May was a very good month for this self published author, at least in sales. sold 4,539 ebooks and had 149 loans on the KOLL, giving me my sixth consecutive month above 3K sales (actually only one of those was below 4K). I wasn’t as productive as I wanted to be, probably due to falling off my motorcycle near the beginning of the month. I am diabetic, and need to exercise. But I really couldn’t find any exercise to do with my ribs hurting. Walking, pushups, leg iifts, weights, you name it, it hurt, bad. And I get lethargic when I can’t work out. The pain is almost gone, so I see better days ahead. I want to get back on the bike, and at the same time I don’t. We’ll just see.
The other day a fan commented on my facebook page, in response to my post that the success of Exodus surprised me, that it only surprised him that it wasn’t on the best seller list (it is, on Amazon’s Space Opera), and that a big publisher hadn’t picked me up. That got me to thinking. Did I really want to get a publishing contract. I mean, in one way it is the ultimate ego trip, to get books on the bookshelves at stores for people to touch. And to get membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, though most people I have talked to recently have agreed that things are going to change and they will eventually let self pubbed authors in. Makes sense, since some indies have more sales than many with contracts. I sent a question to a well known scifi writer I have contacted in the past about the possibility. I was told that my numbers were great, and that I probably could get an agent and a contract with a publisher. Sent an email to another writer I have corresponded with in the past who is also on best seller lists, but is relatively new to the whole thing, to get his take on it. I can already see some pros, like getting an editor as part of the package, getting cover art, etc. There is also the possibility of movie or TV deals, but that is iffy. It took over thirty-five years for Ringworld to get made into a movie, whcih is coming out soon, or so I hear. And some cons. I would probably still have to do my own promotions, unless I hit it lucky and had a bestseller out the gate. I would have little input on those covers. And I would probably not be able to put out as many novels as I want. Most publishers restrict their authors to one novel a year in any series. Some have more than one series going, so that’s a possibility. Then again, the dragon’s share of earnings from any book go to the publisher, while the booksellers of course get the book for half the cover price, and then there’s the agent’s cut. I have heard of bestselling authors who had to keep their day jobs until they got that second series out, and my day job is a bad memory that I don’t want to revisit. The good thing is I don’t have to make an instant decision. I can talk to an agent, talk to other writers, test the waters, and then make a decision. I would like to keep the books I have online going online, if the publisher isn’t interested in that particular book.
On another front, I will be talking about covers with a graphic designer next week, to see if I might be able to improve them, to make them more marketable. And I am going to contract some 3D art of the spaceships in Exodus, as well as some blueprint art. I have sketches of what the ships look like, and their general layout, but nothing I would be proud of displaying. Expect a busy summer, and hopefully a productive fall as well.
Typos
Just a few moments ago I uploaded Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm, the much anticipated sequel to my successful Exodus: Empires at War series. I think it will be a very entertaining addition to the series, and one that fans of the first two books will really enjoy. For those who didn’t like the first two books due to the complicated storyline and large number of characters, I am afraid you will not enjoy this one either, as it has the same problems, if problems they are. I love this kind of story, and don’t see a large cast as a problem, especially when telling a story across a huge expanse of space. Book 4 of the main storyline will wrap up the initial phase of the war, and I realize that future books will have to cover a much greater time frame in order to advance the series to the point where I can finish it before I die of extreme old age. For those who want to go right to Amazon, right now, and get the book, be patient. I uploaded it a day ahead of time to make sure that it was there by the official release date, Saturday, May 25th. It takes Amazon up to twelve hours to place a book on their digital shelves. This book was proofread, which hopefully will reduce the number of errors that were legion in the first two books. I am sure there are still some there. I have read books put out by the big publishers, supposedly professionally edited and proofread, that still have a number of typos. I have a theory that it has something to do with Quantum Mechanics. You know, the quantum tunneling of electrons at random intervals, leading to changes in the electron signatures on the media on which manuscripts are stored. Just a theory, but until proven wrong I will stick with it.
I am already working on the next chapter in the Refuge series, and expect to have the first draft finished by mid June, after which I will tackle the third volume of The Deep Dark Well series. By late Fall I hope to have the spinoff novel, Capitulum, about the political climate in the capital of the Empire, and the investigation into the murders of Members of Parliament, finished. In that book I will introduce more of the technology of everyday life, as well as the tech of crime solving, and the methods criminals use to get around discovery. I may also release an already completed, in first draft form, book tentatively titled Soulless, about the possible horrible side effects of matter transmission by nanotechnology. I say tentatively as there is already a very famous book by that name, so I will be searching for something else that fits and still is different enough. And now for the excerpt.
Colonel Samuel Baggett recalled hearing about something call The Wilderness Campaign from the time of old Earth. He didn’t remember much about it, except it was during the North American Civil War of a prespace century. He was sure that whatever it involved it would not be anything like the wilderness that he had his back to.
All night the static in the atmosphere had been clearing as the enemy systematically eliminated the human electronic warfare assets. Some of those assets were too small and dispersed to be eliminated entirely in any time frame less than weeks. Still, the enemy was getting a better look at the ground from space at any time since he had arrived. That had spelled death for more of his forces, including the young Lt. Colonel who had come to his rescue the other day.
This kind of war was totally unlike anything he had experienced on Janaikasa, fighting the Lasharan rebels. Here he was the outnumbered and outgunned force. Here he needed to use stealth and guile to bleed the enemy, while keeping his force alive.
I still have more than six hundred effectives, thought the Colonel, looking over his HUD. Not a lot of heavy weapons, but enough to hit and run for weeks if necessary. And what then? He looked up at the sky, just as he did every morning, hoping to see Imperial assault shuttles landing reinforcements. And what then, he thought in a continuing train. We can’t be the only system these bastards are hitting. We’re probably low on the list of systems to relieve, if there even is such a list.
