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So, yesterday’s promotion was a bit of a flop. Just 357 downloads of Communion of Dreams, and 230 of Her Final Year. But I am sure that all of those were *quality* readers downloading the books, so thanks! 😉
Seriously, thanks. I’ll need to spend some time pondering why this happened. Could have just been due to the holiday. Could have been too soon to run another promotion. Could be that we’ve now saturated the market we can reach using the different venues available to us through the free promotional tools.
And, honestly, as ‘flops’ go, I’ve had worse. And more painful. And more expensive. This was just a less-than-successful promotion. There have to be those now and again. Maybe the magic will work better next time. Perhaps then we can break those boundaries.
If you did download either book, or help spread the word about them to others, you have my sincere thanks.
Jim Downey
*Of course. Actually, some more rain would be welcome here – we’ve been in very dry, verging on drought, conditions.
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This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self.
* * * * * * *
I tend to not be shy about what is going on in my life. I’m probably a little more open and honest about my emotional states, about the trials and tribulations, than most folks are. To a certain extent, it goes with the territory of being a writer. And it is one of the things which gives power to Her Final Year, as I keep seeing in the reviews and feedback on that book. People welcome the honest emotion, even if the rawness of it sometimes makes them uncomfortable.
It makes them uncomfortable because most people don’t wear their heart so much on their sleeve. I was rather forcefully reminded of this by something which happened with a friend. A friend who was in a great deal of emotional turmoil and pain, but who had been hiding their struggle until it almost consumed them.
* * * * * * *
This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self.
That’s probably more familiar as this aphorism:
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Yeah. It also pays to remember that you don’t have to fight those battles alone. If you’re hurting, if you feel lost, confused, reach out to a friend. Let them know. My recent experience has reminded me just how much of a compliment it is to be a friend to someone who needs it.
Jim Downey
(Oh, yeah, the Kindle editions of Her Final Year and Communion of Dreams are both free today. Be kind to yourself, and me, and go download them. Thanks.)
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Major “spoiler” warning further down in this post. Skip the rest of the section after the [] warning if you haven’t read the book. It’s OK to watch the video or read the concluding section.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tomorrow, with a little luck, we’ll break 20,000 downloads of the Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams, and could also break 10,000 downloads of the Kindle edition of Her Final Year.
* * * * * * *
This has been making the news the last few days:
Voyager 1 About to Become Interstellar Emissary?
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft may be getting its first taste of interstellar waters beyond our sun’s familiar shores and, like the pioneers that first took to the oceans to explore seas unknown, the 34-year-old robotic spacecraft is about to make history as the first man-made object to venture beyond the known horizon.
This historic announcement was made on Thursday by the team keeping a careful eye on Voyager 1’s particle detectors who noticed an uptick in interstellar cosmic ray counts in recent years. That can mean only one thing: the mission is beginning to leave the outermost regions of the heliosphere — the farthest extent of the sun’s influence.
* * * * * * *
From Chapter 18: [MAJOR SPOILER WARNING.]
“Well, the two of them have been going over all the data coming down from the ship. In addition to the telemetry about the condition of the ship, they’ve had a flood of data about the communications broadcasts that the ship has been receiving since stopping.”
“Communications? I thought your report summary said that we couldn’t broadcast to the ship, that it was on the other side of some kind of barrier?”
“Correct. But on that other side is ample evidence that the universe is teeming with technological civilizations. Klee hasn’t been able to decipher any of the communications yet, but is certain that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of sources. Seems that we’ve been kept in the dark about all of them by this shell of artifacts that surrounds our system.”
* * * * * * *
Yeah, me too.
* * * * * * *
Tomorrow, with a little luck, we’ll break 20,000 downloads of the Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams, and could also break 10,000 downloads of the Kindle edition of Her Final Year. Downloads all day will be free to one and all.
Help spread the word if you can. It’s not like sharing it with an alien civilization or anything, but still it will be appreciated.
Jim Downey
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First, a reminder: Sunday, Father’s Day, will be a Kindle promotional day for both Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year. Both books will be free to download in the Kindle edition, and I would invite everyone to please do so! We’ve had some new reviews up of both books, and the word continues to spread about them.
Second, Phil Plait has an excellent (though too short) item up on the BBC site about prospects for human colonization of the Moon. Correctly, I think, he explains the likely reason that this will eventually happen, and why it’ll be essential for our future in space:
A critical aspect of this is being able to mine asteroidal material and process it, which Nasa and its contractors are studying. One line of thinking is that mined metals can be used to build structures in space that would be very difficult and pricey to construct on Earth and launch. Examples abound, including big spacecraft to use for crewed exploration of the planets, giant telescopes in orbit, space stations, and more. While the cost of the International Space Station (ISS) is estimated to be $100bn, much of that was simply getting previously-built components into space in the first place. If you already have those pieces in space, the cost is far less.
Smelting material in the near-weightless environment of an asteroid is one thing, but creating complex components of spacecraft is another. Manufacturing is likely to be easier in gravity, and the Moon is a perfect compromise for this.
Getting the materials to the Moon is not hard from an asteroid mining operation. And once built, getting even massive components off the Moon’s surface is far, far easier than it would be from Earth due to lower gravity and lack of air (it took a tremendous Saturn V rocket full of fuel to get to the Moon, but only the tiny Apollo ascent module to get back off). Building vehicles and other space-based structures on the Moon is vastly easier and less expensive than it would be here on Earth. From there, the rest of the solar system is an easy trip.
