Monthly Archives: November 2019

Komenagen (and general book) question

A quick couple of questions:

How much more likely are you to listen to an audio book than read an ebook or paper book? That is, how much demand is there really? In a recent conversation with a publisher he said that he saw several times more audio book sales for a title than ebook, and physical was nearly nonexistent. I don’t do audio books beyond lectures from The Learning Company’s “Great Courses” series, and am interested to know if I need to pursue that hard, or not, for my particular readership.

Secondly: How important would illustrations for a YA title like Komenagen: Slog be? Illustrations are expensive, but they definitely add to the charm of a physical book, particularly ones aimed at a younger market segment. Would it be enough to chip in a few bucks ahead of time to get it done?

Let me know in the comments section below.

Computer build

Now for something totally different. A computer build for the gamer-kid and I. He’d like better game-play, I’ve found that attempting to do video-editing on an older machine is, er, rather painful. Getting OpenShot to smoothly play even a small sample vid was choppy, and a 3-minute clip might take 5 to save as a final version to look at, and then another 5 in Handbrake to compress it to a reasonable size. A 15-min piece? Time enough to go make dinner. So, with that two-part goal in mind, I started shopping at NewEgg.com and Amazon, while reading various articles and watching many videos and comparing features and possibilities at PCPartpicker.com and Passmark. It took a little while. Continue reading Computer build

Insanity’s Children is out

Insanity’s Children, the sequel to The Stars Came Back, is up on Amazon. I’ll start working on paper now, and/or the second half of TSCB/prose version (writing is done, just needs formatting check and /sigh/ cover art).

As always, reviews posted to Amazon by readers are greatly appreciated.

A quick note for those who are not already familiar with this series:
The Stars Came Back is the entire original, screen-play format story.
Back from the Dead is the first half of the original story, but in prose format.
Insanity’s Children picks up from where TSCB left off.
Komenagen: Slog is backstory/prequel for some of the characters in the original story. It is aimed at YA boys, but should be a good read for any guy who was once an adventures youth (or wished he was) who didn’t quite fit in perfectly.
The Heretics of St. Possenti is very early backstory (set in current year+5) for a rather unusual monastic order which makes an appearance in TSCB. Strangely, though a “religeous inspirational” category of story, with roots in classic “space opera” it’s ideas were inspiring enough that some gentlemen with appropriate faith backgrounds are actually in the process of founding a very real Order of Saint Possenti with a similar mission; to save vets who have served and struggled only to be cast aside by society and the government they supported.

St Possenti, Order of…. is real

It is an odd world I live in. Inspired by my book, Heretics of St. Possenti, real men, initially led by a Salvation Army officer, worked to bring the order into existence, for real. It’s formal birthday before God is on the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, 2019. Formal paperwork to satisfy the bureaucratic goblins of State will be filed soon, too. It’s mission will be help vets who need spiritual guidance and support as much as physical rescuing.

The founders include Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox members. The initiates will receive a couple of months “comparative religion” teaching, then will pick their course from the three. It may be the only monastery in existence with separate chapels from the three dominant Christian denominations within its walls. While I’m not a particularly religious man, I think it worthwhile to pray for this endeavor, and wish it the absolute best in both helping the men it aims at, and the schismed churches it draws from.

It is being formally created on this day, at this time, in commemoration of Veterans’ Day, a remembrance of the sacrifices the military vets the world over have made for their countries, people, and families. Not all who suffer in war died on the battlefield, but all deserve support, and I hope they can make the best sense of their experience they can.

Which next?

My original story, The Stars Came Back, was in modified screenplay format, and it’s available on the kindle that way. I also rewrote it in prose format,but because of the size of it it was broken into two halves and the first half was released in both print and Kindle as “back from the dead.” For reasons I won’t go into, the rewritten prose second half was not released in either print or kindle. I have the sequel to the whole TSCB story written, titled Insanity’s Children, just working on cover art. (Planning on eventually getting some interior illustrations for Komenagen for the print version. Not full on graphic novel by a long shot, but enough to give it a bit more visual flavor))

So, would folks prefer the prose second half of TSCB next, or Insanity’s Children, be released next?

Related note: for those who have read the whole screenplay TSCB story, what would you title the second half? (my thought was “One Day War”)

Cycles of history / family

Years ago I read with fascination about the brutal back-stabbery and infighting for power in the court of ancient Persia, how so many siblings committed fratricide and patricide seeking power. But also it was interesting how many extended family groups sought to off their non-family competitors and lock competent people out of the halls of power because of personal ambition, even when the results were clearly not in the best interest of the people of the empire. Continue reading Cycles of history / family