“All the civilians are into the forest,” said the voice of Sergeant Major Terry Zacharias over the com, bringing a smile to the Colonel’s face.
Zacharias had been in the thick of the fighting the whole way, and hadn’t suffered a scratch. The irrepressible little noncom was one tough and smart SOB, and Baggett was glad to still have him.
“We’ll start falling back to the forest in five mikes,” said the Colonel over the com. And with luck we’ll be under cover before the demon fuckers even realize we’re gone. Not sure how well the civilians are going to do in this here wilderness though, the Colonel thought as he envisioned the forest filled with all those huge carnivores, and even the herbivores that could be deadly just because of gigantic size. They’ll just have to do as well as they can. At least most of them are armed, and hopefully I can use some of them as guerillas.
“We have movement to our front, Colonel,” said the voice of one of the new company commanders, just a platoon leader the day before. “Sounds like rumbling, but different than the barrage.”
“Let me listen,” said Baggett, jacking the gain from his helmet earphones up to max. It was a sound that was unmistakable to one who knew what to listen for. The creaking of metal, crumbling of building fragments underneath. And there were several of them. Baggett looked at his HUD, which was transmitting what the officer saw, and cursed under his breath as he saw what looked like a long gun.
“Those are tanks, Lieutenant,” he said, checking the rest of the front and seeing more armored vehicles just out of easy detection range. They screwed that one up. Should have waited a little longer and just come on when they were ready.
Kinetic rounds started coming down from the sky, most into the farmlands in front of the Infantry positions. Some were falling into the wilderness, knocking down multiple square kilometers of trees at every strike. The ground rumbled underneath, and some cursing came over the com.
“Quiet on the com,” came the voice of the Sergeant Major. Baggett mentally nodded his head. Any signals could be traced, though the probability was remote that any single transmission would. Multiply that probability by several hundred and the enemy would be sure to pinpoint one signal. The best protection was to only send necessary info, and to move after each transmission set.
“What’s this look like to you, Terry?” asked the Colonel over the private circuit between them as he changed positions.
“It looks like a rolling barrage, sir,” said the Top Sergeant. “I think they’re going to come in right after this and roll over our positions.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” said the Colonel. He engaged the general circuit. “All units are to leave their positions immediately. Repeat, leave your current positions immediately, unless you are already in the wilderness. All others move into the wilderness immediately.”
The acknowledgements came back immediately over the com, and Baggett’s HUD showed his men streaming into the heavy forest as fast as they could move. There were still keeping good order and separation, something needed when the enemy could always switch their targeting and hit the forest at will.
Less than a minute after they evacuated their trenches and holes the barrage came down on where they had been. Bright flashes lit the area. The rounds were not all that powerful, less than a kiloton each, but they were striking in mass, and any troops who had been underneath the strikes would have been killed, or at least seriously injured and their suits incapacitated. Rounds continued to come down in the wilderness as well, and Baggett lost about a dozen troopers to the barrage, though the unarmored civilians fared worse. But when the enemy rolled over the Imperial positions with tanks and armored infantry moments later they found nothing living. And enough booby traps that survived the barrage to make their lives miserable.
The light is finally apearing at the end of the tunnel for Exodus 3. Many people have asked me when the next in the series is coming out, and now I can say it will be out by either next weekend or the weekend after. A fan graciously proofread it for me, and didn’t find that much to be corrected. There was some, and it still surprises me how many things escape my eyes. I will be going over the document one more time, and will be adding quotes at the beginning of each chapter, as well as date/time stamps for each major section, at least at the chapter level. The novel is twice as long as either of the previous books, as recommended by several of my readers. The main storyline continues, with all of the characters introduced in the first two books. Not everyone makes it out alive. This is a story of a drag out no holds bared winner takes all war. Even the really cool people sometimes die. Sometimes innocent people die as well. Children, babies, people who just want to be left alone. Others find themselves in the war, discovering that they are natural born killers who just needed to opportunity to express their talents.
If you like the first two books I am sure that you will like this one. So far over eighteen thousand copies of Books 1 & 2 have been sold, over ten thousand of Book 1 alone. I have hopes that it will catch on even more. If you like books that have lots of characters and cover a great scope of territory, this is probably one you will like. If that style is confusing, then you might want to pass. It’s not for everyone, but about sixty-five percent of the reviews have been five stars, while almost ninety percent have been four or five. Some reviewers have compared the books to those written by David Weber and John Ringo. Don’t know about that, but I love the work of those authors and feel flattered by the comparison. I try to produce the kind of book that I would want to read. And for my critics who thought the battles were too detailed, that detail was expressed to set the ground rules of the combat. The need is no longer there, so some of the detail has been toned back. Not completely, but somewhat. An now for the excerpt:
The earth had stopped rumbling under foot for almost fifteen minutes. Cornelius Walborski lifted his head above the edge of the trench he was dug into and looked out over the smoke and dust filled terrain. No rumbling meant no kinetic weapons dropped for a while, no sympathetic tremors, no balls of fire reaching into the air.
“There they are,” came a voice over the com circuit.
Cornelius looked up to see a trio of assault shuttles moving across the sky. Shuttles of an alien design, still under the constraints of the laws of physics and aerodynamics. Cornelius felt the sick center of fear in his guts as he watched them heading for the main landing field in the city of Frederick, not twenty kilometers from his position. Fear for himself, having to face whatever those shuttles contained with outdated equipment. Fear for his wife and unborn child, hiding out in the shelter under his house. Shelter that seemed very inadequate while facing an invasion of who knew what.
An autocannon opened up nearby, its swift burping sound cutting through the air. A moment later a couple of missiles swooshed from the antiaircraft vehicle that was hidden from the eye. The missiles climbed toward the shuttles while the cannon continued to fire.
