X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (01 Dec 2024)
FEMALE UNDERSTUDY NEEDED for ENGINEER VOICE in Space Autistic Author, Log 3! Our regular has taken ill!
ONLY THREE LINES of audio to record, cell phone audio recordings are fine.
Watch Logs 1 and 2 to get a gist — Engineer (Blucifer coin-op horse) first appears in Log 2. Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi! You’re my only hope!
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* AAR: “Meet a Local Author” event
* Book News
* INSIDE PEEK at next novel cover development
* Standard stuff — How to Help
Two new substack articles since last newsletter
=== After Action Report: “Meet a Local Author” event ===
Yesterday afternoon, after negotiations and preparations going back months, I had my first in-store table event at my local Barnes & Noble at Southlands, Aurora, CO, DSA, Earth, Sol, MW-A. A shoutout and hearty thanks to Joe and Megan, the store managers there. Store Web Site Store Facebook Page
To populate the table, the store bought ten copies each of MSD and CotF from IngramSpark (currently $1.51 and $1.46 royalty each, so $29.70 to me) and I brought 10 copies of SAA-PI which I had bought at author prices from KDP and IngramSpark. B&N handled those as consignments at 40% to me.
The event was in every way better than my three previous table experiences at geek conventions, especially considering that geek conventions cost money to attend.
My old pal from United Launch Alliance, Engineer Scott, came to visit, bringing MORE POWER! He stayed a good long while for good conversation. Thanks 1e6, John! It was great to see you!
Some other customers also conversed a little, beyond merely asking questions. That was fun, too. Many requested autographs and inscriptions, including one young lady with a connection to Sweden — I’m hoping her purchase of Custodians of the Future (which is set in Stockholm) will lead to some word-of-mouth exposure there.
We sold 6 copies of MSD, 8 copies of CotF, and 6 copies of SAA-PI, a significant fraction of all sales thus far. I was fully expecting SAA-PI to be the big seller, as a holiday gift for tweens, so this spread was a surprise to me.
Money-wise, I received $27 for my 40% consignment cut. Since the 6 author copies of SAA-PI that were sold there cost me about $24 including shipping, net earnings from a book sales standpoint were $29.70 + $27.00 - $24 = $32.70. It’s a hard business, this.
But it’s the exposure I’m hoping will pay off in the long term. The goal is to find my way to a self-sustaining “critical density” of word-of-mouth. It’s a hard goal, this.
The copies of MSD and CotF that we didn’t sell will be put on the store shelves. See pic. Looks like I’m right beside a Polly Ho-Yen. I’ll have to look Polly up.
Interestingly, folks who came up to the table (most of whom took more than one book) seemed utterly uninterested in the lauds I showed on the standup signs. Apparently, being hosted by a Barnes & Noble is enough of a quality check for customers, and purchases were determined based on general info like subject matter, topics, and style. See pic for what Spock says about that. This is quite relevant to my recent inflammatory-title substack article about B&N corporate.
But I am autistic, after all, and this sort of thing is always a major “raw nerve exposure”. So last night, the night after the event, I had a screaming night terror of the usual “attacked while sleeping” type. That hasn’t happened in quite some time. My unconscious mind probably still has CPTSD, and it being unconscious, I don’t think there’s a practical way to heal it. My books are my insides, down into my unconscious mind. It’s like cracking open my skull and leaning toward complete strangers who use sharp tweezers to inspect the contents. Can’t I just do promo from home?
=== Book News ===
“Custodians of the Future” made Finalist in the 2024 American Writing Awards, science fiction category! :)
At least for now, I’m using a new service ($$) that helps match a book to the most compatible contests. This was their first contest submission on CotF’s behalf, so maybe it works.
Now both of my novels have Finalist lauds, which is nice, since they’re stylistic polar opposites. It says something.
Also, until tomorrow, 02 Dec, IngramSpark is waving their fee on DISCOUNTED DIRECT PURCHASE sales (e.g. the ones with the yellow “Buy Now” buttons on my Books page), in case anyone wants to use that as a trigger for holiday gift-giving season. But don’t use the 02 Dec deadline as a showstopper, that’s only about my margin. Those discounts are ALWAYS THERE for you.
Example of those Discounted Direct Purchase buttons
=== INSIDE PEEK at next novel cover development ===
Every book cover is created differently.
For MSD, I had art depicting “two SelfMades contending on the Moon” that I had commissioned from local artist Casey Weeks. I gave that as source material to MiblArt, my preferred Ukrainian design studio, along with some notes. With some iterations, MiblArt created the stylistically interesting cover for MSD. In a youtube video, I show how that cover can be seen as representing the portion of the story at the start, when the SelfMades are on the Moon OR near the end of their battles, which take place on the sea floor. Neato!
For Custodians of the Future, I gave MiblArt a description of key elements of the book and a requirement to make the ensemble of characters silhouettes. It’s a requirement of mine that my book covers NOT succumb to the “always white people, usually gorgeous white women” problem you see on book covers everywhere. My books are inclusive and the ‘demographic’ details of my characters are never important to the story. Optimally, just about anyone can see themselves in my characters. MiblArt put it all together quite nicely, with fireworks over Stockholm at the bottom, and stylized viruses floating about.
A few weeks ago I decided that the cover of ‘Attendants of the Future’ should reflect the focus/kickoff event that I included in the ‘next book blurb’ at the end of CotF. A crazed tourist steals the Kyrgyz flag from the Kyrgyz Moon Landing Museum and jumps into the nearby crater without regard to safety, and VJ, the Attendant on site, feels he must give chase. What’s going on? What will happen? What does it say about humanity that people will do such things while wearing vac suits?
So, with my sketching skills of a 4-year-old, I hand-sketched this concept, keeping in mind the space required for titling, blurb, bar code, and imprint icon. See pic.
I then cleaned it up a bit and ‘colorized’ it, adding text based on the CotF cover text, and a detailed warning sign on the back cover that I feel will be an important bit of tragihumor. See pic.
You can already see it coming together in the colorized and tweaked version.
Then I put that colorized 4-year-old’s sketch into a Powerpoint slide package containing lots of notes for the designers, with the detailed warning sign and other helpful pics and notes. I included that package in my illustrated book cover order with MiblArt.
The cover will cost me multiple hundreds of dollars, but I don’t mind helping Ukraine’s artists and I have confidence that MiblArt will turn this 4-year-old’s sketch into…”something wonderful”. [See pic - who knows that reference?]
I should be receiving their initial whack at this in a couple of weeks, but of course it’s not mine to share until we’re done iterating. Keep this inside peek in mind when the real cover is revealed next year.
=== 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, which is 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 and 2, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Log 2 demonstrates 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 2 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