David Downey's Blog, page 3

So many books, so little time…

I figured I had, at most, 12 books in me: the A&O trilogy (i.e. The Books of Rachel), my grand sci-fi saga, and a handful of standalone novels.

But when I recently tallied all my book outlines*, I was shocked to discover I had 30 novels left to write!

The math: A&O took me five years to write.  Hence, it will take me 5 years x 30 novels = 150 years to complete writing all my books.  (And that’s not counting the additional book ideas I’d inevitably come up with during that 150 year span of time.)

Barring a cure for aging in the next 40ish years, I only have time to write eight more novels.  Sadly, I will be forced to do some heart-rending literary prioritizing in the next few years.  Damn you, mortality!

 

* These aren’t mere “story ideas”; these are fully fleshed-out summaries.  I’m a chronic outliner: I need to know how a story begins, builds, and ends, before I can write its first draft.  I envy authors that can begin writing a tale without knowing where it’s headed.

Tito’s Martini

As stated on my homepage, my sci-fi saga Tito’s Martini is slated to be 1000+ pages.  But I don’t want to subject my readers to such a turgid tome.  Plus, since it took me five years to write 300+ page A&O, it’ll probably take me 15 years to finally finish Tito’s.  So I decided to break Tito’s into a trilogy.  Already done with 230 pages (or 75% of the first novel’s) first draft…

Now to figure out where to gracefully break the story up…

Jame-O Shot

In the midst of writing my third book, I decided I needed a break.  A&O was a grueling (yet satisfying) five-year journey.  Goddess was an exercise in pure editing.  And now Absinthe was proving to be more research (and map drawing) than writing.  I was longing to write something that was research free, required little editing, and was light and fanciful.

As a lifelong Star Trek nerd, I had come up with several story ideas throughout my life.  As a palette cleanser, why not write some Star Trek fan fiction? I thought.

But as I started fleshing out the outline to my first Star Trek “episode”, I quickly began feeling weighed down by the franchise’s nearly 50 years of canon.  I didn’t want my characters to be limited to humans, Vulcans, Klingons, the Borg…  I wanted to offer my own clever takes on instantaneous communication and faster-than-light travel.  And I wanted to present a radically different fate for humanity 500 years from now.

So I decided to create my own sci-fi serial.

But as I set out crafting my serial’s setting, I found myself borrowing more and more ideas from Tito’s Martini, my upcoming sci-fi saga.  Then it hit me: why sketch out a brand new setting, when I’ve already created a lush and complex universe, championed by heroes, cursed by villains, all steeped in 500 years of tragic history, ready to be unleashed?

So Jame-O Shot will be the start of a serialized sequel to Tito’s Martini.  Each novella (episodic, ~60 pages) in the series will be released after a major novel, the first coming after Absinthe.  I plan to only release them as ebooks (but depending on their popularity, I may publish bundles of them in print).

I hope you enjoy your shot.

Big in Britain!

Curiously, starting six months ago, United Kingdom sales of The Alpha And The Omega (A&O) caught up with United States sales.  And lately, UK sales have exceeded US sales.  What makes this remarkable is that the UK has 1/5 the population of the US.  Hence, per capita, I’m selling five times as many books in the UK than in the US.

I’m big in Britain!

And much like Jerry Lewis’ fame in France, or David Hasselhoff’s popularity in Germany, I can’t explain it.  If anything, I’d think a story about Biblical end times occurring in modern day would be a larger draw in fundamental Christian America than in secular Britain.  (Then again, I haven’t gauged the UK’s religious climate firsthand since I never visited the country, a deficiency I plan to remedy in the very near future.)

So if you’re a British reader, please enlighten me to why A&O is so (relatively) popular across the Atlantic.

The Grand Experiment: FAIL

The Alpha and the Omega ebook is available again on non-Kindle formats.

As explained in my previous “The Alpha And The Omega ebook free to Amazon Prime members!” post, I embarked on a Grand Experiment to sell the A&O ebook exclusively on Kindle, in exchange for it to be available to Amazon Prime members for free (through the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select program).  I hoped the lure of free ebooks would gain me new readers.

Almost a year later, I sold roughly the same amount of Kindle A&O ebooks as I did the previous year, while no one borrowed it for free.  So I ended up losing out on non-Kindle A&O ebook sales for nothing.

Needless to e-say, I won’t be enrolling Goddess or any of my future ebooks in KDP Select.

Absinthe

I recently came up with a novel (as in “book” as well as “new”) idea that I’m shocked to discover has never been done before (at least according to an exhaustive Google search).  So in fear that someone else will inevitably come up with the same idea and scoop me, I shelved my sci-fi magnum opus (yet again) (codename: Tito’s Martini) to fast-track this alternative history novella idea (codename: Absinthe).

Good news is, Absinthe will only be about 100 pages, so it will be available far sooner than behemoth 1000+ page Martini would’ve been.

Now with Progress Bars!

Just added progress bars to my home page!  So now my fan(s?) can track my progress(?) on my upcoming books.  Go crazy:

 

Book codename: Absinthe

Brief description: Alternative history novella.  (More on this in my next blog post.)

 

Tito’s martini

Sci-fi magnum opus.  (The increasingly inaccurately named* “first novel” mentioned in my previous posts.)

 

Jame-O shot

Start of a sci-fi serial.

 

JD

Horror/sci-fi novel.  Prequel to The Alpha And The Omega.  Subtitle: The First Book of Rachel

 

(Why codenames? When I lived in LA, every screenwriter I came across gave me the same advice: never reveal anything about what I’m working on until it’s produced, lest an unscrupulous soul steal my idea.  In fear that even disclosing my projects’ titles may give away too much, I’ve resorted to giving them codenames (a practice I learned while working in high-tech).)

 

* Genius phrase plagiarized from Douglas Adams

Goddess

As you may have noticed on the sidebar at the right, as well as throughout this website, I just released Goddess.  (Boy, that took longer than expected.)  Click here to read more about the fantastical sci fi tales in this short story collection.

March Madness

Apologies for the tardy post.  This past month, I moved to a new home, changed day jobs, battled a wicked cold, and—oh yeah—endured another birthday.

But amid this madness, I’ve been working on a literary side-project, which I hope to announce soon.  So tune in next month—same bat-time, same bat-blog!

The Alpha And The Omega ebook free to Amazon Prime members!

Happy New Year!

In 2013, The Alpha And The Omega ebook will be free to Amazon Prime members.  (It will still be available for $2.51 – $2.99 for non-Prime members.)

***

The gory details: As a condition for the A&O ebook to be offered free to Prime members, I can no longer sell it anywhere but on Amazon.  That’s why the ebook is listed as “temporarily unavailable” on every format, except Kindle, on my website.  (The physical version of the book is unaffected.)

It pains me to limit distribution of A&O to only Kindle.  However, hard truth be known, I’ve sold far more ebooks on Kindle than on all the other formats combined.  So in hopes of reaching a wider audience with the lure of free ebooks, I’ve resorted to this measure.

Depending on the outcome of this Grand Experiment, the A&O ebook may again be available for the Nook, iTunes, Google Play… in 2014.