Zero Angel Richardson's Blog, page 23
April 12, 2013
Making Undead: Part 1A: Physical Corruption of Dwarves
Hi everyone,
Since my monster creation blog was pretty successful, I figured I'd continue the theme to showcase how I make undead in a similar manner.
Undead creation for me is almost entirely block-building. If I'm making undead for a specific race (which is what I'll focus on at first), then I look at what makes that race tick and turn it on its head.
Looking through my bestiary, I notice that I don't have many undead for dwarves, minotaurs, aviadins, lizardfolk, centaurs, or elysia. Everything that follows is new. I'm excited to see what happens with these races! Update: This started to get pretty long right off the bat, so I'm splitting them into a few different posts.
Dwarves In WotA, dwarves are not as fleshy as they may be in other verses. Their bones and bodies quickly decompose to cold iron (distinct from natural iron as having strong antimagickal properties), and their skin and hair is similarly laced with metallic deposits.
I immediately start thinking of poisoned metal. Somewhere in my past consumption of media and science I've heard of ruining metal when it is in liquid form. Googling to see if this idea can be verified turns up little, but I immediately come across heavy metal poisoning, which starts the gears turning a different direction. I also file away the idea of rust, another way metal is ruined.
It makes sense that dwarves would be mostly immune to heavy metal poisoning the way humes think of it and that poisoning in general would be thought of as underhanded or lacking merit. Still, some corrupt individuals might seek to increase the levels of these unnatural elements if they go out in the world to hunt and kill non-dwarves. Or even to increase the poisonous materials in their own bodies to the point that contact or close proximity would injure or harm even other dwarves!
So we have a living basis for the undead to come. A dwarf that unnaturally seeks to increase the levels of toxic metals in his or her own body to be used as a weapon against others. With the idea of their antimagickal bones projecting an aura, it makes sense that they would be able to weaponize that same aura and convert the antimagickal field into an antimagickal toxic field. Similarly, this would provide a defense. Anyone that can overcome the field of the dwarf would not be poisoned, although it also is insidious in that even those that might have magickal protection to poison might fall prey to the dual antimagick/poison.
I draw a quick sketch and label it poison dwarf (undead) for future elaboration.
Now for rust.
Rust is corrosive and caused by impure iron's exposure to water, especially salt water, and oxygen. It can be prevented by galvanization and cathodic protection.
Very quickly in my head, the idea forms of dwarves having some sort of rust-like contagion that they believe marks a dwarf as either mixed descent or unclean (or having come into contact with one that is rusted). Maybe can be forced by a dwarven water torture where a dwarf is forced to sit in salty water for weeks. Although it doesn't cause organ failure, hypothermia or the problems faced by a hume, it does start to affect the metals of the dwarf's body, causing a rust infection. If that infection gets to the bone, then it can very easily kill the dwarf. Maybe dwarves have to worry about rust infections in any sort of unclean wound. Any dwarf that dies to a rust infection can rise as a variety of different undead: a rust skeleton, where only the cold iron bones are animated, but can cause infected wounds quite easily; a rust ghoul, where the undead dwarf is consumed with the desire to consume the flesh of healthy dwarves and pure metals; rust ghouls can graduate to a full-on rust pincushion where the pure metals consumed are turned to rust and protrude through the GI of the dwarf so that there are lots of nasty bits sticking out; and finally, why not combine the idea of the tainted antimagickal aura into a rusty aura, where the antimagick aura taints metal and causes it to corrode, aura of rust undead.
Unfortunately, some dwarves believe they are extra-prone to rust infections (maybe they're hemophiliacs, or maybe they actually are of mixed descent—note, being of mixed descent would not necessarily prompt being prone to extra infection, but that can be a form of dwarven racism), and so actively take steps to prevent rusting: galvanization and cathodic protection.
For galvanization, we are talking immersing the flat areas of the body in liquid metal for protection; vulnerable at the joints just like with real galvanization. Ideally, they'd try to get their hands on Galatean living metal, or work with their metallurgists to come up with the next best thing, as this would enable flexibility and more readily bond with their bodies. Immediately we have a dwarf that dies by galvanizing too much too quickly (probably by full immersion) could rise again as an undead (dwarven living statue). Mixed in with this unfortunate beast, we have the fact that in order to do this to themselves, the person probably hates themselves or their heritage quite a lot. Great fodder for undead.
As far as cathodic protection, it requires a sacrificial metal and an electric charge. The electric charge can be acquired in a variety of ways, from an alchemist, harvesting electric animals from underground streams, or even buying lightning tech from a Golgardian. Aligning their bodies to be able to channel the electricity isn't so hard when you consider they are dwarves and altering their constitution slightly can make them have different properties as needed of stones, earth and metal. Next, they need a sacrificial metal to act as an anode. Since we're talking about creatures that will become undead, it makes sense that they would use something quite dark such as the bones of other dwarves or possibly their own hand or another appendage. Electrifying themselves and "channeling the rust" into the anode will be what they are doing while they are alive, and this can easily kill them through an electric shock they can't handle, or if they are using their own appendage, a rust infection.
Once dead, I envision them as instantaneously causing other dwarves to rust by channeling their corruption into other dwarves and maintaining the electricity naturally (or unnaturally as the case may be). Tentatively calling them rust vampires.
From the drawing, I've realized that these dwarves would probably keep themselves very neat and unblemished looking. The longer they go without passing off the corruption, the more crazed and less neat they are (just like a vampire hungering for blood).
These are just two physical characteristics that dwarves possess, and they've already added to the culture of dwarves as well as spawned seven undead creatures. Next up, centaurs!
(Note: Maybe more sketches to come, but I use them just to cement ideas more than as end-grade concept art usually).
Thanks for reading!
Since my monster creation blog was pretty successful, I figured I'd continue the theme to showcase how I make undead in a similar manner.
Undead creation for me is almost entirely block-building. If I'm making undead for a specific race (which is what I'll focus on at first), then I look at what makes that race tick and turn it on its head.
Looking through my bestiary, I notice that I don't have many undead for dwarves, minotaurs, aviadins, lizardfolk, centaurs, or elysia. Everything that follows is new. I'm excited to see what happens with these races! Update: This started to get pretty long right off the bat, so I'm splitting them into a few different posts.
Dwarves In WotA, dwarves are not as fleshy as they may be in other verses. Their bones and bodies quickly decompose to cold iron (distinct from natural iron as having strong antimagickal properties), and their skin and hair is similarly laced with metallic deposits.
I immediately start thinking of poisoned metal. Somewhere in my past consumption of media and science I've heard of ruining metal when it is in liquid form. Googling to see if this idea can be verified turns up little, but I immediately come across heavy metal poisoning, which starts the gears turning a different direction. I also file away the idea of rust, another way metal is ruined.
It makes sense that dwarves would be mostly immune to heavy metal poisoning the way humes think of it and that poisoning in general would be thought of as underhanded or lacking merit. Still, some corrupt individuals might seek to increase the levels of these unnatural elements if they go out in the world to hunt and kill non-dwarves. Or even to increase the poisonous materials in their own bodies to the point that contact or close proximity would injure or harm even other dwarves!
So we have a living basis for the undead to come. A dwarf that unnaturally seeks to increase the levels of toxic metals in his or her own body to be used as a weapon against others. With the idea of their antimagickal bones projecting an aura, it makes sense that they would be able to weaponize that same aura and convert the antimagickal field into an antimagickal toxic field. Similarly, this would provide a defense. Anyone that can overcome the field of the dwarf would not be poisoned, although it also is insidious in that even those that might have magickal protection to poison might fall prey to the dual antimagick/poison.
I draw a quick sketch and label it poison dwarf (undead) for future elaboration.
Now for rust.
Rust is corrosive and caused by impure iron's exposure to water, especially salt water, and oxygen. It can be prevented by galvanization and cathodic protection.
Very quickly in my head, the idea forms of dwarves having some sort of rust-like contagion that they believe marks a dwarf as either mixed descent or unclean (or having come into contact with one that is rusted). Maybe can be forced by a dwarven water torture where a dwarf is forced to sit in salty water for weeks. Although it doesn't cause organ failure, hypothermia or the problems faced by a hume, it does start to affect the metals of the dwarf's body, causing a rust infection. If that infection gets to the bone, then it can very easily kill the dwarf. Maybe dwarves have to worry about rust infections in any sort of unclean wound. Any dwarf that dies to a rust infection can rise as a variety of different undead: a rust skeleton, where only the cold iron bones are animated, but can cause infected wounds quite easily; a rust ghoul, where the undead dwarf is consumed with the desire to consume the flesh of healthy dwarves and pure metals; rust ghouls can graduate to a full-on rust pincushion where the pure metals consumed are turned to rust and protrude through the GI of the dwarf so that there are lots of nasty bits sticking out; and finally, why not combine the idea of the tainted antimagickal aura into a rusty aura, where the antimagick aura taints metal and causes it to corrode, aura of rust undead.
Unfortunately, some dwarves believe they are extra-prone to rust infections (maybe they're hemophiliacs, or maybe they actually are of mixed descent—note, being of mixed descent would not necessarily prompt being prone to extra infection, but that can be a form of dwarven racism), and so actively take steps to prevent rusting: galvanization and cathodic protection.
For galvanization, we are talking immersing the flat areas of the body in liquid metal for protection; vulnerable at the joints just like with real galvanization. Ideally, they'd try to get their hands on Galatean living metal, or work with their metallurgists to come up with the next best thing, as this would enable flexibility and more readily bond with their bodies. Immediately we have a dwarf that dies by galvanizing too much too quickly (probably by full immersion) could rise again as an undead (dwarven living statue). Mixed in with this unfortunate beast, we have the fact that in order to do this to themselves, the person probably hates themselves or their heritage quite a lot. Great fodder for undead.
As far as cathodic protection, it requires a sacrificial metal and an electric charge. The electric charge can be acquired in a variety of ways, from an alchemist, harvesting electric animals from underground streams, or even buying lightning tech from a Golgardian. Aligning their bodies to be able to channel the electricity isn't so hard when you consider they are dwarves and altering their constitution slightly can make them have different properties as needed of stones, earth and metal. Next, they need a sacrificial metal to act as an anode. Since we're talking about creatures that will become undead, it makes sense that they would use something quite dark such as the bones of other dwarves or possibly their own hand or another appendage. Electrifying themselves and "channeling the rust" into the anode will be what they are doing while they are alive, and this can easily kill them through an electric shock they can't handle, or if they are using their own appendage, a rust infection.
