design studio for both of my book covers so far, but it didn’t seem like their other services quite fit what I needed for a branding graphic. But after iterating with them, we decided to try their quite affordable logo service. And now I’m happy to announce that we have arrived at a branding graphic I can get behind.

This task was (is) very challenging. The industry is highly tuned to conveying certain tropes and subgenres in the realm of sci fi, and readers assume them. These are: space opera, military, macho individualism, alien invasion, time travel, other forms of science fantasy, and, of course, women-as-sex-objects space erotica. This is doubly true when the writer is a ‘white’ male. I pass for a ‘white’ male at first glance, and I write in none of those tropes/subgenres, so with my branding graphics I must work extra hard to subvert genre expectations AT A GLANCE.

No graphic will be perfect. I must accept that ‘perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good enough’ for this task.

But I’m pretty happy with this branding graphic/logo. I hope you are, too!
Future convention presence will rely upon this graphic, as will my next stack of business cards.

A big DYAKUYU to Nadia and the other folks at MiblArt for working with me on this task.
Here’s a crop of the still-temporary, watermarked final version:

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

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