X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (04 Aug 2022)

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter. Greetings Dear Supporters of Indie Art.

04 Aug 2022 (last one was sent 16 Jul 2022)

As promised, I do not inundate you with newsletters. :) But in this Fall’s run-up to MSD’s release, entries will be somewhat more frequent.

I hope everyone is well! Send me a note (xhoyen@gmail.com)!

Thank you, Sasha, for volunteering to do a gamma read of the manuscript!

Since deciding not to pay thousands of dollars to hybrid publishers, making them the middle man between me and my own book, I’ve been in drinking-from-a-firehose mode learning about self-publishing.

I have a neat little “reader magnet” short story set after the events of MSD which I’ll be making available to you, my dear subscribers. For marketing purposes, I’ll be spreading the word about that to try to get new subscribers before MSD’s planned October release.

My new friends at MiblArt.com based in Lviv, Ukraine, have done a wonderful job with my novel's cover art, starting with background art I commissioned from Casey Weeks (woodsoflore.com). It's just beautiful! I'll be teasing out a 3-part cover reveal leading up to the October release of Minimum Safe Distance, but you’ll get a peek first!

Casey signed over the copyright to that background artwork, and it’s always been my intention to pass along 1% of all net revenue to Casey. That’s my way of supporting indie art. (The only problem is that Casey has been incommunicado lately. I’m still trying.)

I’m currently also auditioning voice talent for the audiobook version. There will be ebook, softcover, hardcover, and audiobook versions. My intention is to go “wide”, or at least wider than KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), since KDP hardcovers are children’s book style hardcovers, sans dust jackets. I want my hardcover version to have a dust jacket!

I have two other readers with science credentials reading the gamma manuscript as well. If they like it, I’ll be asking for testimonials and maybe a “Foreword”. Testimonials with creds are good! We’ll see how that goes.

I'm hoping to have an “Author’s Row” table at this October's Mile Hi Con (milehicon.org), October 21-23. I've applied. We'll see if they have a table for me. Lorraine and I designed a nice graphic for a >2m tall banner we hope to put up behind the table (and, as she pointed out on facebook, no one stormed out of the room during the process!). I'd also like to have a table at Rocky Mountain Con in November, but they don't appear to be ready for applicants yet.

I’ve learned that for a debut novel, pre-orders are not so helpful. You need a big following to leverage pre-orders. Brand new buyers are not likely to pre-order.

When the time comes, I'll still need your help to generate orders and holiday season gift orders, and to generally get the word out. The fact is, seeing sales generates sales. I hope we get some good reviews, too, to counter the inevitable bad ones.

The cost of a book is so low compared to just about any leisure activity, like going out to eat or whatnot. It’s the price of a sixpack or two. Please keep that in mind. :) Thanks for sticking with me during this long process.

Standard stuff

Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, 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

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