I've lowered the prices of Victory Or Extinction and Soul Dead And Green Eyes to $2.99, but it may take a couple of days to take effect due to the holiday. Happy Easter everyone!
Blog posts : "Fictions"
New fantasy book release!!!
My new book; Soul Dead And Green Eyes - A Kellaran Fantasy, is now available at Smashwords in both USA and Metric measurements editions, and in every format including kindle! If you're going to buy this eBook, I'd really appreciate it if you bought it before the end of March, for reasons detailed in my post about my life, below. It'll be available on Amazon within 24 hours, and everywhere else in a few days.
USA:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/530967
Metric
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/530971
My life
A lot of people have asked me about my life lately, and I don't have time to write the same thing over and over again, so I'm copying the letter I just wrote to John, my boss from my seasonal job back in Canada. The pictures I mention are available on this post on my facebook page.
Hi John;
Sorry I didn't get back to you for a few days, but I'm very busy because I'm desperate to get my latest book finished and published at least a few days before the end of the month.
I do miss working with you, and I'm getting a bit fat without it, but I won't be coming back to Canada this summer. I'm committed to my life here with Marel, and I wouldn't come back unless I could afford her passport, her visa, and both our plane tickets. As it is I don't even have any money for my own plane ticket.
Things here are really good, our life together is wonderful, except financially because of things I never expected.
The low Canadian dollar and the high Philippine peso cost me a fifth of my savings. I was expecting a tax refund last year, but for various frustrating reasons I haven't got it yet, but now I'm told I'll get it in a week or two. I switched my default sales from my own website to a site called Smashwords.com because it has many, many advantages for my readers, unfortunately it only pays every three months with a month's delay, so I'll get paid for Jan. Feb. Mar. sales at the end of April, then Apr. May June sales at the end of July. That's why I have to get my latest book out before the end of march and make some sales, so I can get some money from it at the end of April and not at the end of July. And finally, all the American book sites including Smashwords are withholding 30% for the US IRS taxes. Theoretically I can get them to stop doing that, because Canada has a tax treaty with the US, but it's a paperwork nightmare that the IRS says would take two months if I was in Canada, and it's almost impossible from here in the Philippines.
I've been working like crazy on the writing and publishing, and if it wasn't for those unexpected factors I'd be doing okay. As it is, things are really tense. I couldn't renew my visa here at the beginning of March and I'm behind on my rent. At least my landlady is really nice and she loaned us some money for groceries. If my tax refund comes in when I've been told it will, then we'll be okay. If not we might have to move in with a friend for a while. If I can't make a go of it with the writing and publishing I'll have to take a job teaching English to Japanese people over the internet, and do some musician work on the side.
Life here is very different. I live in a beautiful place with a huge beautiful yard and a private beach that only costs about $300.oo per month including utilities and bills, (see attached pictures.) but the reasons it costs so little are loud barking dogs, loud crowing roosters, loud yowling cats, no sound insulation, windows that don't really close, no hot water, surrounded by resorts that cater to Phillipinos who love their 10,000 watt karaoke systems at all hours even though they can't sing well, constant war with the ants and termites and mosquitos, occasional rats in the ceiling until the cats fight them and chase them out (which is loud), huge trees over the house that drop huge nuts on the roof that sound like gunshots when they land, and being too far from the center of the city to be able to get a landline phone or cable TV or fast internet. We get by with slow internet from an arial and sattelite TV.
Still, I have a wonderful love and tropical weather and the ocean just outside my door, and even with all the problems, my life here is still better than it was in Canada. I included a couple of pics with Marel's wonderful family from Christmas day.
How are things with you and Christina and the girls? I sure hope you're all doing okay.
Take care;
Wayne.
I did it!
It was absolutely necessary for me to achieve something extremely challenging, and I succeeded! I wrote a damn good book in twenty-seven days! Tomorrow I publish!
Teaser preview; 'Soul Dead And Green Eyes', a Kellaran fantasy.
“Report!” Captain Dhiak ordered as the two tired soldiers shed their armor and were given food and water. “Where are Belgran and Sergeant Lekin?!”
“Sir.” Smid said, then paused a moment, as if to order his thoughts. “It was the strangest thing. We were takin’ a shortcut that Belgran knew about, a little two-rut cart path about two miles south of the highway. We came to this burnt out house. It must have burned last night because there was still a bit of smoke from the smoldering, and you could smell it was really recent, an’ bad. It’d been right beside the road, and one of the half-burned main timbers had fallen mostly across the way, and there was this kid sittin’ on the end of the timber with his legs out, blockin’ the rest a’ the road. He’s all covered in ash an’ soot, his head down, his hands on his thighs, ain’t wearin’ nothin’ but his pants. Couldn’t of been more than twelve, maybe thirteen years old. He didn’t move a muscle as we come marchin’ up.