The shuttles juked and jinked in the sky. The missiles exploded as they ran into the defensive fire from the shuttles, the craft unloading a wave of spreading steel. Most of the cannon rounds also exploded in that field, though the explosions on the nose of the nearest aircraft showed that not all were intercepted. That shuttle nosed down, trailing smoke, to pull up at the last moment and slam in a skidding landing into the ground. The other two shuttles moved away, getting out of range of the antiaircraft vehicle.
A wooshing sound filled the air and that vehicle, well camouflaged as it was, exploded into an incandescent ball, targeted by the ships in orbit for a kinetic barrage. Cornelius ducked low, hoping that his position wouldn’t be next. They hadn’t given the enemy any reason to target them yet, but spotting them would be enough.
There was another bright flare. Walborski shielded his eyes as he stood up in the trench, looking for the source. A small hill a couple of kilometers away had shed some of its hardened foam covering, revealing the turret of a multi thousand ton mobile shore defense gun. A bright beam of light rose from the long laser barrel, highlighted through the dust and smoke. Twin barrels alongside the laser recoiled back at three second intervals, sending kinetic rounds at the target. Over the horizon another beam lanced into the sky, another unit of the mobile battery firing on the ships in orbit.
Something flashed in the sky. Cornelius looked up, his visor polarizing against the glare. Something had exploded well above the atmosphere, a bright pin point of light. Then came the dread wooshing sounds of kinetic projectiles, coming down on the now revealed battery. The private looked over at the closest gun, still blazing away with laser and rail guns. Something struck the earth nearby, sending up a cloud of dust as the earth rumbled underfoot. The four turrets of the close in defense system on the huge track opened up, each with several multiple barrel weapons putting up a cloud of metal, while metal storm barrels along the turret added their fire.
Several objects exploded above the track, maybe a kilometer high. As soon as they flashed smaller objects hit the turret and hull of the massive vehicle, pieces of the projectiles that had been shattered higher up. The turret clanged like a struck bell, but the weapons continued to track and fire into space. Hundreds of small particles raised spurts of dirt around the vehicle.
“I just wish they weren’t so close to us,” said Jacob Bennett, Walborski’s only friend in the platoon, standing next to him in the trench.
Walborski looked over and gave his friend a quick grin. “I agree. And you know another thing I wish?” His friend shook his head negative and Cornelius’ smile widened. “I wish we had a lot more of them.”
“Hell,” said Jacob. “I wish we had a battle fleet in system that could have kept these assholes away from us. That’s what I wish.”
Walborski nodded his head, then turned back to watch the slugging match between shore defenses and invading ships. A deafening blast filled the air, and a flash of fire followed by a mushroom cloud came over the horizon. They must have gotten one through, thought Walborski as he looked at where the other gun had been stationed. Beams of light came down on the nearest gun, splashing and widening as they hit the massive weapon’s electromag field. Another kinetic struck nearby, sending a mushroom into the air as the ground groaned underneath.
“Look at that,” yelled another squad member. Walborski looked up to see several distant objects smoking through the sky. They were coming down at an angle and looked to hit dozens of kilometers from where the militiamen covered, if not further.
“I guess that will teach them,” said one of the other men. A loud clanging sound brought them all back to reality, and Cornelius looked back at the nearest mobile gun. Something had struck the turret hard, and one of the kinetic cannon was out of action. The rest of the hill shook for a second, then crumbled as the huge vehicle pulled forward and started to move away. Its laser rotated down and it was obviously running for another position. Kinetic rounds continued to come down but were knocked from the sky by the vehicle’s defensive systems. The air shimmered over the mobile gun. Cornelius had talked with the crew of one of the machines, so he understood that the weapon was using most of its generated energy to produce a distortion field over it. One that the enemy would have trouble seeing through with visual, radar or any other spectrums. To them the gun would always appear to be shimmering from place to place, displacing by hundreds of meters, never giving a firm target. “What about a nuke or AM warhead,” he had asked the crew chief of that gun, while the smiling officer looked on. “I guess we’re fried then,” said the chief. “We can just hope they don’t think we’re worth the effort.” Obviously the enemy didn’t think they were worth the effort, or just weren’t thinking, because only kinetic rounds and light amp weapons continued to fall, and the vehicle lumbered away.
As soon as the mobile gun was over the horizon booming sounds started coming from the distant city. Walborski looked at his fellow troopers, then back at the city, where new clouds of smoke and dust were rising.
“It will be our turn soon,” he said to himself. “May heaven help us.”
* * *
“Crap,” yelled Captain Glen McKinnon, zooming in on the landing field with his suit systems. “As if we didn’t have enough problems.” A trio of large landing shuttles were on approach to the field, a strip near the edge of Frederick that was already swarming with Ca’cadasan troops, huge figures in battle armor that looked formidable as hell. Colonel Baggett had set him the mission of interdicting the shuttle field, but it didn’t look too promising with all those big bodies down there, some setting a perimeter to keep the field, others starting to form up and move off the tarmac and into the city. One of the shuttles slowed to a stop and lowered itself to the field. Moments later a vehicle began to disembark, something that looked much like a light tank. The other two came down on either side and started to disembark their own vehicles.
But then again that’s the enemy’s job, to make things difficult for us. I wonder why they tend to cluster so close together, thought the Captain, a plan coming to mind. He linked into the tactical net, looking at what assets were available. That looks like something I can use, he thought, sending his request up the line, then sending orders to his own company while waiting for acknowledgement. When it came the three shuttles had unloaded and were getting ready to take off, while another trio came through the clouds and started on their approach.
Approval came back from command, and McKinnon quickly set his plan in motion. Within moments the roar of incoming rounds filled the air, and the Imperial Marines moved forward.
My fantasy genre bender Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1 reached two thousand ebook sales this morning. Add to that the almost 1,700 for book 2 and 866 for Doppleganger and the series had sold over 4,500 copies. Compared to the over 18,000 sales for the two Exodus books and it isn’t even in the same ballpark. But still doing well enough to continue the series and hope that its popularity grows. I have been developing the world of Refuge for fifteen years, soon after I started putting fiction to hard drive. I call it a genre bender because it mixes military fiction and fantasy.
