Dan Harris's Blog, page 13

Stuff What I Have Been Entertained By Lately

Pretty sure I nailed the grammar in that title. Good job, me.

So, what’s been entertaining and intriguing me in the world of SFF this week? Links ahoy!

If you’re not yet familiar with Hugh Howey’s amazingly successful Wool series, now’s the time to get acquainted. Here’s an excerpt.

Watching the Star Wars prequels–muted.

Time zones in Antarctica. Cool.

An in-depth analysis of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I never really got into DS9 when it was on television, but I’m tempted to give it a whirl.

Review of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. (Warning: spoilers.)

Microquasar + supernova = lazing manatee nebula. Apparently. (Warning: physics.)

The Man of Steel trailer…

…gets a Lego remake.

Both awesome.

Interviewed by The Indiscriminate Critic

After posting a wonderful review of Ascension Point, The Indiscriminate Critic himself got in touch with me, and we had a pleasant chat. He mentioned he sometimes posts author interviews alongside his book reviews, and asked if I’d be interested; naturally I was, and we had a long email exchange earlier this week.

You can read the transcript here. We had a wide-ranging chat, covering writing from a foreign country, the editing process, the inspiration behind the Ascension Point universe and its technology, and where the series is headed. I thoroughly enjoyed doing it, and it made me think hard and articulate some thoughts and decisions which had been almost subconscious before, which was very interesting.

I hope you enjoy reading it.

Some Reviewers Made a Similar Statement

Mini-milestone achieved: having enough reviews that Amazon auto-generates the ‘typical review’ lines!

And very nice lines they are, too. So far anyway; all it takes is two people to say ‘book is best used as paperweight’ and it could go downhill fast.

 

Sci-Fi That Became Sci-Fact in 2012

There’s a great article from MyScienceAcademy on some of the amazing scientific advances made in 2012. I’ll take a robot exoskeleton and living until I’m 200, please. Thanks.

Read it here.

The snappily-named CFBDSIR2149, the first known rogue – or ‘I don’t need a star’ – planet.

Book Review: Ascension Point

Reblogged from The Indiscriminate Critic:

Ascension Point (by Dan Harris)

Quick thoughts: A really fun and lighthearted read in the style of the old Saturday morning matinee.

One of my favourite elements of book blogging has to be the chance encounters I’ve had with self-published authors (or at least their blogs). Following the tenuous thread of online interactions has brought me more than once to some author’s website, where one thing leads to another and I soon find myself the proud owner of their self-published book.

Read more… 437 more words

A very satisfying review of Ascension Point from our new friend, the Indiscriminate Critic. Worth a read, if you're on the fence about buying a copy!

Flash Fiction: Rust

Here’s another flash fiction piece. Same rules as last time: ten minutes planning, an hour to draft, ten minutes to edit.

I hope you like it.

*   *   *

‘What do you mean we’ve lost them?’

‘Exactly that, Coordinator. They’re off the grid.’

Kloe stared up at her senior comms officer. ‘Just like the first team.’

Devin nodded. ‘Just like.’

The first retrieval team had gone out five days ago.

The call had come in from Poseidon Command at the northern polar base. One of the orbital mirror arrays had taken a one-in-a-billion hit from a meteor passing through the Calix system. A chunk of rock a couple of metres wide, too small to be picked up by the satgrid, but more than big enough to tear a hole through the array and send it plummeting down to Poseidon.

Central tracking had plotted the trajectory of the falling satellite as landing in P-8, so it had become Kloe’s responsibility as the Coordinator of P-8 Base to retrieve any useful parts. She’d duly dispatched a team of two non-coms in a rover to scope out the crash site. Two days later, as they should have been nearing the downed array, their signals had disappeared from the planetary grid.

A second team had been sent after them, on the assumption that they’d had the misfortune to not only stumble into one of the moon’s drifting magnetic black spots, crippling their comm units, but also drive into a ravine. Or something similar. The terraforming had thrown up some pretty odd geoscapes in some places.

Kloe sat back in her memfoam seat, frowning. After a moment, she reached for the comm unit on her desk and tapped a few times. The unit beeped and a deep, male voice emerged.

‘Coordinator. What can I do for you?’

‘The second team’s gone dark, Maze.’ Kloe leaned forward over the unit. ‘Find out what’s going on, will you?’

‘I’ll leave within the hour.’ A second beep.

Kloe looked up to see Devin’s eyebrows raised. ‘What?’

‘You’re sending in the military?’

She smirked. ‘Ex-military. Maze and his security team hardly constitute an army.’

Devin conceded the point with a nod. ‘Still. What are you worried they’re going to find?’

Kloe turned and gazed out of her office viewport. It was just after midday on this side of the moon, and the sky was beginning to shift from pale orange to deep red. She shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea. That’s what I’m worried about.’

*  *  *

First time off base this year. Maze steered the rover around a shallow lake, taking a moment to admire the wading birds winging away at the vehicle’s noisy appearance. Nice to get out.