Once dead, I envision them as instantaneously causing other dwarves to rust by channeling their corruption into other dwarves and maintaining the electricity naturally (or unnaturally as the case may be). Tentatively calling them rust vampires.
From the drawing, I've realized that these dwarves would probably keep themselves very neat and unblemished looking. The longer they go without passing off the corruption, the more crazed and less neat they are (just like a vampire hungering for blood).These are just two physical characteristics that dwarves possess, and they've already added to the culture of dwarves as well as spawned seven undead creatures. Next up, centaurs!
(Note: Maybe more sketches to come, but I use them just to cement ideas more than as end-grade concept art usually).
Thanks for reading!
April 9, 2013
Jurassic Park in 3D
Got the opportunity to watch the doctored up Jurassic Park in 3D.
We all know the story (and if you don't, it's 20 years old, spoilers ahead), so the real question is the 3D. Did Universal "find a way" or was the 3D "one big pile of shit"?
Also worth asking is does Jurassic Park stand the test of time? Keep reading for my take on it.
All of the scenery and objects in the first 30 minutes of the movie are rendered amazingly and are all very good in 3D.
Unfortunately, we did not go to see Jurassic Park to see computer monitors (geez, they were really that bulky back then?) and ferns in 3D.
The dinosaurs, in spite of being 20 year old CG and puppetry, are still quite good, but here is where the film shows that it was not designed for 3D. The sequences with the dinosaurs, whether meant to be thrilling or inspiring, were written, designed and filmed with a 2D screen in mind. As such, there's only so much they can do to render these in 3D.
I frequently found myself sliding the glasses up my face to see if the film was still being done in 3D. I'm not sure if it's correct or not, but I always assume that the level of blurriness indicates how 3D the 3D is. There were times where I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my glasses being smudgy and the film supposed to be in 3D.
If you're going to see this with the expectation of triceratops's giant shit piles in your face and the T-Rex not only being "closer than it appears" but out in the movie theater with you, then I hate to disappoint you, but I'd rather do it than have you find out in the theater.
In terms of the timelessness of the movie, they're all using early 90s tech, "It's an interactive CD-rom!" Some of the things of that nature (analog equipment at the digsite?!) had me rolling my eyes and questioning whether the "new generation" would even know what the cast was talking about or would be very confused by the prehistoric tech (sorry about the pun).
Also, and I'm sure this has been hashed out no few number of times, but I found the inconsistencies to be more irksome this time around. Obviously the level ground turning into a cliff they have to go down was absurd as well as the guy patting the velociraptor in the kitchen, but even smaller things like "how did she reach the ice cream?"
All that, but it IS Jurassic Park. For me, I never really went to see films in theater and I definitely missed out on seeing this in theater the first time around, so it was nice to be able to get the full experience. Although the 3D was unnecessary, did not add much of anything to the film, and was clearly a money grab/hype builder for the inevitable Jurassic Park 4, it did not subtract anything from the film. If given the choice between the two, I am not sure which I would prefer.
8.5 / 10
If you're interested in picking up the 2D trilogy, there's this gift set (which will probably be made obsolete sooner than later):
I'd say the gift set is worth it if you want the series on blu-ray, as it is only $8 more than the regular trilogy. If you just want the first, here you go for $20:
Thanks for reading!
We all know the story (and if you don't, it's 20 years old, spoilers ahead), so the real question is the 3D. Did Universal "find a way" or was the 3D "one big pile of shit"?
Also worth asking is does Jurassic Park stand the test of time? Keep reading for my take on it.
All of the scenery and objects in the first 30 minutes of the movie are rendered amazingly and are all very good in 3D.
Unfortunately, we did not go to see Jurassic Park to see computer monitors (geez, they were really that bulky back then?) and ferns in 3D.
The dinosaurs, in spite of being 20 year old CG and puppetry, are still quite good, but here is where the film shows that it was not designed for 3D. The sequences with the dinosaurs, whether meant to be thrilling or inspiring, were written, designed and filmed with a 2D screen in mind. As such, there's only so much they can do to render these in 3D.
I frequently found myself sliding the glasses up my face to see if the film was still being done in 3D. I'm not sure if it's correct or not, but I always assume that the level of blurriness indicates how 3D the 3D is. There were times where I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my glasses being smudgy and the film supposed to be in 3D.
If you're going to see this with the expectation of triceratops's giant shit piles in your face and the T-Rex not only being "closer than it appears" but out in the movie theater with you, then I hate to disappoint you, but I'd rather do it than have you find out in the theater.
In terms of the timelessness of the movie, they're all using early 90s tech, "It's an interactive CD-rom!" Some of the things of that nature (analog equipment at the digsite?!) had me rolling my eyes and questioning whether the "new generation" would even know what the cast was talking about or would be very confused by the prehistoric tech (sorry about the pun).
Also, and I'm sure this has been hashed out no few number of times, but I found the inconsistencies to be more irksome this time around. Obviously the level ground turning into a cliff they have to go down was absurd as well as the guy patting the velociraptor in the kitchen, but even smaller things like "how did she reach the ice cream?"
All that, but it IS Jurassic Park. For me, I never really went to see films in theater and I definitely missed out on seeing this in theater the first time around, so it was nice to be able to get the full experience. Although the 3D was unnecessary, did not add much of anything to the film, and was clearly a money grab/hype builder for the inevitable Jurassic Park 4, it did not subtract anything from the film. If given the choice between the two, I am not sure which I would prefer.
8.5 / 10
If you're interested in picking up the 2D trilogy, there's this gift set (which will probably be made obsolete sooner than later):
I'd say the gift set is worth it if you want the series on blu-ray, as it is only $8 more than the regular trilogy. If you just want the first, here you go for $20:
Thanks for reading!
The Next Frontier: Auto-Install Cell Phone Viruses
Hi everyone,
I recently posted a version of my "safe e-mail practices" I hand out to all of my students (you can read it here), but this has not seemed to help many people (hint: you have to follow the safe e-mail practices in order to benefit from them).
Still, in the interest of trying to help, I'd like to talk about the next big thing that hackers are going to be working on breaking into and is currently a HUGE WIDE OPEN DOOR into your cell phone.
Multimedia messagesA quick discussion with a few smartphone users revealed some pretty worrying facts. (1) You may not know what a multimedia message is. (2) You probably have multimedia messages set to auto-download. (3) You think Apples can't get viruses.
Multimedia messages are text messages sent along your data package. If you ever send any files (such as pictures) to your friends, then they are sent as multimedia messages. Most cell phones have options to send texts to more than one person as a "group conversation", and those will show up as multimedia messages as well. And if you send a particularly long text, your cell phone may automatically (you can change the setting) convert it to a multimedia message instead of sending the equivalent of several text messages.
I've always approached multimedia messages with a PC mindset and only opened them when I was expecting a multimedia message (this tends to frustrate your friends by the way). But if you think of a multimedia message as an attachment or link to an e-mail, then why on Earth would you download it without questioning its authenticity?
Because you're safe.
I was frankly surprised when I found out that to-date, hackers have not found a way to infect your system JUST by opening multimedia messages (how stuff works explains more here, including ways they CAN infect your system). I would think that the fact that the picture shows up would mean it is on your system, and ready to do some damage, but apparently hackers haven't gotten around that yet.
Still, as the proliferation of smartphones continues exponentially, it's really only a matter of time before they get around this. See the fact that even Apple has removed the claims that their iOS is safe from hackers and viruses (yes-apples-machines-really-can-get-viruses).
For the record, I fall firmly in the camp that Apple was never really safe, it was just unappealing. Up until recently, the world relied on PCs, and its only with the recent explosion of Apples that anyone outside the visual design world thought Apple was worth breaking into (probably a gross exaggeration, I'm sure some people enjoyed Apples before they became trendy).
So there are a few things that you can do to help safeguard your phones.
Never follow a link or download an attachment to a text message unless you trust the source AND they've explained what it is somewhat specifically*.
Send an explanation text before sending a multimedia message. I.e. If you want to send a picture of your cat, send a text saying, "Hey, about to send you a picture of Fluffy."
Don't forward chain-texts (this is spam even if you like the message). If I was a hacker, I'd hide behind seemingly innocuous chain-texts and let others do the work of spreading the virus for me. Plus, chain messages clog networks and cause slow-down.
(Note: this is also why you shouldn't just share every story that catches your fancy on Facebook. Check to see if it is a real story or not, if the story urges action on your part, it may be a form of trolling. Check snopes.com for any suspicious messages or just Google the story along with "scam" or "hoax").
Check your text message settings. Know if long texts are auto-converted to multimedia and consider using e-mail, warning the recipient of the upcoming multimedia text (see #2), or turning this feature off if you have enough texts in your plan to handle it. You can send texts to multiple recipients without sending group conversation texts, so unless you want everyone to interact with each other, switch over to "Individual Message" after selecting the recipients. Turn off the "automatically retrieve multimedia messages" setting so you can control if you open a multimedia message or not. I'm sure there's more, but this is the commonsense approach that I take.
Thanks for reading!
~Zero
Did you find this post useful? Please consider following, +1ing the post, sharing it with your friends, or sharing the link on Facebook and other social media.
I recently posted a version of my "safe e-mail practices" I hand out to all of my students (you can read it here), but this has not seemed to help many people (hint: you have to follow the safe e-mail practices in order to benefit from them).
Still, in the interest of trying to help, I'd like to talk about the next big thing that hackers are going to be working on breaking into and is currently a HUGE WIDE OPEN DOOR into your cell phone.
Multimedia messagesA quick discussion with a few smartphone users revealed some pretty worrying facts. (1) You may not know what a multimedia message is. (2) You probably have multimedia messages set to auto-download. (3) You think Apples can't get viruses.
Multimedia messages are text messages sent along your data package. If you ever send any files (such as pictures) to your friends, then they are sent as multimedia messages. Most cell phones have options to send texts to more than one person as a "group conversation", and those will show up as multimedia messages as well. And if you send a particularly long text, your cell phone may automatically (you can change the setting) convert it to a multimedia message instead of sending the equivalent of several text messages.
I've always approached multimedia messages with a PC mindset and only opened them when I was expecting a multimedia message (this tends to frustrate your friends by the way). But if you think of a multimedia message as an attachment or link to an e-mail, then why on Earth would you download it without questioning its authenticity?
Because you're safe.
I was frankly surprised when I found out that to-date, hackers have not found a way to infect your system JUST by opening multimedia messages (how stuff works explains more here, including ways they CAN infect your system). I would think that the fact that the picture shows up would mean it is on your system, and ready to do some damage, but apparently hackers haven't gotten around that yet.