The story of Refuge revolves around the coming of Earth people to a world made up of our fantasies, and world in with Elves, Dwarves and Dragons exist, and great armies and mighty magics have raised empires, good and evil. A nuclear war on Earth opens wide the gates between the dimensions, and millions of Earth humans find themselves in a world of dreams and nightmares. The enemies they face are strong, and the ruler of the evil empire of the Ellala elves see the humans as nothing more than life energy to further his dreams of immortality. The humans have also brought fighting men, and tanks, artillery and attack helicopters. And three nukes, which rival the powers of the gods of this world. The technology is destined to stop functioning as the physical laws of the planet exert themselves. So it’s use it or lose it, and the humans use it with a vengeance to win enough great victories to gain breathing room.
In Book 3, the human tech no longer works, which does not mean the humans, who were also much more advanced in the muscled powered technologies than the natives of the planet, must now fight with weapons centuries behind those they are used to using. They still have a lot of surprises in store for the evil empire. Below is a first daraft excerpt from the current work in progress. An airborne assault on a fortress, shades of Eben-Emael.
Paul wasn’t really sure how he felt about the dragons. They were beautiful creatures to be sure, in their gold and silver scales. And damned intimidating as well. There were only a few ways to kill his kind, and he wanted to live a long time. Dragons possessed two of the killing methods. They could burn his body to ash, and they could eat him. Both methods would destroy his body, and that would be the end of his immortality on this mortal plane.
The big Gold looked him over as he approached, with calm golden brown eyes. The woman seated on its back rendered a salute, her long reddish brown hair coming under her helmet and blowing in the wind. If she can bloody well get used to the things, then so can I, thought the Brit. Can’t let a bird show me up.
Paul moved into place, standing about five meters from the Polish woman, the immortal Izabella Kozlowski. She was also in full armor, though of lighter construction of his own, a long sword and shield attached to her back. Now she’s a right good looking one, he thought of the blond hair, blue eyed woman who was said to be almost four hundred years old. But I like an older woman, he thought with a smile, knowing that she would be young and beautiful for centuries to come, as long as she didn’t get eaten by a dragon as well, or burned to death.
Oh, crap, he thought as the dragon flapped its wings and reared up on its hind feet. Two human troopers were holding on to the rear legs, some of the paratrooper contingent from Earth who were along for what could amount to a suicide mission. They were doing this kind of thing on Earth, thought the big Brit, who had been too large for the para regiment, and had never learned to jump. Until coming here, and training over the winter for just such a contingency. Well, maybe not this exact thing, he thought. The paratroopers, mostly Americans, with a smattering of Germans and a few Brits, had not jumped from dragon or battlehawk during their training on Earth. Their transport was more staid and stable, aircraft that all were familiar with.
The dragon grabbed him with it right claw, the woman with its left. It tensed its rear legs and jumped into the air, wings flapping with a booming sound. In moments it was high in the sky, heading toward the fortress. Other dragons rose along with it, thirty of the beasts. The larger carried four warriors each, the smaller two, for a total strength eighty-four paratroopers, about what one drop plane would have transported on Earth. Eighty battlehawks would also be in the air, each hauling one trooper into the air. It would be up to them to take the gates to the fortress and its keep, along with one follow up stick of another eighty, if all the hawks made it back from the first wave.
The ground passed below, visible in the faint light of the largest moon, a quarter full, but still brighter than a full Luna on Earth. The camp fires of the legion were visible in the distance, surrounding the fortress, which was lit with torch light and glow globes. It seemed to come toward them slowly, or really they toward it. But also too fast. Paul would have preferred it take longer, so he could gather his thoughts before jumping into what could be hell.
[Go] yelled the voice in his mind as they were almost over the fortress. Too far away as far as Paul was concerned, but he also knew that was the illusion of the jump. He took the order seriously and let the dragon drop him from its claws, looking back to see the two human paratroopers let go of their claws and fall. He turned his attention back to his own drop, counting to five, then pulling his rip cord. The US Army issue parachute opened above him, and in a second he was jerked into the sky, then floated. It was a steerable chute, the latest of airborne technologies, and he could control his drop and fly where he wanted, even pulling into a hover when needed. Some of the human commanders had wanted to use the levitation of magic, but the Elves had pointed out that levitation could be picked up and tracked by a skilled mage, and there were many such mages in the fortress.
The Brit watched the fort get closer, his eyes focused on the outer walls where sentries walked their posts. Those sentries should have been watching the skies as well as the ground outside the fort. A demonstration was in progress that attracted their attention, as ranks of legionaries formed up and marched, as if they were about to attack the walls. Engineers worked at engines, while pots of projectiles flamed behind them. The Ellala in the fort had to feel secure in their ability to repel any such attack, but they also had to know that the Earth people could pull tricks on them that they had never heard of. Like they were about to do at this moment.
The outer wall of the fort passed beneath Paul’s boots, and he pulled on his cord to change his trajectory toward the inner keep, where the garrison could shelter if the outer fort fell. Taking the courtyard meant nothing if the keep held out. So it had been decided to take them both at the same time. The four immortals and twenty troopers would try to take the gate to the keep, while a full company of paratroops would take the outer courtyard and open that gate. Or at least that was the way it was hoped it would go.
The Brit pulled his right riser, then his left, and aimed for the top of the tower to the left of the gate. The roof came up fast. Paul was wishing it would come fast as two Ellala looked his way. The one with the pike shouted, then set the spear to take the Immortal when he landed. The one with the bow pulled an arrow to his ear and released. The shaft sped into Paul’s chest and bounced from the armor. The immortal pulled on both risers and slowed, then dropped straight down, while the pikeman screamed and charged forward.
