What is Genesis, anyway?

What is Genesis, anyway?


Aside from being a killer book cover, it might help to know a little about the book, huh?

Genesis is the first volume of the Return to Eden trilogy. Unlike The Black Knight Chronicles, which is an open-ended series of stand-alone stories featuring the same characters in a string of related, but largely unconnected adventures, Return to Eden will be a traditional trilogy. It’s a three-book story, then we’re done.

The story centers on 17-year-old Christin Kinsey, her brother Matt, and the group of survivors they assemble in their journey. In the aftermath of an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) attack, everything with a computer chip is fried, effectively throwing the world back a century in our technology. Most cars don’t work, most household appliances don’t work, and even if they did, there’s no electricity to power them. There’s no TV, no internet, no game consoles, no cell phones and no iPods.

Sounds like Hell for Teenagers, doesn’t it?

Well it gets worse. Not only do the teens have to learn how to survive in a world suddenly devoid of most of the creature comforts we’ve grown up with, but the basics of civilization start to erode with the infrastructure. Small-town sheriffs become more like feudal lords than law enforcement officers.

And then there’s the odd little fact that everyone between 13 and 20 seems to have suddenly developed superpowers. With the interference from technology gone, people are able to touch magic again, old, elemental magic. But only if you’re young enough, or open enough, to believe. So now the adults are acting like the kids in Lord of the Flies while a bunch of super-powered teenagers try to stay alive.

And all Christin really wants to do is make sure her mom is safe.

 

That’s a brief rundown on Genesis and the whole Return to Eden series. Available 11.11.11 wherever books are sold.

What is Genesis, anyway?

Stealing a good idea…

Baen Books is one of the pioneers in ebook sales, particularly in genre fiction. While I think they do a lot of things right, there are a couple of things I think they miss the boat on (notably, not having their ebooks available for purchase from Amazon, you know, the largest seller of books in any format in the world??). But since I don’t run the company or have any financial stake in anything they do, it’s not really any of my business.

But one thing Baen does that I’ve never seen anywhere else is offer e-ARCs for purchase. What’s an e-ARC, you might ask? Well, let’s start with what an ARC is. An ARC is an Advance Reader Copy,  a pre-release copy of a book typically provided to journalists, reviewers, or people of note to garner blurbs, reviews or hype about a book before it is released to the general public. An e-ARC is an electronic version of the same thing.

What Baen has done is turn this into a marketing tool, and a revenue stream as well. They sell e-ARCs on their website, making it very clear that these are not the final versions of the books. Things might change a little, there might be some further polishing, some cover edits, things like that, before the final book is released. But a hardcore fan doesn’t want to wait. Not only that, but these hardcore fans will actually pay a premium to get the book early.

I’m hoping that I have a few hardcore fans, because as of today I will be offering e-ARCs of Genesis for sale here on the website. These will not be sold at a premium, but will be the same price as the release price of the book – $2.99. These are ARCs, though, so don’t kill me on typos. If you find one, please send me an email and point it out, so I can change it before the final release. The cover is also not finalized, but will be close. So this is the whole story, the completed story, just not at its final polished state.

But if you’re one of those people who has to be the first one on your block to have the next cool thing, then this is your deal. This is the kickoff volume to my new series, a very different series than the other stuff of mine you’ve read. This is much less silly, and it’s designed to be teen-friendly, so no f-bombs.

And that was tough, let me tell you!

But here’s the link to buy with PayPal. Just shoot me $2.99, and within 24 hours I’ll email you the file in whatever format you choose (PDF, ePub or Kindle).Enjoy!

Your Email Address!
File Type (ePub/Kindle/PDF)

Delayed – slightly

But just a little. Genesis:Return To Eden Book I will release officially on 11/11/11, not 11/1/11 as previously announced. This gives me a little more time to push the promo, tweak the cover, and generally make the book a little better.

Still hoping to get another Bubba story out this month. But it’s not looking good for our hero. Need a few hours to focus. Anybody got a spare Time-Turner lying around?

 

Chicken Dinner?

This past weekend the wife and I ventured out in public more often than is natural for us, with great results. You see, we’re kinda boring nowadays. We like to be at home, and aren’t much for going out in crowds. That’s more me than Suzy, because while I love meeting new people and don’t ever mind getting up in front of people, I kinda don’t like crowds. I get a little freaked out when I don’t have a clear path to an exit, and I really don’t like hanging out too much with my back to an open door. But this weekend presented us with multiple opportunities to be social, and this time we actually participated.