Still, as the proliferation of smartphones continues exponentially, it's really only a matter of time before they get around this. See the fact that even Apple has removed the claims that their iOS is safe from hackers and viruses (yes-apples-machines-really-can-get-viruses).
For the record, I fall firmly in the camp that Apple was never really safe, it was just unappealing. Up until recently, the world relied on PCs, and its only with the recent explosion of Apples that anyone outside the visual design world thought Apple was worth breaking into (probably a gross exaggeration, I'm sure some people enjoyed Apples before they became trendy).
So there are a few things that you can do to help safeguard your phones.
Never follow a link or download an attachment to a text message unless you trust the source AND they've explained what it is somewhat specifically*.
Send an explanation text before sending a multimedia message. I.e. If you want to send a picture of your cat, send a text saying, "Hey, about to send you a picture of Fluffy."
Don't forward chain-texts (this is spam even if you like the message). If I was a hacker, I'd hide behind seemingly innocuous chain-texts and let others do the work of spreading the virus for me. Plus, chain messages clog networks and cause slow-down.
(Note: this is also why you shouldn't just share every story that catches your fancy on Facebook. Check to see if it is a real story or not, if the story urges action on your part, it may be a form of trolling. Check snopes.com for any suspicious messages or just Google the story along with "scam" or "hoax").
Check your text message settings. Know if long texts are auto-converted to multimedia and consider using e-mail, warning the recipient of the upcoming multimedia text (see #2), or turning this feature off if you have enough texts in your plan to handle it. You can send texts to multiple recipients without sending group conversation texts, so unless you want everyone to interact with each other, switch over to "Individual Message" after selecting the recipients. Turn off the "automatically retrieve multimedia messages" setting so you can control if you open a multimedia message or not. I'm sure there's more, but this is the commonsense approach that I take.
Thanks for reading!
~Zero
Did you find this post useful? Please consider following, +1ing the post, sharing it with your friends, or sharing the link on Facebook and other social media.
April 2, 2013
The Cogs of Academia
Hello everyone,
As some of you may know, my "day" job(s) consist of being what's called an Adjunct Faculty member at a few different post-secondary institutions. I love being in front of a class and sharing knowledge and information with people. When students have what I call "light-bulb moments" and finally make the connection and understand the material, it's awesome!
Now, adjunct faculty are called a variety of different things by different institutions. Most commonly, they can be thought of as "part-time" faculty. I say "part-time" with quotation marks, because usually the time we spend is much more than would be considered part-time by anyone else. In fact, the only thing part-time about what we do is how much we are paid.
There's a lot of good info out there if you're willing to look for it (one blog I just discovered that's entirely dedicated to this topic is The Homeless Adjunct). I'll be focusing in on my experiences at 3 different post-secondary institutions.
Recently, with the advent of Obamacare (that is, the Affordable Care Act or ACA. I say "Obamacare" which some say disparagingly, but it sounds pretty nice if you remove the negative connotation. Obama cares), many institutions, both in the academic world and elsewhere, have begun restricting people's hours to be under the magickal "30 hour" limit that the federal government is saying marks full-time employment. This has happened to me.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," you might be saying. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the ACA's definition of full-time in the first place?"
Why, yes, yes it does. In fact, that's primarily why it's being done. A lot of conservative types are crying at the top of their lungs, "See! That's why the ACA's bad news!"
And yet, the idea behind it is one I think people should be able to get behind. "If you work a full-time amount of hours, but are called part-time, you have a right to the same benefits full-time people get."
Still, you might be saying to yourself, "Shouldn't the liberals have realized that the a-hole people in charge of companies would just try to circumvent this definition by cutting hours?"
Well, actually, yes. They did. That's why there is a provision in the ACA that says if an employer cuts a full-time person's hours down to below full-time, they still count as being full-time for 6 months. It's been a few hours since I've read it, but I believe this would even apply to someone that is fired or let go.
So why doesn't this apply to what's been done to me? Because they've done it early, you see. Once the ACA goes into full effect, employers will not be able to do this thing where they drop your hours like this without penalty, but since it hasn't gone into full effect, employers are taking full advantage of dropping hours out the wazoo. They're getting it while the getting is hot. Or at least, before it's made illegal.
Recently Darden (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, etc) has taken a lot of flack for this, and apparently the pushback has been such that they've taken steps to reverse or at least not continue screwing people over. (New people I mean, the people that've already been screwed have well, already been screwed after all).
My personal experience with this is limited to academia, and that's what I'll be talking about for the rest of the post.
In Ohio, Youngstown State University, Stark State College, Kent State University, Lakeland Community College and Baldwin Wallace University have all officially taken measures to limit adjunct faculty to no more than 29 hours per week on average.
Yet, the way they are doing this, ostensibly, is pulling some contrived "work hour equivalency" out of their asses that happens to be just high enough that it will only cause some minor grumbling from people in terms of losing classes and magically makes their 12-month weekly hours average out to ~29.
A couple of points.
The Work Hour Equivalency and the Average WeekYSU's work hour equivalency is that every credit hour is the same as 63 working hours.
I was regularly getting ~15 credit hours every semester (my lowest was 12), so this equated to 63 work hours per credit hour * 15 credit hours / 16 weeks ≈ 59 hours per week.
Well that's not good, that's full-time! So YSU retroactively capped it to 24 credit hours per year.
Yes, I said retroactively. That means I went from teaching 15 credit hours to teaching ≤ 9 credit hours this semester. But I'm "rewarded" by getting an increase to only a 3 hour decrease NEXT semester! Whoo!
Anyway, that comes down to an average of 12 credit hours per semester. Let's do the math again, 63 * 12 / 16 = 47.25 hours per week. Oh, I'm starting to see how that can be part-time. Normal people only work 50 some hours a week, right?
Oh they don't? Then how is that less than 30 hours?
Looking up the Affordable Care Act, we can see that the company is allowed to average the work week over the course of 12 months for current employees. A normal working year is 50 weeks, right? So then if we work over the course of an entire year we would have 63 * 24 / 50 ≈ 30 hours per week.
Crap! That's still full-time. Wait, wait, wait. Who gets time off? 52 week year, duh! 63 * 24 / 52 ≈ 29 hours per week. Phew, I can see now why they say we're part-time. They had me worried!
Yes, that's right. Part-time faculty in the same situation as me at YSU teach enough over the course of the 32 week school year that it averages out to 30 hours a week for a 50 week work year. And that's just since the ACA! When I was making 28-30 credit hours per 32 weeks, I averaged over 36 hours per week for the entire year.
What about the compensation?Yes, what about the compensation? Oh, you mean since I have my Master's Degree (and in fact, each of my positions at all three jobs require an MS for accreditation) and I work in academia, so I must be making some major moolah, right?
It's public info, so I'm not ashamed to share it. YSU pays adjunct faculty with an MS $800 per credit hour, which if we assume the 3-credit hour class "average", that's $2400 per 16-week class. Some icing: the national median was recently shown to be $900 per credit hour or $2700 per class.
Some more icing: YSU is the highest paying post-secondary institution in the area. KSU is close behind with a tiered pay schedule with adjuncts maxing out ~$700/credit.
Last bit of icing: YSU adjuncts haven't had a raise in 22 years. It's been locked at $800 per credit hour since 1991. I was 6 in 1991.
Even before all the ACA business, we couldn't even get summer classes, forcing us to go through some hard times from May to August every year. Why? Because of the faculty union (which adjuncts are not members of...by the way, it's illegal for adjuncts to form unions in Ohio) which won the right to be offered summer classes first, even though they get paid some sort of ridiculous overtime rate to teach summer classes.
(Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that the faculty union has been so successful at YSU, but I don't think it's exactly fair that they can just shit on the adjuncts to make up for the successes of the faculty. It kind of defeats the purpose of a union when a majority of the teachers at the school aren't a member (or allowed to be a member), but why on Earth would they go to bat for us anyway?)
Let's keep this going before we see how some other institutions in the area measure up.
YSU employs 573 part-time faculty members compared to 432 full-time. Part-time faculty members comprise $4.6 million of the budget, while full-time comprise 34.5 million dollars. Now, a lot of the adjuncts are part-time in more than just their pay and only teach a class or two, but if they max out, they can only make $800 * 24 = $19200 per year. Conversely, the average professor makes 34.5 million / 432 ≈ $79,861 per year.
You may be wondering what a full-time course load is for professors as opposed to adjuncts. It's 24 credits per year.
If you're curious about why 24 credits for adjuncts is part-time while 24 credits for professors is full-time, it's because of research and organizing and overseeing courses. That adds an extra 572 hours to their total per year (≈ 18 extra hours per week of the school year). (assuming we're paying them the $80K per year for working 40 hours a week on average over the course of the year).
Again, I'm really not saying professors don't deserve their salaries, but it's hard not to be bitter. I'm a better teacher than a lot of professors and educating students is not trivial and should matter.
A brief aside: there's actually quite a lot of discrimination in academia. When the mandates first came down, I heard the same thing I've always heard from all the professors, "When are you going to get your PhD?" Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to get a PhD? There's no university within 50 minutes of me with a PhD program in math, you're not supposed to have another job if you get an assistantship, and if you don't get an assistantship, then it's going to be absurdly expensive. I have a life that I can't just neglect for 2-4 years.
Back on topic. How many credit hours does 4.6 million dollars get you with adjuncts? 4.6 mil / 800 = 5750 credit hours.
Again, assuming the 3-credit class average, that's about 1916 classes. At the school published average class size of 25 students per class, that's ~47916 students (clearly, this number includes repeats).
Someone told me today that YSU only has 13000 students. If every single YSU student is taking a full-time schedule of 4 3-credit classes, then that would be 52000 students needed to be taught. Looks like the professors will have to cover the ~4000 some students not covered by the adjuncts.
These are clearly estimates, but they do give you an idea of what's going on. You might be saying that it's unlikely faculty teach so many students in a class. You're probably right. I know I usually get the 30-40 student classes. Adjunct faculty are most likely to teach classes that are "low-level" which nearly always have high enrollment and are a pain in the ass to teach (in the sense of grading especially).
One last bit about YSU, you may have wondered what the working wage comes out to. We get paid $800 per credit hour and each credit hour is 63 work hours, so that's $800 / 63 ≈ $12.70 per hour. That sounds great until you recall that it's required that you have a Master's Degree to make that much, there's no room for advancement, no hope of getting a raise based on performance or cost of living and the only benefits are discounted classes and paying into the state employees pension fund.
Now let's shift focus. Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division pays out $1600 per 3 credit class equivalent, which equates to $8.47 per hour.
National College pays out $600-800 per 3 credit class equivalent, which equates to $3.17 - $4.23 per hour.
