X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (5 Apr 2025)
IN THIS ISSUE:
* Kilometerstones!
* A Taxing Account
* Std stuff - how you can help
Check out my substack articles! They’re like a math problem you thought would be difficult, but turned out not to be!
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=== Kilometerstones! ===
Allow me to share two nice kilometerstones that are helping to keep me at this, despite myself.
First kilometerstone of note: Earlier this month the UK’s The Wishing Shelf Awards (TheWSA) announced their 2024 book award winners, and “Custodians of the Future” is among them, earning a Silver-level win in the fiction for adults category.
Yes, Virginia, X. Ho Yen is now an award-winning author! And The Wishing Shelf is legit, too. For example, “Puzzling Innerverse” did not win at TheWSA, although its reviewers had fairly nice things to say nonetheless:
Star Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)
Number of Readers: 15
Readers’ Comments:
“I enjoy a good puzzle, so this was good for me. I liked how chatty the author was, making it fun. I couldn’t do all of them – too difficult, but I did most.” Boy, aged 11
“There’s maths and logic and all sorts in this puzzle book. I thought it was very original. Me and my pal, Albert, worked through them in a lesson. Our TA helped. There’s sort of a story as well as the puzzling. Fun!” Boy, aged 12
“You had to find words and work out the right way to go. You have to think a lot which is always good to do. The innerverse was interesting too, but a bit complicated. A+ for originality. I thought the cover could be better.” Girl, aged 12 – with a little help from mum
“Interesting book for 9 – 12 year olds. Plenty to keep minds twirling! The layout’s a bit messy, but it’s still interesting and even thought-provoking for young minds.” Primary school teacher, aged 44
To Sum It Up:
‘A wonderful array of clever puzzles and games to keep 9 – 12 year olds engrossed.’ The Wishing Shelf Book Awards
How nice! :) It’s hard to pit Puzzling Innerverse against passive-read kids’ books. Any time the user considers one of its brain tasks challenging, that will tend to count against it. And it isn’t as “warm and fuzzy” as typical kids’ books. I get it. No sweat. :)
Second kilometerstone of note: “Puzzling Innerverse” is soon to be on the shelf at the STEAM/STEM-oriented store MindCraft Makerspace, in The Stanley Market in Denver. It has continued to sell at least one a month at Boulder’s “The Bookworm”, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it fares at MindCraft, where customers are already STEAM/STEM-oriented.
We recently discovered that Puzzling Innerverse also got a 5-star review on Amazon shortly after release (its only review there as of this writing). That’s gotta count for something.
=== A Taxing Account ===
I believe that governments of/by/for The People are big Unions, existing to protect serfs from oligarchs. So I’m fine with paying union dues (taxes) in exchange for rule of law protections, not to mention infrastructure, parks, safety nets, etc. (And I want my representatives to ensure that tax money isn’t merely funneled into the accounts of corrupt officials. There’s the rub that requires eternal vigilance.)
Some events that authors attend involve having a table and selling books directly to customers. A state tax representative approached me (and others at author tables) at an event in 2023 to point out that we need to pay sales tax on direct sales.
I was a bit surprised by that. Okay, Dealers Room vendors who sell a lot of stuff at multiple events every year, sure. But individual indie authors selling maybe a few books at one or two events a year, mostly for the exposure? To make such activities onerous through tax bureaucracy not only costs the state more than it’s worth, it discourages authors from coming to such a state and engaging with the public, which has a dampening effect on state commerce.
Anyway, wanting to handle this legally, and anticipating the possibility of having an author sales table at future events, I obtained a Special Events sales tax license in late 2023 covering 2024-2025.
Either I forgot to file my $42 in gross sales at COSine in January 2024 (we had cancer and surgeries in that same time frame), or I thought that such a low amount (often <$100 is a threshold) would not require filing.
Well, having totally forgotten about my three books in direct sales in January 2024, I recently received a tax+penalty+interest levy from the state to the tune of $1287.00, $1260 of which was the assumed tax owed.
The state DOR rep I recently communicated with explained that they knew I had attended COSine 2024. The only way to have known that was to have someone at the event watching and taking notes. Spying. On individual, indie authors selling a few books. Imagine how much that cost the state, compared to possible tax revenue from a few books sold.
At 2.9%, in order to owe $1260 in taxes I would have to have sold $43,448 worth of books at that one event. And at something like $1.50 margin on each book (~50% more than my margin for vendor online sales), that would mean I would have to have sold 65,172 books. At that one event.
Apparently, they levied some kind of maximum estimated tax amount in order to get my attention and punish me for not filing my $42 in gross sales at that event. They succeeded in getting my attention.
But this demonstrates that Colorado is applying event sales tax requirements to the letter, even though processing the $2 in taxes on $42 in sales costs the state much more than that to process such a filing, answer email questions, and send spies to events.
I would not be surprised to learn that a number of my fellow small-time indie authors who sell books (and maybe bookmarks, stickers, etc.) at events have also recently received such a shocking, punitive levy.
I was told “You need to file an amended sales tax return for that event to reverse the estimated return.” Okay, great. So I did that online. Colorado has a nice online system for filing various returns, including Special Event sales tax returns. The processing fee for my $2 in owed tax was $0.81. So some credit card company got 40.5% of this transaction. Did Big Finance have something to do with the laws that force state DOR reps to do these silly things? At least I did get confirmation that the punitive levy was retracted after I filed my amended return.
I was also told “Anytime you attend an event, it will expect that you made sales at that event. You would have to file a return for each event you attend. If you file the return, it will not place an estimated return on your account.” “It” will expect. “It”. AI? Or just bureaucrats doing the bidding of Big Finance? “It” will assume big sales for every event! So now, every event I attend requires me to file a Special Event sales tax return of $0.00 gross sales in order to avoid this punitive assumed sales tax levy. Is this Constitutionally legal?
Not only that, the online system does not allow one to enter $0.00 in sales. The state DOR representative told me to enter $1 in sales, which would process out to zero tax. So, to be clear, the state DOR representative told me to lie on a sales tax return, which I did for my COSine 2025 return to avoid the assumed 65,172 books in sales. I didn’t even have an author table at COSine 2025, I just attended panels. (The DOR rep told me that the state is aware of the $0.00 entry problem.)
I didn’t get an answer to the question of whether the state, after my Special Event sales tax license expires, would stop assuming I’m selling 65,172 books at every event I attend. For now, I’m making that assumption, because otherwise they’d have to deploy monitoring and punitive measures against anyone/everyone attending events, which would be rather draconian not to mention shoot-yourself-in-the-foot expensive. The DOR rep did close my Special Event sales tax license for me when I asked about this, so I think that’s the answer.
My Special Events sales tax license expires at the end of 2025. I can’t wait. I will never do direct sales again. The way this was handled by the Colorado DOR serves as a strong disincentive to register for such a license in the first place. I would not be surprised if many of my fellow small-timers don’t even try to follow this path, nor would I blame them at this point. It’s this kind of ham-handed, officious handling of such matters that gives governments and taxation a bad name. I sent letters to my various representatives.
=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).
I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).
How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .
But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!
It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.
They will want information like this:
Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350
and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),
and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).
Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com
This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!
I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!
While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media
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All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. 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