Saturday I lit the second wedding I’ve designed at Theatre Charlotte, which also happens to be the second wedding that’s taken place in the 80+ year history of the facility. Our friends Nick & Kaddie got married, and I designed and ran the lights for the wedding, and also dealt with the pipe and drape to hide the set in progress that was on the stage. Suzy did all the flowers for the wedding, which kept her working for pretty much 48 hours straight. But the wedding went off almost without a hitch, the bride was lovely, the vows were lovely, and the reception was fun. I even danced, something my knee are reminding me about today in an unpleasant fashion.

Then Sunday the Metrolina Theatre Association hosted the annual theatre awards gala, and Suzy and I were both nominated for awards. She was nominated for two different costuming awards, and I was nominated for best lighting design for RENT. IT was a good night for the home team, as we both brought home new hardware for the trophy case. Suzy’s costumes for King Lear won the prize, and I received my award for RENT as well. It was nice hanging out with theatre people away from the stress of a production, and remembering why I like these people in the first place. We had a good time, but my ass is dragging this morning. And getting Facebook reminders from my banker friends about having Columbus Day off doesn’t really help.

I go back into the theatre this afternoon for tech rehearsals for You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, a new play that I’m designing. We’re in tech and previews this week, then my high school reunion is this weekend, then the show opens next week, then I go to Columbia for RoundCon. It’s an exhausting month, but I’ve got all November to sleep, right?

On the weight loss front, I backslid a little in week 2, putting back on four of the first six pounds I lost. But I got back on the horse last week and am down a total of five pounds since the beginning of the bet. Five pounds in three weeks isn’t great, but with my schedule right now it’s as good as it’s going to get, and it’s five pounds that I don’t have to carry around anymore. So overall I’m pretty happy with that.

How was your weekend? What are you working on? I’m still revising Genesis for a November launch, so hopefully we’ll still be good for that.

A little validation from Yog himself

Last night I was pleased to see a comment show up on my post from August about Yog’s Law. In it, I theorized that Yog’s Law does still apply to self-published authors, but maybe not in the same way that some people who are anti-self-publishing use it. I’m just going to drop the whole comment in here, because that, and the blog post, sum up my feelings on the matter pretty perfectly.

Yes, Yog’s Law still applies to self-publishing, because self-publishing is a category of commercial publishing.

Sure, in self-publishing the publisher only has one author, but if the publisher can’t see his/her way clear to putting 15% of the cover price of each book sold into a separate bank account labeled “Author’s Money” (or “Retirement different hobby.

The money flow is still toward the author. That it’s only moving from one pocket to another in the same pair of pants is immaterial.

The individual, in his/her persona as publisher, should say “Would I do this/spend this if the author were Joe Schmoe, writer?” and the person, in her/his persona as author should, simultaneously, say “Would I sell my book to this guy if it were the Joe Schmoe Publishing Company?”

As you say, the Publisher and the Writer are two different people, and wear two different hats, even if they wear the same pair of shoes.

Writers who think about self-publishing should remember that, if they don’t want unhappy surprises.

The author of this comment is one of the most famous people to ever comment on this little blog, and that’s kinda cool. James D. Macdonald used to play around on a listserve back in the early days of the internets. Back in those days, he used the handle “Yog,” presumably taken from Yog-Sothoth, the Lurker at the Threshold from the Cthulu mythos.

He knows a little about Yog’s Law. He came up with it. So that was kinda cool. I’m guessing he’s got a Google Alert or something set up and just now found his way around to the post, but I appreciate him stopping in. Yog’s Law definitely does apply to self-publishing, even though as Mr. Macdonald says, it may just be moving money from one pants pocket to the next. But it doesn’t apply in the sense that writers shouldn’t sometimes lay out money to bring their books to market, because as I said in the post, sometimes we take off our writer hat and put on our publisher hat. And it was nice to have the creator of Yog’s Law stop by and agree with me.

There are a lot of potholes on the road to self-publishing success, and I’ve driven through plenty of them. But the road does eventually go somewhere, so know that there is a destination involved, not just more winding roads.