“It was just after noon so we were all hot and sweaty, and you know how Sergeant Lekin was, he hated everything just on general principles anyway, so he was in a pretty snarly mood from marchin’ in the heat in his armor. He kicks the kid’s legs out of the way as he walks past, not hard to hurt ‘em, just to get ‘em out ‘a the way, but not nice about it neither, an’ he says; ‘Outta the way, peasant!”
Smid paused for a drink of water, his eyes unfocused as he remembered, then continued. “The kid stands up an’ says ‘Hey’ as he steps up behind Sergeant Lekin. Not yellin’ or anything, just hey, in a completely normal tone of voice. Lekin spins around like he’s gonna yell somethin’ nasty, but he’s kinda’ surprised to find the kid so close to him that their bellies are almost touchin, and the kid’s looking him up right in the eye with this strange look on his face, or I should say no look on his face, no expression at all, and that was the strange part. And as this is happenin’ the kid takes Lekin’s short sword out of its scabbard enough to get the tip clear, and he lowers the handle end enough to get it pointing up as the tip is restin’ on Lekin’s belt, and he shoves it up under Sergeant Lekin’s breast plate and into his heart. He didn’t do it particularly fast, or slow, he just did it, casual like, like you’d slice a carrot, without lookin’ away from Sergeant Lekin’s eyes. It was all over in a second.
“Sergeant Lekin’ gets this stunned look on his face as he tries to grab the blade or the wound through his armor, then his legs start to give out an’ shake, an’ the kid casually pushes him backward off the blade, and he falls.
“We were so close as this is goin’ on that I could’ve reached out and touched him. The kid turns around and looks at the rest of us. He didn’t threaten us with the sword, he just let it hang by his side, drippin’ blood. But his face… It was like havin’ a dead man lookin’ at you.
“We all just stood there for a second, then Belgran says ‘Crap!’ an’ he reaches for the kid, and the kid cuts off two of Belgran’s fingers with no more hurry or emotion than wavin’ away flies. Then Belgran yells crap again, a lot louder this time as he draws his longsword, and an arrow hits him in the throat. A small arrow, prob’ly elf made, or… Or from a bow for a kid.
“The boy just stands there as Belgran starts thrashin’ his life out on the ground, then me an’ Krin here, we ran the hell outta there. Once we were in the trees an’ had some cover, we look back and the kid’s just sittin’ on the end of the burnt beam again, just like how we found ‘im, ‘cept with the bloody sword.”
“Sir, I figured it was an elven trap and the boy was spelled.” Krin stated. “I thought the best thing to do at that point was to catch up to you here at the camp and report.”
Captain Dhiak looked from one to the other of them for a moment, his jaw clenched. “You’ll take Lieutenant Fastel’s platoon back there in the morning.” he ordered. “They have our best trackers. Tell Fastel that you’re to find the boy and the archer. Kill them.”
“Yes Sir.”
ExOr comments?
Does anyone have any comment about the ExOr plan that I included in my recent email to my readers?
A New Plan
Apparently, my fantasy novels are much more popular than my science fiction novels. And, I'm having trouble making enough from my last book releases to allow me to live here ($400 US/month) until I finish writing Chaos Of A Demon War - Book Three of The Nexus Of Kellaran Trilogy, which would take at the very least another four months. So, I've had to set that on the back burner for now. Since I have no faith in my marketing and I hate doing that anyway, what I'm going to do is start writing the books I had planned to write after that; fantasy books set on Kellaran that are what most fantasy fans seem to want, of normal length and without the super-epic or sci-fi-style story elements of the Nexus trilogy, or any of the other things that readers have complained about. I can write and release one of these every month, and I'm going to keep doing so until I get ahead of the game enough to be able to finish ChaosOADW. It's a tall order, but I really think I'm that good and that prolific. The first one will be titled Soul Dead And Green Eyes, and it's set in northern Debevin about 5000 years before the events in Blessings Of A Curse.
Are you on my email list?
There will be some offers and announcements that will only be made to my mailing list by email. My mailing list is composed of those who bought books (or downloaded a free book) through my website, and those who have emailed me fan letters about my books. If you want to be on my mailing list and you're not, send me an email to wayne_clarke84@yahoo.ca, thanks!
