X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (23 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)
Good nyews everyone!
The Wishing Shelf just gave the novel a lovely 5-star review!
Here’s the full text of the review:
The Wishing Shelf Book Awards
23rd August 2023
TITLE: Minimum Safe Distance
AUTHOR: X HoYen
Star Rating: 5
CATCHY QUOTE
‘A stylishly written ‘first contact’ novel with a strong cast of ‘very different’ characters. Highly recommended!’ The Wishing Shelf
REVIEW
I must say, I very much enjoyed this first contact novel from the pen of the rather intriguingly named X Ho Yen. Being a bit of a nerd, I love technology-based books; I recently enjoyed The Martian which is written by a software engineer. I see the author of this novel has a background in aerospace engineering – trust me, you can tell! Complicated, yes; in fact, I had to work hard to keep up in the opening chapters – but I still loved every word of it. X HoYen is not only a talented author, but he also has a lot to say. The result is a thought-provoking, techno-novel that’s so highly unpredictable, it’ll keep you awake at night!
In many ways, although I loved the plot – the ‘SelfMade’ being particularly original – it was the writing style that grabbed me. I just got the feeling that X Ho Yen really wanted his readers to ‘get it’. So, for example, when there’s a character with a difficult to pronounce name, the author’s determined that the reader will pronounce it right: Laurence’s mother, Geneviève Levesque (pronounced the Quebecois way, zhuhn-ev-YEHV lev-AH-eek). This author is not a lazy writer, and I loved that.
So, who’s this novel for? Well, if you in any way enjoyed the film, Independence Day, Resurgence, which is possibly the worst sci-fi film ever made, this novel is NOT for you. But if you enjoy thought-provoking sci-fi, i.e. you’re a Star Trek fan and not Star Wars, then you’ll find this book a blast. And if you enjoy books written by authors who go the extra mile to get it right, then you’ll find this novel utterly engrossing.
All in all, it’s a bit of a gem.
A ‘Wishing Shelf’ Book Review
www.thewsa.co.uk
2)
More good news!
Findawayvoices.com has finally worked out its problems with my imprint’s tax designation, and
the MSD AUDIOBOOK IS FINALLY RELEASED.
Here are the current retailer links (more are in progress):
BARNES & NOBLE/NOOK - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1142191955?ean=2940159632388
APPLE - https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/minimum-safe-distance/id1703370926
GOOGLE - https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/X_HoYen_Minimum_Safe_Distance?id=AQAAAEBibWstGM
SPOTIFY - https://open.spotify.com/show/2bSYeNhldnn6vYwntczaSX
KOBO - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/minimum-safe-distance-1
CHIRP - https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/minimum-safe-distance-by-x-hoyen
LIBRO - https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9780976615835
Of course, I’ll add all links to the MSD entry on my web site’s “Books” page.
RJF, my autistic narrator for the MSD audiobook, also narrated her own books:
Darphopia: The Godless Land https://a.co/d/40YnXkn
Darphopia: The Second God War https://a.co/d/atbXfFT
What a year it’s been getting this audiobook created and published!
============ "Custodians of the Future" News ============
“Custodians of the Future” is poised for release. I learned from the MSD interior file and from online sources how to create a nice interior layout with ‘drop caps’. And I added custom virus graphics used for section breaks and custom ‘molecule’ graphics around the page numbers. The paperback proof copies look grand. Also learned how to properly create the e-book .epub file from that interior layout file.
The final box to check is receipt of the copyright certification. I submitted the copyright registration a couple of weeks ago, and the estimated processing delay was 1.2 months at that time.
You may recall, MSD’s copyright certification was the only thing that broke through Amazon’s still inexplicable e-book-only hold on MSD’s release. I’m hoping for another October release, aiming for my annual book release target. We’ll see about that for the next one. For ‘Attendants of the Future’ I’m feeling a whole different vibe. It could take longer.
============ Other News ============
I’m moving forward with a whole new approach to promo work. SM is extremely difficult for me.
I’ve got it in my head to release periodic videos set in what I’m calling my “Innerverse”. These will be X. Ho Yen’s equivalent of vlog posts, except they won’t come out very often since they’ll involve video production work.
The title of this ongoing series of promo vids will be “Space Autistic Author”, sort of along the lines of “Space Ghost”, I guess. There will be an “adults’ table” warning in the text below each video, followed by this (work in progress) intro:
Greetings, programs!
You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.
Okay, mostly mind. My mind.
Actually, it's *entirely* my mind.
You are about to enter X. Ho Yen, Author's *INNERVERSE*.
It may look like spaceships, dangerous swirly things, AIs, aliens, and sciencey challenges in outer space, but this is not a depiction of some far flung future. It is, in fact, only a depiction of X. Ho Yen, Author's interior life framed that way, as Space Autistic Author!
This is accomplished using copyright-free artworks, usually with explicit permission. Pixabay.com is a major source. See the credits for how to find and support the individual artists. Space Autistic Author is as much about SHARED PROMO with friendly creatives as it is about offering you, dear reader, a glimpse into the mind and heart of this guy who writes such different books.
Beware: there's no guarantee my Innerverse will be as pleasant as you want it to be. If you have the guts, let's find out, shall we?
These will be little more than glorified slide-show comic strips, with voice+word bubbles (no moving lips, that’s too much trouble) and added movement/transitions/effects via whatever I can scratch out of Adobe Premiere Elements and my other graphics tools. Sort of like the Ken Burns Effect, but a little amped up. I’m a “garage production” and must own it.
Like other ‘stage’ productions such as Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, The Muppets, there will be ‘regulars’ and a ‘guest star’. The ‘regulars’ will mostly be depicting aspects of my whacky mind or ways in which the outside world intrudes upon it as I ride my ‘authorship’ (looks a lot like a spaceship) called the “Endoprise” through my Innerverse. ‘Guest stars’ will be other creatives, to the extent I can get them to do brief spots in these short episodes, and/or who knows who else? Like Han Solo, I’m making this up as I go. Or was that Indiana Jones?
I have some volunteers to do voice work. Thanks! But it’s always good to have a deep bench, so if any of you would like to volunteer to do some voice recordings for this series, let me know. No acting is required, no impressions, no ad-libbing, just ‘do what you can with the provided script’. We’re not cinema professionals. Garage production. I’m hoping to establish a fun, quick visual style, but the content is more important than the look. The script’s the thing. Big challenge for me! But with this Space Autistic Author/Innerverse mask on, I might do better than I do in SM.
Each episode will feature maximum re-use of “sets”, built from permission-granted, copyright-free graphics obtained from some rather talented digital artists I’ve found on pixabay.com. It will be an ongoing process to find more of those for shared promo purposes.
Wish me luck! And I’m open to as much help as anyone would like to offer!
============ 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