Paul’s feet hit the roof and he pulled the quick release tabs that attached his parachute pack to him. His next move was to pull the bastard sword from the sheath on his back, while his left hand grabbed at the ax haft that was attached to his left side. The pike head hit his chest and slid away. The immortals were all encased in the best armor that could be found, it thought to be more important to protect them so they could do what they did best, fight. It actually saved more lives to protect those with the best ability to take damage.
Another arrow hit his shoulder, and Paul roared as he struck the pike away with his sword, then swung the ax in to cave in the shoulder of the spearman. The archer was drawing another arrow when Levine landed behind him. A swing of the ancient immortal’s sword and the archer was headed for his afterlife, to reward or punishment. More paratroopers came in to land, while Izabella Kozlowski came down on the other tower with a dozen more paratroops. Gregor Babich yelled in frustration as he missed the roof of that tower and fell onto the roof of the keep, forty meters below the tops of the towers.
Guess we’ll have to do without him, thought Paul as he ran toward the stairway coming up from the wall, where dozens of Ellala swordsmen were swarming up. Just hope he makes it OK. Then he was standing over the landing to the stairway, and his sword and ax rose and fell in a rhythm of destruction that dropped and Elf every couple of seconds to his death.
He glanced to the side, looking down into the outer court, where the other paratroopers had landed. There were bodies on the ground, both human and Elf. The humans were getting the worst of it in the melee, men who had only been practicing the sword for less than a year, against beings who had been using a blade for centuries. Arrows were coming down from the walls to take more of the humans. But even as he watched the humans were clumping together into groups of a half dozen, then a dozen, then fifty, sixty, forming a tortoise formation. Now the arrows were glancing from the shields or sticking to them, while the men under the protection of that cover thrust with their short swords and killed all the Elves that came at them.
Then his attention was captured by the Ellala who continued to swarm up toward him. A quartet of paratroopers had by now put together short pikes from sections they had carried and were thrusting into the enemy, while others were firing heavy crossbows into the Ellala on the walls and in the courtyard. And then the Ellala on the wall backed away, and Paul wondered what was going on. The glowing staffs of mages appeared among the press and moved forward, and the Brit knew another deadly aspect had been added to the fight.
* * *
The Archduke had been walking the wall when the attack came, though it took him a few moments to realize that it was an attack. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing as the soldiers dropped from the sky underneath the fabric canopies that slowed them. There was no magical emanations, nothing to set off the alarms that would normally be triggered by an attack from above. But there was no levitation at work here, only more of the inventive technologies of the Earthers. And we were told that their technology would no longer work. Maybe that was true where the machines were concerned, but obviously not all of it.
Still, when the humans landed in the courtyard, they were at a disadvantage. They were not as capable as the Ellala who sorted from their barracks in the outer wall and the keep, and proved easy marks for the blades of trained swordsmen, despite their strange but well-designed armor. A dozen were down, then a score. And then the damnable humans grouped, and the strength of their tactical doctrine rose to the fore. A dozen of them got together and held their own against a dozen or more Ellala. Then a dozen became a score, then more, and what had been a slaughter from one side was now going the other way. Arrows fired into the courtyard bounced from the rectangular shields or stuck into the surface of them. No humans dropped, so the Archduke could tell that even the arrows that sank into the material of the shield was not harming them. And then that damnable rectangle, protected on all sides and above, started to move toward the gate.
Another group of soldiers dropped into the courtyard. The Archduke didn’t get a good count, but knew it had to be three score or more. They did the same thing as the other group, and soon there were about three score formed into another rectangle that moved toward the gate to the keep. Not all of those dropped made it, but the majority did, and they were nigh invulnerable in their formation.
“We must get more men into that courtyard,” yelled the Archduke to a nearby officer. “We must get mages there, or the humans will take the gate.”
“The keep will still be secure,” yelled back the officer, motioning for several of his men to run and direct reinforcements.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” screamed the Archduke, gesturing toward the gate towers above the keep, where several heavily armored warriors were slaughtering the defenders while more of the other humans were firing crossbows into the courtyard. “We have to keep them from opening this gate, so we can keep them from opening the keep as well.”
The officer gave a gesture of accent, then yelled and pointed to the courtyard, indicating to the archers to keep pouring on the arrows.
The Archduke turned and looked at to where the besiegers were gathered, and his breath caught in his throat as he saw a half dozen of the rectangles running in formation toward the wall. That was well over a thousand troops, and he had no illusions as to what would happen should a thousand of those well-disciplined troops enter the fort in those deadly formations. “Archers,” he yelled, pointing toward the oncoming humans, and several dozen bowmen turned and fired. As soon as the first arrows arched out the human formations shifted into more of those invulnerable walking fortresses. “Mages.” yelled the Archduke, and the half dozen magic users fired balls of flame or bolts of lightning at the formations.
In the past history of warfare on this world such a magical attack would have broken up the formations, one reason why armies did not march into battle, but charged in a mass of running, dodging individual fighters. But the fire or lightning that struck these formations either bounced from shields of magical energy, or simply flowed through the humans without effect. He couldn’t understand what was happening, even having seen it himself in the past. Some of the humans were simply immune to magic, following some over-god that protected them from such. The others were obviously using their own magic to protect themselves. That he did not understand at all. It took decades to learn how to use that kind of magic, and these creatures had been here less than a year. Some more technology we know nothing about. Will we ever figure them out, or will they march into the capital, unstoppable by anything we can do.
A crash and a crackle turned the noble’s attention back to the keep towers, where other mages were trying to drive the humans from the heights, and were seeming to not be having much success. That lack of success was apparent in the sight of the huge human in full armor moving down the stairs with a bastard sword in one hand and an ax in the other. At each strike an Ellala died, and the Archduke was sure that the fort was going to fall. His next thought was on how he was going to escape this mess.