Gauge was checking the geopos from the passenger seat. ‘We’re coming up on the last known location of the first team, boss,’ he said, tapping the display. ‘The second team went about a click further before going off the grid.’

Maze grunted. ‘How long?’

‘Few minutes.’ Gauge glanced over. ‘Any plan?’

‘Nothing yet.’ Maze shook his head. ‘Weapons live, though.’ That earned a second, longer glance. Maze concentrated on driving.

They came across the first rover two minutes later. Maze brought theirs to a halt fifty metres away. He zoomed in with the vision augment in his left eye and read the serial number emblazoned along the vehicle’s side. ‘P-8-12… something.’

‘That must be the second team’s rover,’ Gauge replied. ‘But what do you mean, ‘something’? It should say ‘SCI’ at the end.’

Maze was climbing out. He reached in to retrieve his multi-rifle and looked over at Gauge. ‘It might say that. But I can’t see, because it’s covered in rust.’

‘Rust?’ The younger man exited the rover too, his weapon already in hand. ‘How the hell has it rusted in three days?’

‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ Rifle up, Maze set off towards the other vehicle.

The rust had eaten away at the vehicle from its front bumper all the way to the rear of the cab, the gleaming metal replaced with gritty brown-orange flakes. Maze frowned, baffled. Nothing should rust that fast. It’s not natural.

Gauge, on the other side of the vehicle’s cab, reached out to touch the rover’s flaking hull. An instinct—danger!—that Maze hadn’t felt in years struck him like a punch. He opened his mouth to shout—

Too late.

The instant Gauge’s fingertip touched the rusted rover, it… came alive. A section of the cab’s side panel shifted, swarming up the man’s arm in a tide that reached his shoulder in a second. More followed, fully half of what had been the front of the rover bursting into motion.

Gauge didn’t have time to scream before he was encased.

Maze stepped back, horrified. He could only watch as the man-shape that had been his colleague seconds before froze into place, now a petrified statue. The rust—or whatever it was—stopped moving.

Ten seconds passed as Maze took three more careful steps backwards, then froze as the rust shifted, ever so slightly—

Then collapsed to the ground.

Gauge was gone.

Maze turned and ran.

*  *  *

‘It’s a shame, Kloe,’ said Overseer Thrum. ‘We had high hopes for Poseidon.’

Kloe nodded, watching the holoimage of Thrum shake his head sadly. ‘Indeed, Overseer. But there are other moons in the system. We’ll try again.’

‘I suppose that’s the attitude one must take.’ Thrum frowned and peered at her. ‘Did you ever work out why the animals weren’t bothered?’

‘Overseer?’

‘The animals,’ Thrum repeated. ‘The wading birds, the boar, and whatnot. Those little deer—I forget their names.’

‘Oh,’ Kloe replied. ‘We’re not certain, of course, but the prevailing theory is that only objects over a certain size are… targeted. Rovers, for example. Humans, too, unfortunately.’

Thrum nodded slowly. ‘As good a supposition as any.’ He sighed. ‘Oh well.’

‘There is one positive to come out of all this, if you look hard enough,’ Kloe offered after a moment.

‘Oh yes?’ The elderly Overseer’s brow rose.

‘The environmentalists back home will be pleased.’

Thrum frowned again. ‘How so?’

Kloe smiled wryly. ‘We’ve just built the galaxy’s largest, most expensive wildlife reserve.’

Tor.com Shows How Books Get Printed

Just a quick one: There’s a fascinating post on Tor.com showing the step-by-step process they used to print the hardcover edition of the final Wheel of Time novel. With lots of pictures!

Article here.

Ascension Point Free Giveaway on LibraryThing

Folks, I wanted to let you know that I’ve just started a giveaway at LibraryThing. I’m offering 100 free copies of ASCENSION POINT, in all of the ebook formats you can think of.

If you’d like to throw your hat into the ring for one of the free copies, here’s what to do:

Head over to LibraryThing, and create an account (if you don’t already have one).
Sign up for the Member Giveaway program here.
Go to ASCENSION POINT in the giveaway list, and hit ‘Request this book’.
(Optional: Request lots of other books, too! It’s a great program.)

Happy freebooking!

What Kind Of Year Has It Been?

2013, eh? Damn. Where did that come from? All of a sudden it’s time to make plans for a new year to come, but not before taking a moment to review the one just passed.

On the plus side, 2012 did not see the world ending a fiery conflagration. (If you’re wondering why not, then NASA’s got you covered.) But on the negative, I was almost certain that 2012 would finally be the year of hoverboards and flying car technology. Thwarted again.

On a more personal note, the year was pretty spectacular. Here are some highlights, in no particular order.

I got married. Lovely girlfriend agreed in January to become lovely fiancee for six months, before changing title once again in July to be lovely wife. She rarely reads this blog, but in case she catches this post–thanks, honey. For the last nine years, and the next ninety.

