Rick Buchanan's Blog
November 20, 2023
Sequel in the works
Work continues on the sequel to 'Here There Be Monsters'. The working title is: 'Not All Who Wander' and it continues the misadventures of Admiral Martinez and his intrepid fleet of misfits.
Synopsis: While Sam searches unknown space for allies to join the newly formed Federation, the crap is generally hitting the fan.
Scrappers and the Ord are eating away at Union space, driving them to recklessly scoop up species to fight as warrior slaves in their battle for survival. Meanwhile the craw uprising creates logistics issues too damaging to ignore.
Back on earth, Innsbrook Marshfield is building political power and driving an agenda that could place the future of the Federation and Sam's command in jeopardy.
Unknown to all, the mysterious Custodian has a plan to steer Sam toward his own ends... a plan that goes horribly wrong.
As the stakes increase, can the crew of the Schwarzenegger fleet pull off a victory against impossible odds?
-----
The rough outline is starting to take shape and of course, it wouldn't be a proper sequel without higher stakes, an airlock full of scifi references and enough jokes to give even an Ord a good chuckle.
I expect to publish sometime in late spring 2024 and look forward to sharing it with all of you who enjoyed the first book so much.
Synopsis: While Sam searches unknown space for allies to join the newly formed Federation, the crap is generally hitting the fan.
Scrappers and the Ord are eating away at Union space, driving them to recklessly scoop up species to fight as warrior slaves in their battle for survival. Meanwhile the craw uprising creates logistics issues too damaging to ignore.
Back on earth, Innsbrook Marshfield is building political power and driving an agenda that could place the future of the Federation and Sam's command in jeopardy.
Unknown to all, the mysterious Custodian has a plan to steer Sam toward his own ends... a plan that goes horribly wrong.
As the stakes increase, can the crew of the Schwarzenegger fleet pull off a victory against impossible odds?
-----
The rough outline is starting to take shape and of course, it wouldn't be a proper sequel without higher stakes, an airlock full of scifi references and enough jokes to give even an Ord a good chuckle.
I expect to publish sometime in late spring 2024 and look forward to sharing it with all of you who enjoyed the first book so much.
February 2, 2023
ChatGPT versus my greatest nemesis... the book blurb
Recently on the Amazon KDP forums there was lively discussion about the growing concern of low-quality chatGPT produced content flooding the Amazon marketplace and displacing indie authors who count on it as a major source of their distribution and income. Curious, I went online to find out more.
Is chatGPT the innovation that will replace creatives, a useful new tool or simply a toy that has been blown out of proportion?
I decided to go right to the source and try chatGPT myself. Here are some of my takeaways:
1. It's incredibly easy to use. There is virtually no learning curve. You simply type in what you want it to do.
2. It's fun. I found myself spending hours just dorking around with the thing to see what it could do. It ate up a whole afternoon before I actually got around to seeing how useful it could be as a writer's tool.
3. You get out of it what you put into it. I found that to get it to give me useable output I needed to type in a great deal of information. The more specific the information you provide, the better the output. To give you some context, I absolutely HATE writing book blurbs. They always come out sounding dry and sterile. I can write draft copy all day, but a two-paragraph book blurb leaves me with a pounding headache. What better use of an AI tool for a writer than to outsource this dreaded task to the machine. Below is an example of a blurb it produced for my first novel Legacy of Darkspire:
Actually, not that bad. However, I had to input a five-paragraph summary of the novel and go through three iterations of refining my original request to get that output. It takes some work and to be honest, it still isn't perfect, but 15-20 minutes of work on my part and it produced a good starting point for me to work with.
4. It isn't going away. Tools like this are expected to be game changing for the internet, impacting everything from search engines and virtual reality, to common writing tasks (admin, marketing, legal, technical writing, etc) that are often repetitive and follow a pattern. Microsoft has made a huge investment in purchasing chatGPT to incorporate into the Bing browser and its MS Office suite of products. Love it or hate it, it's here to stay. Even the OpenAI.com site itself is planning to monetize the chatGPT, setting up paid subscriptions for improved access and advanced features.