Interpreting negative reviews
I absolutely hate it when someone doesn't like my book and writes a negative review on it on a major eBook retail sales site, especially when I don't understand what they disliked about it.
Two of the biggest complaints are that Mark, the lead character in The Nexus of Kellaran books, is "too perfect", and therefore the books are boring. When I communicate with someone who says that, and point out Mark's many faults, they still say he's too perfect. Now I understand. These readers don't like it when the lead character is trying to be the good man, and be the best man he can be. They only like it when the lead character is a bad-ass, and maybe a criminal. These are the ones who hate Superman but love Batman. They love series like the Taltos books by Steven Brust, and hate Lord Of The Rings.
Another complaint I get is that Mark "has it too easy", and they still say that after I point out all of the suffering and horror that he goes through, which may be the most suffering of any character in any book. But I understand now that they hate that he received more than he earned by his own effort, even though he says the same thing in the book. These people would despise a book about anyone who won the lottery. They hate Batman because he inherited wealth, and like Spider Man because his personal life completely sucks, and they identify with his suffering. But when I was a dirt-poor kid some of my favorite memories were of my mom sharing her daydreams about marrying a millionaire (There were no lotteries back then.) and all the wonderful things we'd see and do and have, and I guess that comes through in my writing.
Of course socially conservative people hate the sexuality in my books, though there isn't really that much of it, or more accurately, they hate the easy acceptance of sexuality in the cultures in my books, moreso even than the sexuality of the characters.
The only other kind of complaints I get are that some sub-plot that a reader liked was too short or not detailed enough, even though I write the longest and most detailed books in the business, which is a compliment in a way, but if I acceded to every one of these comments my books would be a million words long.
So, if I want to be able to capture all of the sci-fi and fantasy markets, I'm going to have to write another series about a dirt-poor bad-ass who never gets laid, and not include any sub-plots that don't get completely developed. Until then I'll just try to be more open about the contents of my books in those ways in the books' descriptions, so hopefully people who won't like my books don't buy them, and therefore don't review them.
Damn typos, lol!
Over the last week I re-read Blessings Of A Curse and The Fire And The Storm in preparation for writing Chaos Of A Demon War (I only got a bit of it done in the months after tF&tS came out before I found myself concentrating on Victory Or Extinction.)
First off, I miss as much sleep when I'm reading them as anyone else, especially since I haven't read them in two years. I really find myself wondering; Wow! How did I come up with all that stuff?! And I worry about whether I'll be able to match their quality in the third book. I wrote The Fire And The Storm when my life was hell, and I was surprised to find that it didn't really have a dark mood to it.
And secondly, I've proof-read Blessings at least a dozen times and had it proof-read by eight other sharp-eyed nit pickers, and I still found at least 25 typos, dammit! I think I've found them all now though, lol! There were a lot less in tF&tS. I've definitely become a better proof-reader over the last 13 years. I'll have the re-proofed versions out on the retail sites in the next few days sometime.
New Editions Program
After I finish getting Victory Or Extinction published to all the retail sites, and publish The Complete Rational Future Trilogy in one volume, I'll send out an email to everyone who bought books from my website to announce that the new ones are available. In that email I'll be formally announcing the 'coupons for new editions at Smashwords' program, whereby those who bought the old editions of my books from my site can get the newer editions for free, and after that I'll send the coupons to those who respond. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about the timing of that.
VoE regular edition release, and lower prices
The regular release editions of Victory Or Extinction are now available at Smashwords. They should be available at Amazon within 24 hours, and at all other major eBook retailers in 2 to 14 days. It took a couple of days extra because all the eBook retailers are changing their cover picture requirements to higher pixel counts because of the constantly increasing resolution of phones, tablets, and eBook readers.
After extensive research on eBook pricing, I have lowered my prices.
Blessings Of A Curse will still be free as promo. Any Pre-Release or Special Editions (none right now) will be $9.99. My newest book's regular release editions (In this case Victory Or Extinction) will be priced at $5.99. All others will be $2.99.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/504788 (USA)
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/504790 (Metric)
A Question of Image
I know I should be doing better at social media than I have been, but I'm in a bit of a quandary as to how I should be presenting it.
I feel I should just be 100% real; be open and honest about my flaws, my struggles, my failures, as well as my strengths, talents, and successes, just like I am on my personal Facebook page that's seen by my family and physical-world friends. That's what I've done so far, for the most part.