I got promoted. I don’t talk about this much here, as it’s not really what the site’s about, but my writing career’s still at the stage where I need a day job to pay the bills. Happily, it’s a day job that I really enjoy, and in late January I got a promotion which has made it even better. If I never get to the point where I can write full-time, I’ll still be quite the happy bunny.

I finished my first novel. On May 9th, I completed the first draft of my first novel. After some twelve years of faffing around and daydreaming about being a writer, this was quite dramatic for me. I may even have done the Snoopy dance, but there’s no documentary evidence, so you can’t prove anything.

I published my first novel. This wasn’t even on my radar until April of this year, when I discovered how viable an option self-publishing had become in a couple of short years. Prior to that realisation, I was resigned to several years of wearisome grind submitting my book to agent after agent, hoping to hit that magic confluence of events that gets a book published. But lo and behold, self-publishing is here to give writers the chance to publish–and readers the chance to read–great books that might otherwise never see the light of day. It’s a special time to be a writer.

I sold my first book. And then another fifty-nine more. I’m still at the stage where every sale gives me a little frisson of excitement and pleasure. Long may that continue–but if it doesn’t, it’ll probably be because I’m selling so many copies that I can’t keep track. That would be fine too.

I finished my second novel. The first draft of ASCENSION POINT took one year to write. The first draft of VENUS RISING took five months. I’ve done the calculations, and if this trend continues drafting my ninth book should only take half an hour. I can’t wait.

I started this blog. It was only in April of this year that I jumped into the blogosphere and started spewing random thoughts all over the internet, like a cat coughing up hairballs onto a fireside rug. (Hmm. That simile ended up being more disgusting than I planned. Oh well.) Why the blog? Well, initially it was because I read lots of advice for writers containing the words ‘platform’ and ‘network’ and ‘social media’, which made it all sound like a tedious necessity. As it turns out, blogging’s a hell of a lot of fun, and mainly involves reposting videos I find on io9. So that’s fine.

And finally…

I became a writer. In 2011 I wasn’t one, really. Sure, by the end of the year I was writing a few hundred words, a few times a week, but I still had a long way to go. Now, at the start of 2013, I’m there. And what do you know: it turns out I’ve still got a long way go.

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope this year fulfills some dreams for all of us.

December Sales Report: Steady As She Goes

Happy New Year everyone!

The advent of 2013 also marks the end of my second full month as a published author. It’s time to check on how sales went during the month, and make some predictions for the future. Also–graphs!

December Sales and Earnings

Copies sold:   26        (Kindle–11, Paperback–8, iTunes–2, Kobo – 5)
Earnings:        $77.89

Overall

Copies Sold:   60
Earnings:        $171.26
% to Profit:      20.0%      (or % of expenses recouped)

Graphs

If I didn’t enjoy playing with Excel so much, I estimate I would get 7% more writing done. Hmm. Maybe I should work it out in a spreadsheet…

Slightly fewer sales in December than November, but…

…I actually earned more, as a greater share of the sales were ebooks. (They give me a better royalty rate than paperbacks, by about 2:1.)

Finally here’s a nice pie showing where each of my total sales has come from.Too early to draw any conclusions yet, though I’d expect the Paperback UK section to grow more slowly for a while, after it’s initial explosion in November when friends and family grabbed their copies.

Promotion

As in November, I didn’t do a huge amount.

I managed to get ASCENSION POINT listed as part of Kobo’s Boxing Day Promotion, a list of ‘Fantastic Fiction from $1.99′. This prompted the five Kobo sales in the last ten days of the month, after zero sales there for five weeks, so that was productive.
I got five more Amazon reviews, and as before, for every review I tweeted it, e.g. ‘Another 5* review for #AscensionPoint’ then the link to the review. And, as before, I’ve no idea if these prompted anyone to buy a copy.

Thoughts

I had my first sales on iTunes. Nice to see action at a new retailer. Come on Barnes and Noble readers, you’re next
Most of December’s sales came in the first half of the month, with the rate dropping significantly around the 15th. I’m attributing this to all of my ‘early adopters’–friends, family, blog and Twitter followers–having bought their copy of the book.
If this is true, then there’s a good chance that sales will stay low in January, or even continue to trend downwards. However, the theory goes that the release of VENUS RISING in (hopefully) April, and the initial promotional kick for that book, should also trigger a bump in the sales of my other books: i.e. ASCENSION POINT. Fingers crossed!
The only other major promotional effort I have planned is a run on a site called BookBub, which sends email blasts to subscribers who sign up to hear about great books in various genres. Once ASCENSION POINT has a few more good reviews, I can buy an ad, and they’ll market the book to their sci-fi mailing list of ~100K subscribers. Hopefully that will pick up a few sales, some more good reviews, and a bit of visibility.

A new year, a steady start, and another book on the way. Pleasing stuff. All the best in 2013, folks!