At all of these jobs:
OK, this has been more than long enough for everyone to get the idea. I've been beyond bothered by all of this for the last 6 months, but really, I should have been questioning how hard I was working all along for the amount of money I was making even before the issues with the ACA came to light.
(One math equation I didn't do for you is the total work hours per week. It's too absurd).
A lot of information contained here. If you're curious where it came from:
As some of you may know, my "day" job(s) consist of being what's called an Adjunct Faculty member at a few different post-secondary institutions. I love being in front of a class and sharing knowledge and information with people. When students have what I call "light-bulb moments" and finally make the connection and understand the material, it's awesome!
Now, adjunct faculty are called a variety of different things by different institutions. Most commonly, they can be thought of as "part-time" faculty. I say "part-time" with quotation marks, because usually the time we spend is much more than would be considered part-time by anyone else. In fact, the only thing part-time about what we do is how much we are paid.
There's a lot of good info out there if you're willing to look for it (one blog I just discovered that's entirely dedicated to this topic is The Homeless Adjunct). I'll be focusing in on my experiences at 3 different post-secondary institutions.
Recently, with the advent of Obamacare (that is, the Affordable Care Act or ACA. I say "Obamacare" which some say disparagingly, but it sounds pretty nice if you remove the negative connotation. Obama cares), many institutions, both in the academic world and elsewhere, have begun restricting people's hours to be under the magickal "30 hour" limit that the federal government is saying marks full-time employment. This has happened to me.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," you might be saying. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the ACA's definition of full-time in the first place?"
Why, yes, yes it does. In fact, that's primarily why it's being done. A lot of conservative types are crying at the top of their lungs, "See! That's why the ACA's bad news!"
And yet, the idea behind it is one I think people should be able to get behind. "If you work a full-time amount of hours, but are called part-time, you have a right to the same benefits full-time people get."
Still, you might be saying to yourself, "Shouldn't the liberals have realized that the a-hole people in charge of companies would just try to circumvent this definition by cutting hours?"
Well, actually, yes. They did. That's why there is a provision in the ACA that says if an employer cuts a full-time person's hours down to below full-time, they still count as being full-time for 6 months. It's been a few hours since I've read it, but I believe this would even apply to someone that is fired or let go.
So why doesn't this apply to what's been done to me? Because they've done it early, you see. Once the ACA goes into full effect, employers will not be able to do this thing where they drop your hours like this without penalty, but since it hasn't gone into full effect, employers are taking full advantage of dropping hours out the wazoo. They're getting it while the getting is hot. Or at least, before it's made illegal.
Recently Darden (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, etc) has taken a lot of flack for this, and apparently the pushback has been such that they've taken steps to reverse or at least not continue screwing people over. (New people I mean, the people that've already been screwed have well, already been screwed after all).
My personal experience with this is limited to academia, and that's what I'll be talking about for the rest of the post.
In Ohio, Youngstown State University, Stark State College, Kent State University, Lakeland Community College and Baldwin Wallace University have all officially taken measures to limit adjunct faculty to no more than 29 hours per week on average.
Yet, the way they are doing this, ostensibly, is pulling some contrived "work hour equivalency" out of their asses that happens to be just high enough that it will only cause some minor grumbling from people in terms of losing classes and magically makes their 12-month weekly hours average out to ~29.
A couple of points.
The Work Hour Equivalency and the Average WeekYSU's work hour equivalency is that every credit hour is the same as 63 working hours.
I was regularly getting ~15 credit hours every semester (my lowest was 12), so this equated to 63 work hours per credit hour * 15 credit hours / 16 weeks ≈ 59 hours per week.
Well that's not good, that's full-time! So YSU retroactively capped it to 24 credit hours per year.
Yes, I said retroactively. That means I went from teaching 15 credit hours to teaching ≤ 9 credit hours this semester. But I'm "rewarded" by getting an increase to only a 3 hour decrease NEXT semester! Whoo!
Anyway, that comes down to an average of 12 credit hours per semester. Let's do the math again, 63 * 12 / 16 = 47.25 hours per week. Oh, I'm starting to see how that can be part-time. Normal people only work 50 some hours a week, right?
Oh they don't? Then how is that less than 30 hours?
Looking up the Affordable Care Act, we can see that the company is allowed to average the work week over the course of 12 months for current employees. A normal working year is 50 weeks, right? So then if we work over the course of an entire year we would have 63 * 24 / 50 ≈ 30 hours per week.
Crap! That's still full-time. Wait, wait, wait. Who gets time off? 52 week year, duh! 63 * 24 / 52 ≈ 29 hours per week. Phew, I can see now why they say we're part-time. They had me worried!
Yes, that's right. Part-time faculty in the same situation as me at YSU teach enough over the course of the 32 week school year that it averages out to 30 hours a week for a 50 week work year. And that's just since the ACA! When I was making 28-30 credit hours per 32 weeks, I averaged over 36 hours per week for the entire year.
What about the compensation?Yes, what about the compensation? Oh, you mean since I have my Master's Degree (and in fact, each of my positions at all three jobs require an MS for accreditation) and I work in academia, so I must be making some major moolah, right?
It's public info, so I'm not ashamed to share it. YSU pays adjunct faculty with an MS $800 per credit hour, which if we assume the 3-credit hour class "average", that's $2400 per 16-week class. Some icing: the national median was recently shown to be $900 per credit hour or $2700 per class.
Some more icing: YSU is the highest paying post-secondary institution in the area. KSU is close behind with a tiered pay schedule with adjuncts maxing out ~$700/credit.
Last bit of icing: YSU adjuncts haven't had a raise in 22 years. It's been locked at $800 per credit hour since 1991. I was 6 in 1991.
Even before all the ACA business, we couldn't even get summer classes, forcing us to go through some hard times from May to August every year. Why? Because of the faculty union (which adjuncts are not members of...by the way, it's illegal for adjuncts to form unions in Ohio) which won the right to be offered summer classes first, even though they get paid some sort of ridiculous overtime rate to teach summer classes.
(Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that the faculty union has been so successful at YSU, but I don't think it's exactly fair that they can just shit on the adjuncts to make up for the successes of the faculty. It kind of defeats the purpose of a union when a majority of the teachers at the school aren't a member (or allowed to be a member), but why on Earth would they go to bat for us anyway?)
Let's keep this going before we see how some other institutions in the area measure up.
YSU employs 573 part-time faculty members compared to 432 full-time. Part-time faculty members comprise $4.6 million of the budget, while full-time comprise 34.5 million dollars. Now, a lot of the adjuncts are part-time in more than just their pay and only teach a class or two, but if they max out, they can only make $800 * 24 = $19200 per year. Conversely, the average professor makes 34.5 million / 432 ≈ $79,861 per year.
You may be wondering what a full-time course load is for professors as opposed to adjuncts. It's 24 credits per year.
If you're curious about why 24 credits for adjuncts is part-time while 24 credits for professors is full-time, it's because of research and organizing and overseeing courses. That adds an extra 572 hours to their total per year (≈ 18 extra hours per week of the school year). (assuming we're paying them the $80K per year for working 40 hours a week on average over the course of the year).
Again, I'm really not saying professors don't deserve their salaries, but it's hard not to be bitter. I'm a better teacher than a lot of professors and educating students is not trivial and should matter.
A brief aside: there's actually quite a lot of discrimination in academia. When the mandates first came down, I heard the same thing I've always heard from all the professors, "When are you going to get your PhD?" Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to get a PhD? There's no university within 50 minutes of me with a PhD program in math, you're not supposed to have another job if you get an assistantship, and if you don't get an assistantship, then it's going to be absurdly expensive. I have a life that I can't just neglect for 2-4 years.
Back on topic. How many credit hours does 4.6 million dollars get you with adjuncts? 4.6 mil / 800 = 5750 credit hours.
Again, assuming the 3-credit class average, that's about 1916 classes. At the school published average class size of 25 students per class, that's ~47916 students (clearly, this number includes repeats).
Someone told me today that YSU only has 13000 students. If every single YSU student is taking a full-time schedule of 4 3-credit classes, then that would be 52000 students needed to be taught. Looks like the professors will have to cover the ~4000 some students not covered by the adjuncts.
These are clearly estimates, but they do give you an idea of what's going on. You might be saying that it's unlikely faculty teach so many students in a class. You're probably right. I know I usually get the 30-40 student classes. Adjunct faculty are most likely to teach classes that are "low-level" which nearly always have high enrollment and are a pain in the ass to teach (in the sense of grading especially).
One last bit about YSU, you may have wondered what the working wage comes out to. We get paid $800 per credit hour and each credit hour is 63 work hours, so that's $800 / 63 ≈ $12.70 per hour. That sounds great until you recall that it's required that you have a Master's Degree to make that much, there's no room for advancement, no hope of getting a raise based on performance or cost of living and the only benefits are discounted classes and paying into the state employees pension fund.
Now let's shift focus. Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division pays out $1600 per 3 credit class equivalent, which equates to $8.47 per hour.
National College pays out $600-800 per 3 credit class equivalent, which equates to $3.17 - $4.23 per hour.
At all of these jobs:
No hopes of benefits.The slight whiff of a carrot of maybe getting full-time if they ever open up another full-time position again is about the only chance that may someday become available.
No hopes of raises.
No hope period.
OK, this has been more than long enough for everyone to get the idea. I've been beyond bothered by all of this for the last 6 months, but really, I should have been questioning how hard I was working all along for the amount of money I was making even before the issues with the ACA came to light.
(One math equation I didn't do for you is the total work hours per week. It's too absurd).
A lot of information contained here. If you're curious where it came from:
The calculations came from me :)Thanks for reading!
www.thejambar.com/polopoly_fs/1.2801432!/2012Dec6.pdf
The Dec 6 issues of the Jambar, specifically the article titled, "Part-timers' Plight" contained the data on numbers of faculty and the budget.
www.thejambar.com/news/part-time-faculty-raise-concerns-1.2563946#.UVu-nFdknGb
" 'Part-time' Faculty Raise Concerns" included the I-thought-at-the-time-I-first-heard-it apocryphal "no raise since 1991" information.
www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-12-58.pdf
Some nice info on the ACA, specifically how to define the average weekly hours.
http://optfa.com
For the Ohio post-secondary institutions that have adopted 29 hour/week limits.
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Memo.pdf
The Huffington Post for a copy of the memo all YSU faculty got last year.