At the end of the day, chatGPT is a useful tool and a natural progression in making technology and the internet more accessible for your average person. As powerful, sophisticated and just downright cool as it is, it's still driven by human creativity and that's something that we're still a long way from being able to automate.
Is chatGPT the innovation that will replace creatives, a useful new tool or simply a toy that has been blown out of proportion?
I decided to go right to the source and try chatGPT myself. Here are some of my takeaways:
1. It's incredibly easy to use. There is virtually no learning curve. You simply type in what you want it to do.
2. It's fun. I found myself spending hours just dorking around with the thing to see what it could do. It ate up a whole afternoon before I actually got around to seeing how useful it could be as a writer's tool.
3. You get out of it what you put into it. I found that to get it to give me useable output I needed to type in a great deal of information. The more specific the information you provide, the better the output. To give you some context, I absolutely HATE writing book blurbs. They always come out sounding dry and sterile. I can write draft copy all day, but a two-paragraph book blurb leaves me with a pounding headache. What better use of an AI tool for a writer than to outsource this dreaded task to the machine. Below is an example of a blurb it produced for my first novel Legacy of Darkspire:
Actually, not that bad. However, I had to input a five-paragraph summary of the novel and go through three iterations of refining my original request to get that output. It takes some work and to be honest, it still isn't perfect, but 15-20 minutes of work on my part and it produced a good starting point for me to work with.
4. It isn't going away. Tools like this are expected to be game changing for the internet, impacting everything from search engines and virtual reality, to common writing tasks (admin, marketing, legal, technical writing, etc) that are often repetitive and follow a pattern. Microsoft has made a huge investment in purchasing chatGPT to incorporate into the Bing browser and its MS Office suite of products. Love it or hate it, it's here to stay. Even the OpenAI.com site itself is planning to monetize the chatGPT, setting up paid subscriptions for improved access and advanced features.
At the end of the day, chatGPT is a useful tool and a natural progression in making technology and the internet more accessible for your average person. As powerful, sophisticated and just downright cool as it is, it's still driven by human creativity and that's something that we're still a long way from being able to automate.
January 25, 2023
Top Ten
I finally broke into the Top Ten Amazon Bestseller List for Humorous Science Fiction with Here There Be Monsters! Super excited as an Indie Author to see the book doing well. The audiobook also released this week so if you haven't given it a read yet, get out there and check it out. :)
January 22, 2023
Re-release of Legacy of Darkspire
I've seen some modest success with my second book, Here There Be Monsters but little activity on my first novel. So, I made some rewrites and commissioned a new cover. With a push from Amazon ads and a couple of promotional sites I've used in the past, hopefully I can get LoD in front of more readers.
I circled back with the narrator I used to record the audiobook for HTbM and he has agreed to take on the project of recording Legacy of Darkspire. The release of the book (ebook and paperback) should happen in the next week with the audiobook to follow in the coming months.
If I'd known how much fun this Indie Author thing would be, I'd have started years ago. :)
December 4, 2022
Here There Be Monsters -- The Audiobook
With much trepidation, I dipped my toes into the audiobook pool. What I expected to be a complicated and difficult process, is actually fairly painless. I chose to go with ACX, and they've made the whole thing intuitive and easy to walk through.I'm working with a talented narrator, Nicky Jordan and though we're still in the beginning phases, I'm excited to see Here There Be Monsters gain exposure with a whole new group of people who wouldn't otherwise find my book.
September 26, 2022
Breaking into the top 100
Here There Be Monsters just hit #77 in the Amazon rankings for Exploration Science Fiction.
I still can't fathom how the whole ranking thing works... seems to me that the book leans more into the Humorous Science Fiction category but not about to start prying open the horse's jaws.