But I worry that doing so makes me look unprofessional, or worse, and that outside my personal Facebook page I should only show the aspects of myself that are confident, professional, successful. I sometimes think that no-one outside my family wants to hear about my problems, that I should remove every post that paints me in an unflattering light, and that I'm shooting myself in the foot by ruining my own image.
Any thoughts?
Typos?
If anyone has read Victory Or Extinction - Pre-Release Limited Edition and noticed a typo in it, I'd appreciate it very much if you pointed it out to me! Just send it in an email to wayne_clarke84@yahoo.ca, thanks.
It seems it's almost impossible for any publisher to catch 100% of the typos in books this big, even if they've been edited by up to eight different sharp-eyed proof-readers, each of whom caught things the others missed, and missed things the others caught. I always notice a few in the paperback sci-fi-and fantasy novels from the big publishers too. Only the help of hundreds of readers catches 100%, so your help is very valuable, and appreciated.
And of course, if you liked the book and posted a nice review of it, that would REALLY be appreciated!
Victory Or Extinction is now available!
The Pre-Release Limited Edition of Victory Or Extinction - Book Three of The Rational Future Trilogy, in both USA and Metric editions, is now available on Smashwords.com !
Merry Christmas everyone!
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/504788
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/504790
Finally Finished!
After almost two years of work, I'm finally finished Victory Or Extinction - Book Three of The Rational Future Trilogy! For that matter, about twelve or thirteen years after I started it, I'm finally finished The Rational Future Trilogy.
Its been an incredible journey, and an incredible adventure, both in the story and in my life, and it's pretty emotional to finally have it completed.
I've been having trouble with my e-commerce system on my website for some time. Selling eBooks on my own website gave me the most profit per book since it had the lowest costs, and because all the retail sites insist that a book must have the same price in every place it's sold, and I got the money right away.
Other sales outlets take more of the money and don't pay me for one to three months, but they have all the advantages for the reader. If you buy one of my eBooks at Smashwords.com, you can download it as many times as you want, and in any format imaginable, and if I bring out a new edition of a book with better cover art and tighter editing, anyone who bought a previous edition can get the new edition for no extra charge, anytime. For these reasons, when I publish the final edition of Victory Or Extinction my default sales site will become Smashwords.com, not my own site, and direct sales at my site will end but be linked to Smashwords.com. (Though of course my books will still be available at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, and every other major eBook retailer.) After I've completed this transition, I'll be offering coupons for my books at Smashwords.com to anyone who bought them from my own site, so they can download the latest editions if they want.
I'm going to have Victory Or Extinction on sale before Christmas, but I don't have enough time to finish all the publishing tasks before then, like editing and cover art. I'll do a quick first edit and offer a Pre-Release Edition with no cover art exclusively at Smashwords.com. That way those who want the book right away and don't mind waiting for the cover art and final editing can get it now, and when the final version comes out they can get that too, for no extra charge.
And, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank again everyone who has helped me or supported my writing career in any way! Thank you, all of you, I couldn't have done it without you!
Breaking news!
I should finish the manuscript of Victory or Extinction - Book Three of The Rational Future Trilogy tomorrow night!
Farewell, my homeland
Nothing left to do in Canada now except kill a bit of time and go to the airport. On to the next chapter in my life, and the next adventure!
Going back to my tropical paradise!
Less than 11 days left until I'm back in the Philippines, back to the life I chose and greatly prefer, back to my wonderful girlfriend! As it gets closer I feel my spirits rising, and my energy growing!
It'll be a lot easier this time; as I'll already be familiar with everything there, I already have friends and connections, I'll already have my relationship with my girl. And this time I'll have new systems in place to improve my motivation, my discipline, and my consistency.
Last time I was there I was thinking; "I hope I can build my businesses into success while I'm here, or at least enough success to stay here, but if not I can enjoy the vacation and go back to work in Canada in the spring, and try it here again next November."
That became a somewhat self-fulfilling prophesy, but I sure wasn't happy about it when I had to come back to Canada in April. The time I've spent with my family and friends here has really been great, but as much as I love them, it's not nearly as hard to be away from them as it is to be apart from the woman I love.
This time I'm absolutely determined to build a stable life in the Philippines, and I'll accept nothing less from myself.
Part of that will be to do better at relating to my readers. For example, I should have said a personal thank-you to everyone who Liked my Facebook Author's Page, and I'm sorry that I didn't. One of a hundred things I should have done better, and hope to do better in the future.
It seems my plans and goals usually go awry, but none-the-less, I really, really want to release Victory Or Extinction - Book Three of The Rational Future Trilogy before Christmas.