And you can find tons of info on how much different institutions pay their adjuncts (including YSU, Art Institute Online and National College) at
http://adjunct.chronicle.com
If you don't like crowdsourced info, here's a more official study with the nationwide average salary per class I quoted above:
www.academicworkforce.org/CAW_release_06_19.pdf
March 30, 2013
Monster Creation
Hi guys,
I was asked the other day how mathematics influences and helps me with my fantasy writing, and I talked about how once the set-up is done I just have to follow the logic and everything works itself out. It also helps with the magick system and whatnot. Let's go ahead and do something a little different with the blog today and create a new monster having no inspiration or reason for one.
There are many different ways I approach monster creation. I usually start with an impetus such as a chosen environment, location, symbiotic relationship with another species, or having my own spin on a "classic" monster.
Let's go ahead and start with an environment.
Looking over my world map,
I realize that I really haven't fleshed out the ecosystem of Oyain, the floating continent. (Please pay no attention to the fact that Ao used to be spelled IIo, that's the Draconic romanization instead of the common spelling).
Oyain is a relatively recent addition to the geography of the world in-verse and is arguably not a continent at all (on account of it not being connected to the planet's crust). It exists in a sort of Bermuda Triangle of air currents, or maybe a black hole would be more relevant. Eventually, anything that stays afloat in the atmosphere of Ao settles in the region around Oyain. A good portion of Gaea has joined with Oyain since it began, and there are even a series of islands in the ocean beneath Oyain for those that need to be more landbound.
I've already worked out that it is the best source of hydrogen trees (name pending) which naturally produce and store hydrogen, and which has many helpful components for building airships. I've also already developed the regional subspecies of humes, high elves and dwarves.
Sky dwarves are pretty cool in that they are constantly dragging around anchors so they don't fall to the oceans below.
Now, I can't necessarily open up my brain so you see what I'm thinking, but let me try to do a quick run-through of what's caught my attention so far (edit: secondary bullets are what caught my attention while writing this list. second edit: tertiary bullets are what caught my attention while writing the second edits...third edit: well, um, you get the idea. )
What foreigners drift here? Are they changed by the journey?Welcome? Does the journey itself change them? Would Amelia Earhart end up here? Going along the Bermuda Triangle angle, is there any malevolence or energy that is encouraging things to settle here besides the lull in the air currents?Birds are too easy and cliche. Besides, if they can get to Oyain, then they can probably get to Nasila and go hang out with Ziz.A bird hybrid thing that swoops down after climbing up sounds cool. Maybe like a batcat of some sort. Wyvern-y? Why can't it fly so hot? Is the atmosphere too rarefied? Batcat is heavy and unagile. Large round head.I understand how the hydrogen trees fit into the economy of Oyain, but what about the ecosystem? Their "roots" are very strong if I recall. Do things eat them? Is there something stupid enough to bite off a root of a hydrogen tree and turn itself into a stranded balloon monster?If things can eat the hydrogen bubbles without puncturing them, then would they float? Stretch organs to surround the bubble? Some large herbivore swallowing the bubbles and storing them inside its body as natural defense to spat out when attacked. Can do this with smaller bubbles/trees also, so can make anything on Oyain be explosive if I wanna'. Also, since the hydrogen trees don't use photosynthesis (I believe), then if swallowed whole, it's possible they can continue to grow and live inside the creature.Hydrogen poisoned symbiont. Another "super-rabies". The plant entangles in nervous system and messes the creature up. Would batcat do this?The membrane over the bubble is very strong. I can imagine creatures injecting hydrogen/explosion-proof babies/eggs into the hydrogen environment inside a bubble for protection. When creature emerges from its makeshift egg, sets off explosions? Note, I understand how volatile hydrogen is, but even if one tree in a hydrogen tree grove explodes, it doesn't mean that it will catch. They are *VERY* durable.Can be some extant galts left over from the pieces that came from Gaea.The idea of dwarves being perpetually afraid of falling into the ocean below makes me wonder what creatures live off the droppings of Oyain. Maybe some krakens messing about with surface life. Surface islands are noteworthy in that there is no gradual transition to deep sea because the islands migrated there or were too heavy for the air, but not too heavy to sink. So anyway, this leaves me some pretty good places to start. At this point, I'm not ready for details like final names, but I can probably start working out general behavior or niches in the ecosystem. It looks like I have 3 strong monster ideas budding up here.
Batcat
Exploding Giant Herbivore
Water Scavenger
At this point, I do a few sketches and pencil in a few extra details. It is next to impossible for me to not think about variations and connections, so almost immediately subspecies, notable creatures and exceptions are popping up. Here are pictures of the quick sketches (disclaimer: none of these are meant to be "final" drawings, and are just ironing out the details and getting the idea of the image on paper)
Batcat:
Batcat's gotten cute...ish unexpectedly. I sketch out a variant of batcat having swallowed a hydrogen tree (I hope it goes without saying that no one should swallow any sort of balloon, let alone one made of flammable gas...)
I call it...wait for it...fatbatcat!
Next up is the large herbivore, which I am referring to as "exploding lizard" before upgrading this to "explozard":
Please pay no attention to the redacted portion. There are levels of crappy drawing I sink to that even I am ashamed of :p
And finally, the watery scavenger, which I hit upon the idea of a fish mutated by eating rotten kraken:
As you might be able to make out, as I drew these, obvious questions came up that I used logic and reasoning through everything I know about the creatures, magicks and locales. I also am not afraid to apply the rule of cool to something.
One of the first things I realized with the batcat was that its eyes should migrate north. Its fatness contributed to its cute...ish-ness, and this was exacerbated by not being happy with the small beady eyes and closed mouth of the initial pic. Most of the other info about the batcat was already pretty firmly in my head (being too heavy to fly, wings being used to control the drop more than glide, it springing off a cliff face or top of a cliff to smash against someone).
What was new to the development was the idea that it had to be pretty shock resistant to survive such a fast drop. After trying to draw one sitting up, it made sense to draw one standing up (although it's practically defenseless in this position, it could make sense to frighten off predators or as a mating ritual of some sort). I also wanted the wings to be more flexible/turny, so I added some better joints to them. This goes along with justifying the rule-of-cool (although by nature, you don't need to justify the rule-of-cool, and really, maybe magic, maybe mundane should cover it or at least the shrug of god). I look at anything I want to do with my world to be cool as something that scientists in the world will have to try to figure out and explain. There's always an explanation, we just don't know it yet.
The fatbatcat was interesting, possibly inspired by a picture of a fat Welsh corgi next to two fat round stuffed animal versions of itself I saw the other day. All sorts of logical issues with fatbatcat that needed addressed (such as where do the organs go? Turns out they're shoved down into the tail mostly).
For the explozard, hitting upon the stegosaurus inspiration was lucky, but a direct result of needing the bulbous hydrogen trees to fit somewhere inside the explozard's body. The venting also seemed logical, and opened up a lot of possibilities for subspecies.
Finally, I am very happy with how the water scavenger turned out. Since it's basically a shark-piranha-squid, it's hard to imagine something worse to be in the water with. Still, it's derivative of a kraken, so it makes sense they would be terrified of kraken (which are the direct descendents of Leviathan in WotA).
Back to the overall idea here though. This has all been mathematics. As soon as the set-up is complete, the rest is following natural logic and asking "why" and "how".
This short exercise (now a little longer talking to yins about it) has just added three new creatures to WotA to help flesh out Oyain. One can even argue, because of the complexity of their creation, that they are largely original and/or unique. Clearly, they're derivative, but everything is derivative. It all stems from something. The trick is to use math so that you can easily access the next levels.
There's a reason for everything. Math helps us see those reasons.
Hope you've enjoyed the world-building exercise!
I was asked the other day how mathematics influences and helps me with my fantasy writing, and I talked about how once the set-up is done I just have to follow the logic and everything works itself out. It also helps with the magick system and whatnot. Let's go ahead and do something a little different with the blog today and create a new monster having no inspiration or reason for one.
There are many different ways I approach monster creation. I usually start with an impetus such as a chosen environment, location, symbiotic relationship with another species, or having my own spin on a "classic" monster.
Let's go ahead and start with an environment.
Looking over my world map,
I realize that I really haven't fleshed out the ecosystem of Oyain, the floating continent. (Please pay no attention to the fact that Ao used to be spelled IIo, that's the Draconic romanization instead of the common spelling). Oyain is a relatively recent addition to the geography of the world in-verse and is arguably not a continent at all (on account of it not being connected to the planet's crust). It exists in a sort of Bermuda Triangle of air currents, or maybe a black hole would be more relevant. Eventually, anything that stays afloat in the atmosphere of Ao settles in the region around Oyain. A good portion of Gaea has joined with Oyain since it began, and there are even a series of islands in the ocean beneath Oyain for those that need to be more landbound.
I've already worked out that it is the best source of hydrogen trees (name pending) which naturally produce and store hydrogen, and which has many helpful components for building airships. I've also already developed the regional subspecies of humes, high elves and dwarves.
Sky dwarves are pretty cool in that they are constantly dragging around anchors so they don't fall to the oceans below.
Now, I can't necessarily open up my brain so you see what I'm thinking, but let me try to do a quick run-through of what's caught my attention so far (edit: secondary bullets are what caught my attention while writing this list. second edit: tertiary bullets are what caught my attention while writing the second edits...third edit: well, um, you get the idea. )
What foreigners drift here? Are they changed by the journey?Welcome? Does the journey itself change them? Would Amelia Earhart end up here? Going along the Bermuda Triangle angle, is there any malevolence or energy that is encouraging things to settle here besides the lull in the air currents?Birds are too easy and cliche. Besides, if they can get to Oyain, then they can probably get to Nasila and go hang out with Ziz.A bird hybrid thing that swoops down after climbing up sounds cool. Maybe like a batcat of some sort. Wyvern-y? Why can't it fly so hot? Is the atmosphere too rarefied? Batcat is heavy and unagile. Large round head.I understand how the hydrogen trees fit into the economy of Oyain, but what about the ecosystem? Their "roots" are very strong if I recall. Do things eat them? Is there something stupid enough to bite off a root of a hydrogen tree and turn itself into a stranded balloon monster?If things can eat the hydrogen bubbles without puncturing them, then would they float? Stretch organs to surround the bubble? Some large herbivore swallowing the bubbles and storing them inside its body as natural defense to spat out when attacked. Can do this with smaller bubbles/trees also, so can make anything on Oyain be explosive if I wanna'. Also, since the hydrogen trees don't use photosynthesis (I believe), then if swallowed whole, it's possible they can continue to grow and live inside the creature.Hydrogen poisoned symbiont. Another "super-rabies". The plant entangles in nervous system and messes the creature up. Would batcat do this?The membrane over the bubble is very strong. I can imagine creatures injecting hydrogen/explosion-proof babies/eggs into the hydrogen environment inside a bubble for protection. When creature emerges from its makeshift egg, sets off explosions? Note, I understand how volatile hydrogen is, but even if one tree in a hydrogen tree grove explodes, it doesn't mean that it will catch. They are *VERY* durable.Can be some extant galts left over from the pieces that came from Gaea.The idea of dwarves being perpetually afraid of falling into the ocean below makes me wonder what creatures live off the droppings of Oyain. Maybe some krakens messing about with surface life. Surface islands are noteworthy in that there is no gradual transition to deep sea because the islands migrated there or were too heavy for the air, but not too heavy to sink. So anyway, this leaves me some pretty good places to start. At this point, I'm not ready for details like final names, but I can probably start working out general behavior or niches in the ecosystem. It looks like I have 3 strong monster ideas budding up here.
