X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (1 Mar 2023)

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter,

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* MSD Audiobook
* Work-in-progress
* autistic author things
* Current reading follow-up
* The standard stuff

============ MSD Audiobook ============

Just in time for Women’s History Month, “RJF” and I have completed our narration-editing iterations on the audiobook version of “Minimum Safe Distance”.

RJF, also an autistic, probably “more autistic” than me, is multilingual and multidialectal. She was born in England but spent most of her life in Mississauga, just outside Toronto, which I did not know when I selected her for the job. By a fun coincidence, in MSD a couple of key things happen in Etobicoke, right next to Mississauga, and other key things happen in Toronto.

RJF has been accommodating and helpful, and she brought something to MSD’s dialogue I hadn’t even planned on requesting. She actually did performance voices, in a variety of accents. Sure, that might be standard for standard, dialogue-heavy novels, but MSD is intentionally different, and she didn’t have to do that. She just did it on her own, and it not only works, it helps!

RJF’s Findawayvoices profile: https://my.findawayvoices.com/narrator/rjfnarration?reviewer=61249

The audiobook is being released today, through many distributors. It just comes down to how fast the online systems finish their quality reviews and pick it up.
RELEASE PRICE (through 31 March ‘23): USD3.99
RETAIL PRICE (after that): USD4.99

============ Work-in-progress ============

Work progresses on “Custodians of the Future.” I’m past 36k words in the draft manuscript, and the rest of the novel has crystallized in my notes. When my notes crystallize like this, I can crank out multiple thousands of words in a week. I’m having fun with CotF, and I hope you do, too. It has made me laugh. There are also numerous pop culture references, although me being old they tend to be old references… :) I’m hoping someone out there will eventually compile a list of these “easter eggs.”

On facebook I recently asked if anyone wanted a “cameo appearance” in a future work. Facebook messaging is problematic, and there were no takers. Here’s a re-post of that notification, in case anyone’s interested:

Would you like a playful caricature of yourself to be written into one of my upcoming "of the future" non-series theme novels with a touch of whimsy? It would be a secondary or tertiary character, appearing briefly, but in an amusing way/situation. A cameo.

Your real name would not be used, of course. But I will be making a note of your participation somewhere, somehow. It won't remain a secret outside the book, although your real identity will be kept confidential to whatever extent you wish it to be and is appropriate legally.

We would work together on exactly what your "cameo" will look (read) like and how best to execute it. It might involve a known nickname, but perhaps not. It might involve a key phrase that's "very you". Elements of your physicality, past, present, or future, could be involved, if you like, or not. You without your real name involves creative flexibility.

Your caricature will be used something like...

-- Florence Henderson's "guest starring" appearance in the opening sequence of that one episode of "Police Squad", where her body is dumped out of a moving car in the episode teaser

-- Brad Pitt's over-the-top operative in "The Lost City"

-- Matt Damon's uncredited appearance as an actor portraying Loki in the sappy, self-serving play that Loki puts on for Asgardians in "Thor: Ragnarok"

-- Bill Murray playing himself in "Zombieland" not too smartly pretending to be a zombie when armed non-zombies are around

-- Kevin Bacon's cutthroat New Yorker in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles"

-- Stan Lee's many MCU cameos ("I am so getting fired.")

You get the idea. Want to be immortalized in a novel with your own amusing cameo? If so, please hit REPLY here and reach out. No guarantees, of course. For all I know you're "hard to work with." 🙂 But we can try!

============ autistic author things ============

After attending Mile Hi Con late last October, my first time on the other side of the table, I found myself totally overwhelmed by the idea of attending more conventions. We had settled into a once-a-year routine with conventions, just as guests. But being on the other side of the table is different. I couldn’t even think about buying tickets for other conventions, even as a guest. As a result, we missed our opportunity to get tickets for Denver Pop Culture Con this year. I had planned on attending a few other conventions, including big ones like NASFiCon in Winnepeg, but my autistic overexposure nerve is still raw to this day.

It’s possible that having a “pleasing” experience on the other side of the table might have a different effect, but I won’t know that until it happens. I actually doubt it, since I think this nerve rawness comes from “being seen by strangers”, which involves running my “social emulator software” constantly, and that’s exhausting.

Seeing that a couple of my local fellow indie authors would be attending the COSine convention in CO Springs in late January, I decided to attend (as a walk-up guest). That experience depressed me. There’s this thing that happens at small conventions — everyone who already knows each other goes out of their way to reinforce that they already know each other, and for autistic introverts that creates a wall and just makes it that much more disheartening. As an author, it’s on me to get “exposure,” but it’s so hard even without this specific kind of “small community wall.”

We cancelled our plans to attend NASFiCon in Winnipeg. I’m not up for it. But we still plan on attending World Con in Glasgow next summer. Hopefully by then I’ll have CotF released and will be over this retreat impulse. Having two very different books to talk about should make all of this stuff easier.

============ Current reading follow-up ============

I’m happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed “Delta-V” by Daniel Suarez.
It starts off making you think it’s yet another white-American-male-centric story, but it’s only that because that’s the chosen POV, probably for traditional sales/marketing purposes. Yes, that’s cringy, but it is what it is for now with traditionally published works. Not long after the main POV character’s establishing stuff, the cast becomes a very international ensemble, and there is no cultural superiority implied.

“Delta-V” is a meticulously researched story about how the ultrawealthy might pull off a leapfrogging past slower space industry development (namely asteroid mining) that’s mired in the bureaucracy of money because of laws related to ownership interests and taxation. Special people are recruited for a mission, and much of the story takes place in outer space.

More importantly, it serves as an outstanding example of how crewed asteroid mining is vastly superior to robotics, at least for the initial period where everything operational is novel and so many unexpected issues come up in situ.

I recommend it!

============ 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 thing come together.

Please do share my page 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