X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (1 Aug 2023)
Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!
* "Minimum Safe Distance" News
* "Custodians of the Future" News
* Other News
* The standard stuff
============ "Minimum Safe Distance" News ============
1)
Our lovely book cover for "Minimum Safe Distance" was a Finalist in The Wishing Shelf Awards 2023, Adult Book Cover category. You can see it in the list here:
https://www.thewsa.co.uk/finalists2023/#Category_10
It was a 3-'person' team effort: Ukrainian design studio MiblArt.com for the final design, Casey Weeks (woodsoflore.com) for the commissioned source art, and I specified the original concept/layout and did some tweaks to the source art, and of course provided guidance to MiblArt.
I've sent notifications and my congratulations to MiblArt and Casey. PLEASE CONSIDER doing the same publicly (not a private message -- this is promotion, my friends). Casey can be found @woodsoflore on instagram. MiblArt can be found on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/miblart/
This is the first traction I've had among all the contest submissions I've made for MSD, many of which won't be determined until 2024. I'm hoping for more, of course. :)
2)
Findawayvoices.com's accounting department is still (allegedly) looking at why their system won't accept my EIN. (Employee Identification Number, a tax thing I had to get as a self-publishing imprint -- see previous newsletters for more about that fiasco) This delay has cost me more than half a year of time on the audiobook release. :(
============ "Custodians of the Future" News ============
1)
A month ago I activated MiblArt.com to make a professional book cover for CotF. I'm pleased to announce that they've done it again. Using my extensive notes, and with only one design iteration, they've created a beautiful cover for CotF that captures the key elements of the story. It's far more professional looking and enticing than my amateurish notional cover designs. You're gonna love it! I'll share it with subscribers in the near future.
Next I need to finalize the book interior layouts. I've already set up the paperback interior, although I might add a "blank line/spacer" graphic. And then there's the ebook, which has some formatting challenges. For MSD I hired MiblArt to do that for me, so this is new territory for me.
Note that there will be no hardcover version of CotF. For MSD, being my debut novel, yes, I had to. But it's not particularly value-added for me to develop and manage new hardcover versions going forward.
2)
Since you all were so supportive of MSD, I may set up CotF with a PREORDER period. But a preorder phase that generates no preorders, or few (less than, say, two dozen), would actually make matters worse. Therefore, consider this a POLL to discover how many subscribers have read the description of CotF and like the idea of it enough to commit to a preorder.
A successful preorder phase would be as valuable for promotion purposes as a book getting a bunch of reviews. (Reviews are much more valuable than sales at this stage, even if they aren't 5-star. Only my immediate/"nukuler" family should not post reviews.) Do please let me know what you think about this preorder idea.
============ Other News ============
1)
I recently joined ALLi (the Alliance of Independent Authors). Their services have already been helpful. It’s another subscription, but whatcha gonna do?
2)
I also recently used chatGPT for the first time. I gave it information about me and MSD from my web site and asked it to create ad copy for the book. I had to make a few minor alterations, but honestly, it did a better job than I would have. It has the entire commercial world to draw upon for experience, so it knows ad copy better than I do/ever will.
Please consider sharing your opinion on chatGPT's ad copy. Visit the MSD page and compare the original back cover ad copy to the lengthier chatGPT-based ad copy at the bottom (there's a quick-jump link at the top of the page):
I'd love to hear what you think of it.
3)
My thoughts on chatGPT? It was exactly what I expected from what I've read about it. It's not smart at all, just sophisticated. Its first error was to assume MSD is about "alien invasion" simply because "alien" appeared in the description, despite the rest of the description making it clear that humanity was the real threat to these visiting aliens rather than vice versa. It does not understand what it's reading or writing, not even close. It draws upon a vast database and then it statistically riffs off of the requests you give it (which it's also interpreting statistically, not actually understanding them). So, because there are sooo many other "alien invasion" (thinly veiled fear of Other) stories out there, statistically mine must also be about that, right?
Now, I told it that it had gotten that wrong, and it proceeded to try again. I iterated with it several times on some other details, but quickly reached an asymptote. I could tell it simply would never understand my detailed corrections.
Some day these things will get even more sophisticated, but as I've said before, my belief is that google, MS, etc. are strongly motivated to *not* create sentient AIs. Once they cross that line, personhood rights come into play, the public's fears and biases, one way or the other, come into play, the AI's own goals come into play, and they'd lose control over their expensive R&D work.
In CotF I make a prediction about which industry will be the first to create sentient AIs. I think you'll find my prediction believable. ;)
4)
Doing that drove me to scrub the rest of my web site. Mostly I reworked my About/default page to be more focused on allowing potential readers to find out if they are my 'target reader'. So please consider sharing your thoughts on the updated About page, too. I also incorporated a google translate option to allow users for whom English is not their first language to translate the page into something closer to their language of origin. There are other minor improvements.
5)
Later this year I will have an announcement about another small achievement, getting a piece of flash fiction into an anthology. The details are still "NOBUDY CUMZ IN HERE - SEKRIT". (Kudos to anyone who recognizes that...)
6)
Recently on fb I re-shared this item from my "Ditties" page. I wrote it a year ago. It's still relevant, and I'd like to share it again here, because I sometimes need this reminder.
https://xhoyenauthor.com/positive-thinking-in-the-apocalypse
X. Ho Yen writes hopepunk, not grimdark, not dystopian, and not utopian. Here's a great intro to hopepunk, if you're not familiar with the term:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220113-the-sci-fi-genre-offering-radical-hope-for-living-better
============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.
All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career/hobby thing come together. Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian and Project Hail Mary, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience. Thanks for your support! XHY https://XHoYenAuthor.com