I went out of town on a trip this weekend to a yearly event I always attend. Brought my new laptop with me, hoping to get at least a couple of hours of work a day in while I was at Panama City Beach. Rode the motorcycle down, the first long trip on the bike, and the first other than local ride I have taken in many years. Unfortunately, the wifi at the hotel was awful, and my new installation of word didn’t work on my laptop. Was still able to post my tweets for the Aura promo to Hootsuite, and check up on the sales and giveaways on the KDP Report site. I did not have my spreadsheet on the laptop, and so had no firm numbers, but when I got back to my house in Tallahassee today, and pulled up all the numbers on my desktop, I was delighted to see that Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1 has now sold over ten thousand ebooks. Now to me this is a very big deal. Not Stephen King numbers, but still very respectable. And Book 2 of the same series is getting close to eight thousand sales, with book 3 coming out toward the end of May. Books 1 & 2 sold for $2.99 each. Book 3 will sell for $5.99, twice as much as the others, but it is also twice the book. Some of the reviews I received on books 1 & 2 stated that the books were not long enough, though they were the normal 110,000 words novels, about what most novels are if you’re not buying Wheel of Time or some others. Another strange thing about the numbers is I am now selling more of the Exodus series in the United Kingdom than in the United States. That’s cool. I can live with that, developing a fan base in another country. Sales are also pretty good in Canada and Germany, with some sales in Spain, France and Italy as well, and three books to Brazil. Need to figure out how to crack that Japanese market though, LOL.
Received a review on Exodus: Books 1 and 2 that really blew my mind, especially coming from a reader of speculative fiction. It really was the same review, two stars and the same complaints, but posted for both books. Basically, there were three complaints, after the praise for the descriptions and battle scenes. 1.) I had too many women in positions of military authority, and since men and women are really so different (his words, not mine) this was just liberal nonsense. 2.) I had portrayed sex between military superiors and subordinates, which is bad for discipline and is not tolerated. So I guess my own experiences in the Army, seeing a Sergeant Major have an affair with a female 2nd Lieutenant, or a Sergeant receiving oral sex from a female private, were just illusions. Not to say that all the historical precedents of this kind of activity. 3.) I had Muslims, Christians, Wiccans, Jews, Hindus and Atheists all working together for the common good. He did not believe this was possible. The reader finished the review by stating that he would not be buying any more of my books. I wish I could have written him a thank you for that last statement. You see, the way I view the future we will be able to get past our religious and gender issues and work together. And if there is some other, alien or otherwise, that we may have to unite against, our own differences will not seem so vast after all. But we will still be human, and humans don’t always follow the rules, no matter how reasonable they may be from an intellectual stance. If that makes me a liberal, no problem. I think it puts me into the mainstream of science fiction writers who portray the same principles in their books.
Aura, my high fantasy novel about three siblings, fraternal triplets, fighting for survival in an evil land, will be free on Amazon from Friday, 4/26/2013 to Monday, 4/29/2013. In this land the Aura determines ones future. A strong aura will lead to a priest or mage, a normal aura a normal farmer or store keep, or a soldier. A weak aura will become a slave or laborer, while one with no aura is considered an abomination, one who cannot be controlled by magic, and the ultimate threat to the hierarchy. Into this land are born the triplets, one with a supreme aura that makes her the target of the Dragon God, who is in search of a new avatar to hold his essence on Earth. It will give her great power, at the cost of the destruction of her soul. One of her brothers is born with a weak aura and is sold into slavery, to eventually become a gladiator in the arena. The third is born without an aura, and is rescued from death by an order of assassins who kill magic users who abuse their power. The girl grows past puberty, and she is about to become the avatar of the Dragon God. It is up to her brothers to rescue her from a fate that is truly worse than death. Four reviews so far, with a 4.8 average. And one that I believe lovers of high fantasy will like.
Tomorrow I am going to attempt to put out my first news letter. I put the link to the mailchimp newsletter in my books in January. Since then I have sold over ten thousand books, but only forty-three people have so far signed up for it. It will be an experiment. Hopefully the subscription list will grow as I add content. Nothing I can do on my end, but put it out and publicize it.
I am halfway through the first revision of Exodus: Book 3. Should be finished this week, then will do the grammar and spelling checks, then off to the fan who has agreed to proofread it. Hopefully still out by the middle to end of May.
I remember watching the movie Logan’s Run back in the 70s. Also read the book and saw the not so good TV series. In Logan’s Run people were only allowed to live to 30 (in the book it was even younger). Then they faced Last Day, the day they were killed in a ritual, from which the people were told their souls would ascend and then reenter the body of a newborn.
Today was my Last Day at the State of Florida, though I didn’t have to attend a ritual that killed me. No, I walked out the door with my belongings, walked to my car, and drove away from what was a very difficult period of my life. Department of Children and Families Abuse Hotline was not an easy master. We did some good, but I also believe we hassled some people who really didn’t need us in their lives. Add to that low pay, no raises for five years, and directives that seemed to have been written by a thousand monkeys on typewriters, and made as much sense, and I am very happy to have walked out of that place of employment alive. Along the way I learned a lot, about people, about bureaucracy, about the evil that people do to their own. And about the craft of writing. I left some good people there, friends that I had seen every week for the last seven plus years.
Like the people in Logan’s Run, I entered Last Day expecting a rebirth. In my case it came true, and I leave this day as my own boss. I am now a full time author, able to make use of my time as I wish. If I want to be a successful author I will use that time wisely, to produce as much as I can, while I can. This weekend I will be completing the purchase of a motorcycle, and will be back on two wheels after a two year hiatus. That is part of this lifestyle as well, to get some enjoyment from each day that is not work related. I will also be setting up a work computer at home that should keep me near the cutting edge for the next couple of years.