Batcat
Exploding Giant Herbivore
Water Scavenger
At this point, I do a few sketches and pencil in a few extra details. It is next to impossible for me to not think about variations and connections, so almost immediately subspecies, notable creatures and exceptions are popping up. Here are pictures of the quick sketches (disclaimer: none of these are meant to be "final" drawings, and are just ironing out the details and getting the idea of the image on paper)
Batcat:
Batcat's gotten cute...ish unexpectedly. I sketch out a variant of batcat having swallowed a hydrogen tree (I hope it goes without saying that no one should swallow any sort of balloon, let alone one made of flammable gas...)
I call it...wait for it...fatbatcat! Next up is the large herbivore, which I am referring to as "exploding lizard" before upgrading this to "explozard":
Please pay no attention to the redacted portion. There are levels of crappy drawing I sink to that even I am ashamed of :pAnd finally, the watery scavenger, which I hit upon the idea of a fish mutated by eating rotten kraken:
As you might be able to make out, as I drew these, obvious questions came up that I used logic and reasoning through everything I know about the creatures, magicks and locales. I also am not afraid to apply the rule of cool to something.
One of the first things I realized with the batcat was that its eyes should migrate north. Its fatness contributed to its cute...ish-ness, and this was exacerbated by not being happy with the small beady eyes and closed mouth of the initial pic. Most of the other info about the batcat was already pretty firmly in my head (being too heavy to fly, wings being used to control the drop more than glide, it springing off a cliff face or top of a cliff to smash against someone).
What was new to the development was the idea that it had to be pretty shock resistant to survive such a fast drop. After trying to draw one sitting up, it made sense to draw one standing up (although it's practically defenseless in this position, it could make sense to frighten off predators or as a mating ritual of some sort). I also wanted the wings to be more flexible/turny, so I added some better joints to them. This goes along with justifying the rule-of-cool (although by nature, you don't need to justify the rule-of-cool, and really, maybe magic, maybe mundane should cover it or at least the shrug of god). I look at anything I want to do with my world to be cool as something that scientists in the world will have to try to figure out and explain. There's always an explanation, we just don't know it yet.
The fatbatcat was interesting, possibly inspired by a picture of a fat Welsh corgi next to two fat round stuffed animal versions of itself I saw the other day. All sorts of logical issues with fatbatcat that needed addressed (such as where do the organs go? Turns out they're shoved down into the tail mostly).
For the explozard, hitting upon the stegosaurus inspiration was lucky, but a direct result of needing the bulbous hydrogen trees to fit somewhere inside the explozard's body. The venting also seemed logical, and opened up a lot of possibilities for subspecies.
Finally, I am very happy with how the water scavenger turned out. Since it's basically a shark-piranha-squid, it's hard to imagine something worse to be in the water with. Still, it's derivative of a kraken, so it makes sense they would be terrified of kraken (which are the direct descendents of Leviathan in WotA).
Back to the overall idea here though. This has all been mathematics. As soon as the set-up is complete, the rest is following natural logic and asking "why" and "how".
This short exercise (now a little longer talking to yins about it) has just added three new creatures to WotA to help flesh out Oyain. One can even argue, because of the complexity of their creation, that they are largely original and/or unique. Clearly, they're derivative, but everything is derivative. It all stems from something. The trick is to use math so that you can easily access the next levels.
There's a reason for everything. Math helps us see those reasons.
Hope you've enjoyed the world-building exercise!
March 17, 2013
BOGO Zero!
Hi everyone!
Want to share an offer I am having this week:
If you buy The Throne of Ao or Arithmetic and Number Sense this week, then I will send you Zero Angel's Change of the Zombie or Overcoming Math Anxiety and How to Be Successful in Mathematics for free.
Anyway, how do you redeem the offer?
Since I'm not some super-fancy retailer, you'll have to send me a screenshot of the receipt or forward the receipt e-mail itself to ZeroAngel @ ApocalypseDesigns.com (without the spaces). The screenshot needs to contain the order number and the date and the date needs to jibe with March 18, 2013 - March 24, 2013.
Please also specify which of the free books you'd like to receive.
Afterwards, I will send you either a link to download the eBook you selected on Amazon or a coupon to download it on Smashwords if you do not want it on Amazon (Please specify! If you don't, I will just guess)
Some things to bear in mind:
The Throne of Ao is available on Amazon.com, BN.com and Smashwords.comArithmetic and Number Sense is only available on Amazon.com
Zero Angel's Change of the Zombie is available on Amazon.com and Smashwords.comand Overcoming Math Anxiety and How to Be Successful in Mathematics is only available on Amazon.com
This is limited to the first 100 people participating in the offer by e-mailing me, so please don't delay to send me the receipts. Will stop redeeming receipts after March 31.
Also, note that the math sections are only available on Amazon, so you will not be able to download them via Nook or any other non-Amazon device. That said, you can read them for free on any Kindle app for your PC, smartphone or tablet or for free via Amazon's Cloud Reader.
Finally, if you want to purchase both The Throne of Ao and Arithmetic and Number Sense, then you can receive both free eBooks! Or if you want to download one of the books for yourself and have me send the free eBook to a friend, then just specify where to send the book in your e-mail to me. (Please let your friend know as well!)
Me on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Richardson/e/B008LCSUKQ/
Me on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile//view/ZeroAngel
Aaaand, me on BN: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-throne-of-ao-robert-richardson/1112089913?ean=2940014608145
Let me know if you have any questions!
Want to share an offer I am having this week:
If you buy The Throne of Ao or Arithmetic and Number Sense this week, then I will send you Zero Angel's Change of the Zombie or Overcoming Math Anxiety and How to Be Successful in Mathematics for free.
Anyway, how do you redeem the offer?
Since I'm not some super-fancy retailer, you'll have to send me a screenshot of the receipt or forward the receipt e-mail itself to ZeroAngel @ ApocalypseDesigns.com (without the spaces). The screenshot needs to contain the order number and the date and the date needs to jibe with March 18, 2013 - March 24, 2013.
Please also specify which of the free books you'd like to receive.
Afterwards, I will send you either a link to download the eBook you selected on Amazon or a coupon to download it on Smashwords if you do not want it on Amazon (Please specify! If you don't, I will just guess)
Some things to bear in mind:
The Throne of Ao is available on Amazon.com, BN.com and Smashwords.comArithmetic and Number Sense is only available on Amazon.com
Zero Angel's Change of the Zombie is available on Amazon.com and Smashwords.comand Overcoming Math Anxiety and How to Be Successful in Mathematics is only available on Amazon.com
This is limited to the first 100 people participating in the offer by e-mailing me, so please don't delay to send me the receipts. Will stop redeeming receipts after March 31.
Also, note that the math sections are only available on Amazon, so you will not be able to download them via Nook or any other non-Amazon device. That said, you can read them for free on any Kindle app for your PC, smartphone or tablet or for free via Amazon's Cloud Reader.
Finally, if you want to purchase both The Throne of Ao and Arithmetic and Number Sense, then you can receive both free eBooks! Or if you want to download one of the books for yourself and have me send the free eBook to a friend, then just specify where to send the book in your e-mail to me. (Please let your friend know as well!)
Me on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Richardson/e/B008LCSUKQ/
Me on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile//view/ZeroAngel
Aaaand, me on BN: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-throne-of-ao-robert-richardson/1112089913?ean=2940014608145
Let me know if you have any questions!
March 14, 2013
On Being a Bestselling Author
How does it feel to be a bestselling author (as defined by Amazon)?
About as good as it feels to get a gold star in Kindergarten...if you have to keep saying, "as defined by Mr. Amazon".
I guess I don't have to keep saying that my books are bestsellers in specific categories, but well, I always do specify so that when someday I climb the ranks to the next more general category, I get to be excited all over again!
According to Amazon, my first nonfiction work, Overcoming Math Anxiety and How to Be Successful in Mathematics has consistently been in the bestseller list of math study and teaching since it entered that category last November. Actually, as far as I can tell, the only time it's not on that bestseller list is when I am offering a free promotion of it.
More exciting is when it breaks into the math bestseller list (to the uninitiated, the more general the category, the more "prestigious", or at least more difficult to break into). This has happened several times since the release of my second nonfiction work a few weeks ago, and several times over the course of the last 5 months (normally in the days and week after a free promotion).
And the follow-up to Overcoming Math Anxiety, Arithmetic and Number Sense: The 'Basics' of Math We Are Never Taught has also been on the bestseller list of math study and teaching as well as the arithmetic bestseller list.
I hope no one thinks I can quit my day job now. Just like that gold star doesn't mean you can have all the candy that you want and have recess all day, being a "bestseller" is mostly just something to point to and go, "Hey, looks like I'm doing a good job!"
In order to be #1 overall on Kindle, we are talking about selling thousands of books a day. If that ever happens with any consistency, then yes, I will be able to quit my day job. In fact, I'd probably be able to quit my day jobs if I maintained top 100 overall status on my $0.99 eBook and would at least be able to quit one of the three if I could maintain top 500 status (although these are more wishful fantasies than anything at this stage).
I'm thrilled that I am able to have any books on any bestseller list (let alone two at the same time and consistently for as long as they've been out — really, consistency is pretty rough with Amazon (which updates hourly)) and I can't wait to get even more. I would like to have the first 9 nonfiction entries out of Zero Angel's Mathematics by the end of next year, and I can't wait to get every single one of them on the bestseller list at the same time!
I really cannot wait to see something happen with the fiction entries though. I continue to work with them and am hopeful for some progress this summer (along with more prequels, transitionquels, and sidequels being released, a print edition (finally) of Throne, and commissioned cover art for all the books).
Anyway, this has been your random rumination for the day. Maybe the next blog won't be so self-absorbed?