I see big things for this blog in the near future as well. I have let it fall off a bit as other tasks took up my time. In the future I would like to have four entries a week. One will be about movies I have seen, and not just new releases, but also old classics. Another will be a blog on books, mostly in the realm of the fantastic, though maybe also something to do with history or science. The third entry will be about tropes, or science fallacies, or anything else that strikes my fancy, enrages me, amuses me, whatever. The last will be a shameless promotion of my own writing. It really is funny how I hated that kind of promotion when I started the self publishing thing in December of 2011. Writer friends of mine think it had a huge part to play in successfully selling lots of ebooks, and I can’t say that they’re wrong. Now I enjoy promoting, to a point. As long as it doesn’t interfere with all the other tasks required to put out a good science fiction or fantasy book.
Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my writing career. Follow me on this blog and see how I do.
On Monday I put the first draft Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3 to bed. I normally put a first draft to bed for a year, but things have changed. I have been getting requests through posts to this blog, emails, and reviews on Amazon for book 3. It weighs in at 198,000 words, and will probably finish at 210,000 or more. For reference, Books 1 & 2 were both in the 110K range. I had hoped to do a much better job on book 3, and it will be as good as I can make it, but there will probably be some errors in there, even with other eyes looking at it. Probably no more than the other books though. I think the seven thousand fans who have bought both books 1 and 2 will enjoy this one, and the spinoff tale I am planning for the Fall. Also, I did some things a little different with this novel, writing each character’s story separately, then piecing them together at the end into one tale. I kind of liked that approach, and may do it in the future with other books. I am planning on pulling Exodus out again on April 1st, and will work long days on it to get it ready for publication.
In the meantime I am jumping on some other projects, including Refuge: Book 3 (Doppelganger is not really considered part of the storyline, yet. That novel was written seven years ago when I was still trying to attract a traditional publisher.) Refuge has done well, not as well as Exodus, and I think will do better with some more marketing. I love Exodus, but Refuge feels like an old friend, as I have been developing the world and the story for 15 years. What may put some people off is that it is a genre bender, combining high fantasy and military technofiction. With book 3 it will be leaning more toward fantasy, as the modern weapons are no longer of any use on Refuge. I have eight thousand words done so far on what I hope will be a 150,000 word novel. I am aiming to finish the first 50K words before the major Exodus rewrites start, and then I can take it from there when Exodus is out.
Refuge is my daytime project, and another book I finished the first draft of last year is my nighttime project. Working title is The Last Invasion of Sol, and I call it my Anti-Independence Day. Now I liked a lot of things about Independence Day, and hated just as many. In Invasion I have an alien race who has invaded another human colony and killed all the inhabitants before moving on Earth. Their ships are more advanced than humanity’s, though only capable of slower than light travel (the same tech the human race uses) and the human race knows they are coming. We can prepare for war. Still a daunting task and a close thing.
For the Summer I am planning to write the third novel of The Deep Dark Well Trilogy, titled Deeper and Darker, as well as a novel in the Exodus Universe about the criminal investigation of the deaths of members of Parliament in the Capital, as told in Exodus 1 and 2. That should keep me busy for the year I think. There are other first drafts on the hard drive. Some will come out next year as stand alones, though one, Theocracy, will be the first book of the second Deep Dark Well Trilogy. There is one whic is the first book of a fantasy trilogy that I wrote five years ago, but I don’t have time for another trilogy right now. And some people have suggested that Aura would be a good series, and I might consider it if I can get sales going for the book. Another book, Soulless (and I know there are other books with that name, so I will eventually come up with another) is a kind of Scifi/Horror mix.
I have found that having a number of books out there have made it possible for me to quit my day job next week. Exodus is making a lot of money, Refuge and Deep Dark Well not as much, but still good, and the other books just add a little bit to the pot. I am hoping to work more on publicizing the books that aren’t doing as well. I believe they are as good as the ones that are selling in gobs. But the great thing about the digital bookshelf is they can stay out there as long as I want, hopefully gathering fans.
Working under a deadline is a new thing for this author, even when it’s one that’s self imposed. I really didn’t expect the Exodus series to take off like it has. Oh, I expected it to be successful, after some advertising and promotion. Instead, it just took off on its own, and now is being advertised on websites all over the net. It came at just the right time, as the day job was literally killing me. Its success allows this author to turn to full time writing. In the past there was no deadline for my writing. I wrote when I felt like it. Some years I was very productive. 2010 is an example, when I wrote Aura, Daemon and Afterlife, as well as the manuscripts for Refuge and Exodus that later became the first two novel in each series. 2011 I started seven books and never completed a one. 2012 I finished three of those 2011 books and also wrote To Well and Back. But again, I wrote when I felt like it. Now I have an obligation to get third books out on three different series. I hope to do that and more this year, possibly three books on Exodus (2 in the main series line and one spin off). Exodus is doing the best of all my books, Book 1 outselling The Deep Dark Well by a three to one margin, despite being out for a shorter time. It is outselling Refuge 5:1. The smart business decision would be to hitch my wagon to Exodus and just let the others sit, for the moment. I actually did jump Exodus up in the writing queue, before the planned third book of Refuge. However, I feel obligated to continue those other series as well. People are sending emails wanting to know when those books will be finished (or leaving hints in reviews). So they will be finished this year. I will also be putting out a book called The Last Invasion of Sol that was written last year and just needs some polishing. People may howl, wondering why I am putting out a stand alone when the series they love still needs continuation. The thing is Sol is ready for a couple of rewrites, and as I will explain below, it fits into the process of how I write, or how I have always written, something I don’t see changing in the near future.