About as good as it feels to get a gold star in Kindergarten...if you have to keep saying, "as defined by Mr. Amazon".
I guess I don't have to keep saying that my books are bestsellers in specific categories, but well, I always do specify so that when someday I climb the ranks to the next more general category, I get to be excited all over again!
According to Amazon, my first nonfiction work, Overcoming Math Anxiety and How to Be Successful in Mathematics has consistently been in the bestseller list of math study and teaching since it entered that category last November. Actually, as far as I can tell, the only time it's not on that bestseller list is when I am offering a free promotion of it.
More exciting is when it breaks into the math bestseller list (to the uninitiated, the more general the category, the more "prestigious", or at least more difficult to break into). This has happened several times since the release of my second nonfiction work a few weeks ago, and several times over the course of the last 5 months (normally in the days and week after a free promotion).
And the follow-up to Overcoming Math Anxiety, Arithmetic and Number Sense: The 'Basics' of Math We Are Never Taught has also been on the bestseller list of math study and teaching as well as the arithmetic bestseller list.
I hope no one thinks I can quit my day job now. Just like that gold star doesn't mean you can have all the candy that you want and have recess all day, being a "bestseller" is mostly just something to point to and go, "Hey, looks like I'm doing a good job!"
In order to be #1 overall on Kindle, we are talking about selling thousands of books a day. If that ever happens with any consistency, then yes, I will be able to quit my day job. In fact, I'd probably be able to quit my day jobs if I maintained top 100 overall status on my $0.99 eBook and would at least be able to quit one of the three if I could maintain top 500 status (although these are more wishful fantasies than anything at this stage).
I'm thrilled that I am able to have any books on any bestseller list (let alone two at the same time and consistently for as long as they've been out — really, consistency is pretty rough with Amazon (which updates hourly)) and I can't wait to get even more. I would like to have the first 9 nonfiction entries out of Zero Angel's Mathematics by the end of next year, and I can't wait to get every single one of them on the bestseller list at the same time!
I really cannot wait to see something happen with the fiction entries though. I continue to work with them and am hopeful for some progress this summer (along with more prequels, transitionquels, and sidequels being released, a print edition (finally) of Throne, and commissioned cover art for all the books).
Anyway, this has been your random rumination for the day. Maybe the next blog won't be so self-absorbed?
March 7, 2013
Smashed!
Hi guys!
You can find my fiction over at Smashwords (finally)! Here's the link: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ZeroAngel
I released The Throne of Ao and Zero Angel's Change of the Zombie on Smashwords today. This means that these two stories will be coming to the Apple, Sony and Kobo bookstores SOON!
Thank you for your continued support,
~ZA
(To fans of Zero Angel's Mathematics, there are presently no plans to support other avenues of distribution. The formatting required by a math book forestalls being able to use Smashwords which is the chief inroad to the secondary retail markets (anything outside of Amazon). It is possible that a BN Nook edition may be feasible depending on demand and time constraints. Thank you for your interest though! If anything changes, I will let you know)
You can find my fiction over at Smashwords (finally)! Here's the link: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ZeroAngel
I released The Throne of Ao and Zero Angel's Change of the Zombie on Smashwords today. This means that these two stories will be coming to the Apple, Sony and Kobo bookstores SOON!
Thank you for your continued support,
~ZA
(To fans of Zero Angel's Mathematics, there are presently no plans to support other avenues of distribution. The formatting required by a math book forestalls being able to use Smashwords which is the chief inroad to the secondary retail markets (anything outside of Amazon). It is possible that a BN Nook edition may be feasible depending on demand and time constraints. Thank you for your interest though! If anything changes, I will let you know)
February 16, 2013
On Reviews
Reviews are going to be the #1 way you sell books after you've exhausted "personal" sources (that is, friends and family) and before you've become successful enough to get into the top tiers of bestselling lists (preferably top 10 in a niche category, but at least top 20; for major categories, just getting on the list is probably good enough).
Even if you've enough personal sources to skip straight to the bestselling list in a niche, chances are this will not be sustainable without you driving traffic to your works. There are many ways you can do this, but I really believe that soliciting reviews is going to be the best use of your time.
There are some commonly given dos and don'ts, which I will mention in passing along with any thoughts, but I feel that the benefits of reviews can't be understated and I haven't seen many analyses done or personal experiences given on them.
For the record, I am not talking about Amazon reviews here, but rather reviews that come from some professional source (be that bloggers, newspapers, magazines or whatever). Amazon reviews (and whatever reviews you get on other stores) are nice to have, but after the initial set-up of a few dozen reviews, the main thing you are going to be looking for from them is an aggregate scorecard. That's not to say that the reviews don't matter, but the star average is what most people are going to be looking for and then only AFTER getting to your storefront or book page.
Do:
solicit reviewers that are "indy-friendly"check their other reviews and see if you think they would like your work (honestly like it because of their preferences, not just 'cuz everyone should like it!) check their submission guidelines and follow themquery first (unless their guidelines say otherwise)personalize your queries to the reviewerkeep a record of reviewers you've had success withmaintain a professional tone and treat the reviewer with respect and professionally offer a free review copy in their preferred formatask permission to use quotes from their reviewask permission to tell others about the review (this is probably almost guaranteed to be OK, but it doesn't hurt to ask and it could hurt to not)get pre-publication reviews if possible to coincide with the release of your storycontinue to solicit reviews while waiting for others to review and finish your storyDon't:
trash a reviewer for a bad review pay for a good reviewsteal from the reviewersend unsolicited free copiesrequire the reviewer to buy your book take it personallyaccept everything they say about your writing/bookrefute everything they say about your writing/bookI'm sure I missed some, this was just supposed to be a quick list, but please feel free to comment with more and if I agree I'll add them to the list. There are a lot of sources out there how to get reviews, I'm more concerned with what happens once the ball is rolling.
First thing to bear in mind is your review copy. If you are sending out a pre-publication galley, good for you! Most of us will probably be sending out an electronic version of our books to help save us the expense of printing and shipping. There are clearly ways you can do this for next to no cost, but I recommend spending the 30-65% cost of your book on Amazon (or BN if they're Nook-readers) to purchase the reviewer a gift copy.
(Aside: More reason to not send unsolicited gift copies: the recipient can choose to spend the money on something else instead of your book)
This shouldn't cost too much in the long run: it'll require the investment of the list price of your book, with the remainder paid back to you in royalty form a few months later (assuming you're selling the minimum amount to be paid royalties).
Why on earth pay for your book when you can send them a free electronic copy? Well, because it counts as a sale, mostly. In the beginning, every sale you get moves your book hundreds of thousands of places in the overall ranking on Amazon. In the niche bestselling categories, this can translate into getting on the list much sooner than otherwise.
Now, you sit around waiting for them to finish your book and publish their review, right? Wrong! There are literally thousands of bloggers out there, and you can probably find a few hundred that may be interested in your book. It takes time, so this will never amount to more than a few dollars a day investment from you (and usually more like a few dollars a week), and over time, you should start to see some sales from this to offset further investment.
(Note: I recommend that whatever bank acct you are buying the books from also be the acct your royalty checks are deposited into).
The way I figure from my brief forays into reviews and the like: every 4-star or greater review on a not-unknown blog can translate into one guaranteed sale. At the beginning, this is going to be what you're shooting for. If you can't get 4-star reviews, that's OK, your book may not be for everyone. On the other hand, if you can't get *ANY* 4-star reviews, maybe you should consider reading some of those reviews to see what they have to say?
A review is not meant to be defended or attacked. People that review regularly are rarely spiteful and generally criticize for what they see as real flaws. Likewise, they are not your mom and if they say something encouraging or praise you or your story, then you can know that it was not said just to placate you. People are entitled to their opinions. If you find yourself getting worked up over every line of a review, take a breath and come back to it. If you find yourself ready to send off an angry e-mail, stop—some ask not to be contacted by authors at all after the review goes live by the way.
Ask yourself if what they are saying is something that you should consider seriously. In the first review of my novel, The Throne of Ao, a reviewer criticized a scene where I had these fantastical creatures talking about adrenaline and endorphins. Somehow this had gotten past beta readers and editors without a question. I realized that although the scene made sense in the setting, it didn't make sense to the readers of the book, so I adjusted it and re-published.
On the other hand, don't take it personally. There are things in reviews that I went o_O over (comparing my works to LotR comes to mind—really? Maybe the movies, but not Tolkien's books! Throne of Ao is written for action!). Everyone has their own personal biases and opinions, and that does not make them wrong and you right or vice verse.
Anyway, so by this point you have given out 5-10 free copies of your story and are starting to get the 4-star reviews that will translate into sales. This should be more than enough to put you in the top 100K of Amazon. Keep at it, don't give up. You'll get better and more efficient at querying and responding, and as your books become more popular, more reviewers are going to want to review your book. You may want to set up a "request review copy" form on your website or blog (don't make a bunch of terms here, just ask them to tell you why they are requesting a review copy and what you need to decide if they are a fit for you). I make a point of not denying any blogger on the basis of size (although if they just made a blog two minutes before writing to me...), but you may want to avoid blogs/reviewers that have nothing to do with your chosen genre (for instance, a reviewer of erotica reviewing your young adult fantasy novel, "When you said fantasy, I thought you meant sexual fantasies!").
Once you've moved up the ranks in your niche categories, you will start to get sales from that as well, but this is no excuse to avoid selling to more bloggers. I view getting reviews as an evolved form of hand-selling each copy. Instead of selling to one person, you give your product to one that is going to in turn sell it to at least one more (assuming your work is good enough and a good match for them).
Thoughts on this? Anything I missed?
Even if you've enough personal sources to skip straight to the bestselling list in a niche, chances are this will not be sustainable without you driving traffic to your works. There are many ways you can do this, but I really believe that soliciting reviews is going to be the best use of your time.
There are some commonly given dos and don'ts, which I will mention in passing along with any thoughts, but I feel that the benefits of reviews can't be understated and I haven't seen many analyses done or personal experiences given on them.
For the record, I am not talking about Amazon reviews here, but rather reviews that come from some professional source (be that bloggers, newspapers, magazines or whatever). Amazon reviews (and whatever reviews you get on other stores) are nice to have, but after the initial set-up of a few dozen reviews, the main thing you are going to be looking for from them is an aggregate scorecard. That's not to say that the reviews don't matter, but the star average is what most people are going to be looking for and then only AFTER getting to your storefront or book page.
Do:
solicit reviewers that are "indy-friendly"check their other reviews and see if you think they would like your work (honestly like it because of their preferences, not just 'cuz everyone should like it!) check their submission guidelines and follow themquery first (unless their guidelines say otherwise)personalize your queries to the reviewerkeep a record of reviewers you've had success withmaintain a professional tone and treat the reviewer with respect and professionally offer a free review copy in their preferred formatask permission to use quotes from their reviewask permission to tell others about the review (this is probably almost guaranteed to be OK, but it doesn't hurt to ask and it could hurt to not)get pre-publication reviews if possible to coincide with the release of your storycontinue to solicit reviews while waiting for others to review and finish your storyDon't:
trash a reviewer for a bad review pay for a good reviewsteal from the reviewersend unsolicited free copiesrequire the reviewer to buy your book take it personallyaccept everything they say about your writing/bookrefute everything they say about your writing/bookI'm sure I missed some, this was just supposed to be a quick list, but please feel free to comment with more and if I agree I'll add them to the list. There are a lot of sources out there how to get reviews, I'm more concerned with what happens once the ball is rolling.
First thing to bear in mind is your review copy. If you are sending out a pre-publication galley, good for you! Most of us will probably be sending out an electronic version of our books to help save us the expense of printing and shipping. There are clearly ways you can do this for next to no cost, but I recommend spending the 30-65% cost of your book on Amazon (or BN if they're Nook-readers) to purchase the reviewer a gift copy.
(Aside: More reason to not send unsolicited gift copies: the recipient can choose to spend the money on something else instead of your book)
This shouldn't cost too much in the long run: it'll require the investment of the list price of your book, with the remainder paid back to you in royalty form a few months later (assuming you're selling the minimum amount to be paid royalties).
Why on earth pay for your book when you can send them a free electronic copy? Well, because it counts as a sale, mostly. In the beginning, every sale you get moves your book hundreds of thousands of places in the overall ranking on Amazon. In the niche bestselling categories, this can translate into getting on the list much sooner than otherwise.
Now, you sit around waiting for them to finish your book and publish their review, right? Wrong! There are literally thousands of bloggers out there, and you can probably find a few hundred that may be interested in your book. It takes time, so this will never amount to more than a few dollars a day investment from you (and usually more like a few dollars a week), and over time, you should start to see some sales from this to offset further investment.
(Note: I recommend that whatever bank acct you are buying the books from also be the acct your royalty checks are deposited into).
The way I figure from my brief forays into reviews and the like: every 4-star or greater review on a not-unknown blog can translate into one guaranteed sale. At the beginning, this is going to be what you're shooting for. If you can't get 4-star reviews, that's OK, your book may not be for everyone. On the other hand, if you can't get *ANY* 4-star reviews, maybe you should consider reading some of those reviews to see what they have to say?
A review is not meant to be defended or attacked. People that review regularly are rarely spiteful and generally criticize for what they see as real flaws. Likewise, they are not your mom and if they say something encouraging or praise you or your story, then you can know that it was not said just to placate you. People are entitled to their opinions. If you find yourself getting worked up over every line of a review, take a breath and come back to it. If you find yourself ready to send off an angry e-mail, stop—some ask not to be contacted by authors at all after the review goes live by the way.
Ask yourself if what they are saying is something that you should consider seriously. In the first review of my novel, The Throne of Ao, a reviewer criticized a scene where I had these fantastical creatures talking about adrenaline and endorphins. Somehow this had gotten past beta readers and editors without a question. I realized that although the scene made sense in the setting, it didn't make sense to the readers of the book, so I adjusted it and re-published.
On the other hand, don't take it personally. There are things in reviews that I went o_O over (comparing my works to LotR comes to mind—really? Maybe the movies, but not Tolkien's books! Throne of Ao is written for action!). Everyone has their own personal biases and opinions, and that does not make them wrong and you right or vice verse.
Anyway, so by this point you have given out 5-10 free copies of your story and are starting to get the 4-star reviews that will translate into sales. This should be more than enough to put you in the top 100K of Amazon. Keep at it, don't give up. You'll get better and more efficient at querying and responding, and as your books become more popular, more reviewers are going to want to review your book. You may want to set up a "request review copy" form on your website or blog (don't make a bunch of terms here, just ask them to tell you why they are requesting a review copy and what you need to decide if they are a fit for you). I make a point of not denying any blogger on the basis of size (although if they just made a blog two minutes before writing to me...), but you may want to avoid blogs/reviewers that have nothing to do with your chosen genre (for instance, a reviewer of erotica reviewing your young adult fantasy novel, "When you said fantasy, I thought you meant sexual fantasies!").
Once you've moved up the ranks in your niche categories, you will start to get sales from that as well, but this is no excuse to avoid selling to more bloggers. I view getting reviews as an evolved form of hand-selling each copy. Instead of selling to one person, you give your product to one that is going to in turn sell it to at least one more (assuming your work is good enough and a good match for them).
Thoughts on this? Anything I missed?
February 10, 2013
Visual Novels, Miscellany and Review of "Digital: A Love Story (Version 1.1)"
Hi guys,
As you may have heard (if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter), I have recently decided to enter the Visual Novel realm and am adapting "Zero Angel's The Change" into my first (with the beta to come out around April). Visual novels (VN or ADV) are basically Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books for the digital age and strongly feature images of characters and locations along with musical soundtracks to help tell the story.
I'm not just going in blind though, I've read/played through several visual novels in the last few weeks (and clearly grew up with Choose-Your-Own-Adventure) and I'd be remiss not to share my thoughts on some of them.
"Digital: A Love Story" is a visual novel written and created by Christine Love and released in 2010. I recommend it for anyone interested in visual novels with an added recommendation to anyone with some nostalgia over the old BBS (bulletin board system) that was the Internet of the 80s.
Although you control everything, the story is surprisingly a kinetic novel—a visual novel that is linear where your choices do not affect the events of the game. I say surprising because it definitely does not feel like a kinetic novel.
Like many visual novels, the game is relatively short. You should be able to play the entire thing in a single session. I enjoyed the story and reading the bulletins posted by other characters. If you have trouble getting through the game, one easy strategy is just to read, respond and do everything you are able to do in each BBS you travel to.
There are a few misses that don't really detract from the overall experience, but I'll bring them up for the sake of completeness. First and the one that threatens to be the largest issue, is the glitches and bugs that occur in the game. For me, at one point your in-game computer is attacked by a virus and even though I had already downloaded the fix for it, I was unable to progress until I quit and came back to the game. When I came back, there was no longer any issue o_O
Next, there is some minor scripting issues near the end of the game, i.e. reading about something that happens in a message before you saw it happen.
Finally, although this is part of the charm, you will usually find yourself unsure of how to continue, and this causes you to dial-up each BBS you have access to in order to see if there is something there that can help. Dialing a BBS in 1988 took a bit of time. I really enjoyed the nostalgia, but when you are concerned about the characters of the game and waiting for the Internet to connect only to find out that there was nothing for you there and have to try another, well, it's a little annoying.
Anyway, the story is pretty good. You can read everyone's messages to you, and your replies to the other characters are implied (not shown). Although I found the game captivating, I did not find myself have the feeling of LOVE for the love interest character. Instead, I was very WORRIED and CONCERNED for the character, and somewhat saddened. I think this is probably due to the interaction with the character. Although I was able to see her messages to me and could tell that she was quite interested, when it came time to reply, there were no choices of what to say, only a "Reply" button that immediately sent it out into cyberspace (well, BBS space, this is 1988 we're talking about).
Still, it did generate an emotional response of some sort and I was entranced in the game while it lasted. Oh, and did I mention it's free?
Added benefit to people interested in making their own VNs:, "Digital: A Love Story" is a great example of how you can implement a great idea and make a compelling visual novel without the anime sprites so popular in the genre to tell the story.
Very good story and gaming experience in spite of the bugs and the quibble over the "Reply" feature. 8.0 / 10
As you may have heard (if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter), I have recently decided to enter the Visual Novel realm and am adapting "Zero Angel's The Change" into my first (with the beta to come out around April). Visual novels (VN or ADV) are basically Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books for the digital age and strongly feature images of characters and locations along with musical soundtracks to help tell the story.
I'm not just going in blind though, I've read/played through several visual novels in the last few weeks (and clearly grew up with Choose-Your-Own-Adventure) and I'd be remiss not to share my thoughts on some of them.
"Digital: A Love Story" is a visual novel written and created by Christine Love and released in 2010. I recommend it for anyone interested in visual novels with an added recommendation to anyone with some nostalgia over the old BBS (bulletin board system) that was the Internet of the 80s.
Although you control everything, the story is surprisingly a kinetic novel—a visual novel that is linear where your choices do not affect the events of the game. I say surprising because it definitely does not feel like a kinetic novel.
Like many visual novels, the game is relatively short. You should be able to play the entire thing in a single session. I enjoyed the story and reading the bulletins posted by other characters. If you have trouble getting through the game, one easy strategy is just to read, respond and do everything you are able to do in each BBS you travel to.
There are a few misses that don't really detract from the overall experience, but I'll bring them up for the sake of completeness. First and the one that threatens to be the largest issue, is the glitches and bugs that occur in the game. For me, at one point your in-game computer is attacked by a virus and even though I had already downloaded the fix for it, I was unable to progress until I quit and came back to the game. When I came back, there was no longer any issue o_O
Next, there is some minor scripting issues near the end of the game, i.e. reading about something that happens in a message before you saw it happen.
Finally, although this is part of the charm, you will usually find yourself unsure of how to continue, and this causes you to dial-up each BBS you have access to in order to see if there is something there that can help. Dialing a BBS in 1988 took a bit of time. I really enjoyed the nostalgia, but when you are concerned about the characters of the game and waiting for the Internet to connect only to find out that there was nothing for you there and have to try another, well, it's a little annoying.
Anyway, the story is pretty good. You can read everyone's messages to you, and your replies to the other characters are implied (not shown). Although I found the game captivating, I did not find myself have the feeling of LOVE for the love interest character. Instead, I was very WORRIED and CONCERNED for the character, and somewhat saddened. I think this is probably due to the interaction with the character. Although I was able to see her messages to me and could tell that she was quite interested, when it came time to reply, there were no choices of what to say, only a "Reply" button that immediately sent it out into cyberspace (well, BBS space, this is 1988 we're talking about).
Still, it did generate an emotional response of some sort and I was entranced in the game while it lasted. Oh, and did I mention it's free?
Added benefit to people interested in making their own VNs:, "Digital: A Love Story" is a great example of how you can implement a great idea and make a compelling visual novel without the anime sprites so popular in the genre to tell the story.
Very good story and gaming experience in spite of the bugs and the quibble over the "Reply" feature. 8.0 / 10