Exodus, and Refuge as well, are very hard novels to write. A story with a main storyline and only enough branches to encompass some of the other action and background to complete the tale; well that is easy. A story with multiple characters in parallel storylines; that’s quite a bit more difficult. I always loved the Harry Turtledove books that used that technique, and first started doing it as a challenge. But it is a challenge to remember everything that’s going on. I normally work on a couple of books at the same time, but an Exodus or Refuge style of book takes too much concentration. With two books I can write up to six thousand words a day. With one book I might hit five thousand some days, but on most three thousand is the limit, or things start getting really sloppy. I also like to put a book away for a year before working on the second and subsequent drafts, and I won’t be able to do that and still deliver a book this year in each of the series. Rest assured that Exodus III, which is a much longer book than its predecessors, also by request, will be out before summer. I hope to get it out by the end of April. Hope being the word here. I have decided to keep writing along in the story for another month, past what I need for book 3, so that a good bit of book 4 will be ready so I can complete it by fall. So from my readers I ask for a little patience. Hopefully, with going full time as a writer, I can get the production line cranked up and get the books out that everyone seems to want.
I attended a workshop this weekend on producing and marketing a book. There was not a whole lot on Ebooks, my chosen medium, but I was announced at the workshop as a symbol of success in selling eBooks. Not really where I want to be yet, but getting there. And I was asked a question later by one of the participants that I have been asked many times in the past, how do I format a book for sales as an eBook? This is a confusing topic for many people. I know it was for me when I first started. I sent what looked to me like a perfect Word manuscript to Amazon to be placed on their site to let their little formatting widget have a go at it. I was sure that the Kindle doc (Mobi) would also be perfect. It turned out to be anything but. My first review, of The Deep Dark Well, talked about how good the story was, then gave me three stars due to formatting problems. I looked at the book on Kindle, the novel that I thought was so perfect, and sure enough, there were a whole bunch of distracting formatting issues there. Changing fonts, changing spacing, changing indentation, sections that had lined up perfectly in the manuscript that were now all over the place. I fought with it for weeks, and correcting one problem just led to another. I bought several eBooks on how to format for Kindle, and most proved next to useless. One book even recommended copying the manuscript to Notepad, which stripped out all the formatting. Not really good for this writer, as I still like to use Italics for characters’ thoughts and names of things like ships and planets.
I read more about the problem, and found out that word processing programs leave a lot of junk formatting in the document, behind the lines and invisible when reading the document in Word. And if your use multiple programs the problem is even greater. The Deep Dark Well went through many programs; Word 2000, Word 2010, ODF, and all left their marks, like land mines waiting to spring when triggered by the proper program like Kindle Mobi. I tried Notepad++, which shows all the formatting, and there was just too much there to deal with. I tried converting on Caliber and sending that doc to Kindle, and ended up with the same problem. This was driving me crazy. I wanted a clean doc on Kindle, one in which the only mistakes were due to my shortcomings in spelling or punctuation, not due to some junk hiding behind the scenes. Instead, I was getting a mess. TDDW also would not convert well enough on Smashwords to meet their premium standards. I never did get it to work there, and just gave up on that platform.
I finally came up with a process that works, and I will discuss this for the rest of the post. First off, you need four programs. One, Wordpad, comes on almost every computer that runs Windows, so that is not a problem. The other, Word, comes on some computers and not on others. I still recommend it as a good investment. Open Org works, but it also adds too many errors for my tastes. The third program is Kindlegen, which can be downloaded from the Amazon site for free. Kindlegen will convert a Word Doc (and not Docx) to a Mobi file, which is what Kindle uses. The final program can also be downloaded at Amazon, and that is Kindle Previewer, which will allow you to look at your finished Mobi file as it will appear on Kindle devices. With these you are ready to go.
First off you want to save your Word doc in 1997-2003 document format, because the new Docx doesn’t play well with Kindle. This is also a good time to look for errors, like words that are still underlined and not changed to italics. This can be done with the find feature. Word of warning, when using find and replace make sure that the option is set for whole words only, or you can get humorous results like I did when I capitalized the word Elves and got changes like oursElves and themsElves. Also, make sure that there are not any extraneous spaces in the doc. Take out all indents made with the space bar and change to indents made with the format paragraph function. And make sure that the chapters end with page breaks, and not lots of enters. There should never be more than two consecutive blank lines created by enter in the document, as Kindle does not know how to handle them well. Now for the really easy part. Click on your doc and hit ctrl a then ctrl c, to highlight and copy the entire manuscript. Now click on the blank open Wordpad document and hit ctrl v, and the entire document will copy into Wordpad. Next repeat the process in Wordpad, ctrl a, then c, then click into a new Doc in Word and ctrl v it all in there. Wordpad will have stripped out all the unused fonts, line spacing and other things that make converting to Kindle a nightmare, while leaving indents, the font being used and italics. So now you have a Word doc that it free of all the extra HTML clutter. I would save this doc, again in 1997-2003 format, with a file name that is the name of the novel. This will show up in the header of the Kindle document, so I would name it something the reader will recognize as your book.
The next step is the conversion to an HTM doc. Now you want to convert to a Web Page, Filtered. Save this to desktop, then make sure it is closed, because Kindlegen won’t be able to convert it if the HTM doc is open in Word. Next open Kindlegen, which looks like something from a 1980s computer, a black box with a dos prompt. I have the shortcut for Kindlegen on my desktop as well, so I get to it by typing cd desktop and then hitting enter. Having Kindlegen and your document both on the desktop relieves you of the necessity of specifying paths during the conversion process. So type in kindlegen kindlegen Documentname.HTM (and putting the HTM or HTML is very important, or it won’t work). Kindlegen will now take the HTM document and convert it to mobi, which will appear on your desktop. There may be some warnings in the kindlegen box. Ignore them, as they don’t seem to mean anything. Now click on the mobi file and it will come up in Kindle Previewer. Look through the document from start to finish to see if there are any errors of formatting. This also allows you to see things you might have missed before. And when you’re satisfied with it upload the file to Amazon along with your cover, descriptions and anything else it asks for. And in twelve hours or so you will have a properly formatted book on Amazon.
Now one thing I really like about this whole process is if you find mistakes later, or they are found for you by one of your helpful reviewers, you can complete this process in minutes to upload a revised document. Surely not the only way to do it, but it works for me, and works quickly. So happy uploading.
Doug BrotherofCats Dandridge 