In Communion of Dreams I have references to Lunar colonies, and in St. Cybi’s Well, the prequel I am currently working on, the first colony is in the process of being built (as I’ve mentioned recently).
What I haven’t mentioned here much is another book which would also be a prequel to Communion of Dreams, set sometime in the 2030s, which would take place largely in such a colony. I don’t have a title for that book, and my thoughts on it are still very sketchy, but I think that it would be a really interesting one to write for exactly the reasons that Plait outlines. I don’t want to give too much else away about that (or commit myself to something I may decide to completely change later), but I am really interested in some of the artistic possibilities which working in a 1/6th Earth-normal gravity field would present.
Anyway, TGIF and all that. Remember to share the news of CoD and HFY being free this coming Sunday.
Jim Downey
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There’s been a lot of chatter about this, and several people have mentioned it to me:
Amazon’s markup of digital delivery to indie authors is ~129,000%
It’s a good article, all in all, as it goes into some of the nuts & bolts of being an independent writer trying to make a living self-publishing in some of the different electronic formats. And yes, according to his numbers, Amazon (through their Kindle program) is making a chunk of money for the transfer of his digital files.
Because of this, as I said, a couple of people have mentioned this to me, and have wondered whether it meant we were getting screwed the same way.
Nope.
The main thing is file size. I just checked again, and the cost to transfer the digital file for Communion of Dreams is a whopping 9 cents. And for Her Final Year it’s 17 cents. That’s because there are very few images in either book — they’re primarily just text.
And yeah, that does come out of our royalties for each book. But as you can see, it’s a small amount, and just a cost of doing business. I honestly haven’t given it a second thought since we set up to self publish these books, since I knew about the charges, knew they were going to be pretty small, and was used to having such expenses from having been in business for myself for 20 years now.
One more thing — we don’t have to pay these digital transfer fees for the promotional copies which are given away. Which is good, because if so I’d still be in the hole for the cost of giving away both books. All that it costs is a potential sale — but I think of this as just a form of advertising, necessary to promote awareness of the book. Yeah, sure, it’s a potential lost sale/royalty, and if that bugs you feel free to either go ahead and buy the book or send me a small donation, if it’ll make you feel better.
And speaking of free Kindle edition promotions, this Sunday — Father’s Day (here in the US, anyway) — will be another promotional day for both Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year, and both books will be free to download that day. Hey, we did it for Mother’s Day, and we don’t want to short-shrift the Dads out there. So even though we just had a successful promotion, we’re going to do it again this Sunday! If you’re someone who got a copy of either book last weekend, and you’ve been enjoying it, please tell others about this upcoming promotion!
Am I a nice guy, or what?
Jim Downey
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It rained this morning.
* * * * * * *
There are two new reviews for Communion of Dreams up on Amazon. Here’s one in its entirety:
This was a thoroughly enjoyable book, full of intriguing ideas, appealing characters (including some quirky ones) and a well-crafted plot. That it is also a debut novel surprised me, and I hopefully look forward to more. James Downey can write!
* * * * * * *
Chatting over breakfast with houseguests yesterday, I was explaining how the logistics of publishing an electronic book work, that the best model currently seems to be to give away a buttload of free copies periodically, which in turn generates actual sales. It’s a bit counter-intuitive, as I have explained here previously, but it clearly works: after each promotional event giving away copies of the book, sales and overall ranking jump then tend to plateau with a slow drop-off. Two months ago Communion of Dreams was stuck at a ranking of about 30,000. More recently it was hovering around 3,000, and it wasn’t until about two weeks ago that the rate of sales started to fall off from about 20 a day to something more like 5 or 6. After Saturday’s promotion, Sunday almost 50 people bought the book, and sales overnight last night look decent — my guess is that it will again plateau around 20 sales a day for a while.
* * * * * * *
Here’s an excerpt from the other review:
I have been a reader of science fiction from an early age. I grew up with the great writers: Asimov, Henlien, Bradbury, Clark and F. Herbert … With that education of the genre I have found it difficult to find pure science fiction that comes even close to the standards I have for great books. With Mr. Downey’s Communion of Dreams, there is finally a writer I can look forward to reading his future works.
* * * * * * *
That’s the other thing which happens: more reviews following a promotional event. And reviews make a difference. I don’t mind a negative or critical review — they help other readers identify a book which may not be suitable for them, and I want people to be happy that they decided to invest the time (and sometimes money) to read my stuff. Yeah, sure, like anyone I like praise and people comparing me to true giants in the field of SF — it’s a real kick in the head. But even those writers had plenty of people who didn’t enjoy their work: just take a look at the reviews of their stuff on Amazon and you’ll see. Hell, Communion of Dreams has an aggregate rating which is higher than almost everything listed for either Heinlein or Herbert, according a my quick check just now.
Does that mean I’m a “better” writer? Don’t be ridiculous. It just means that so far a few more people have assigned a better arbitrary rating to this one book. No one gets universal acclaim. And I’d have to produce about a book a year until I am 75 to have the same level of output that these other writers accomplished (and to about 400 to be in Asimov’s league). *That* ain’t gonna happen.
* * * * * * *
It rained this morning.
That’s not extraordinary, of course. This isn’t a desert.
But it’s been about a month since we’d seen any significant rain. And it is welcome.
Jim Downey
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Quick recap of yesterday’s Kindle promotion…
Again, Her Final Year beat out Communion of Dreams, but this time the difference wasn’t as great.
There were a total of 2,757 downloads of Her Final Year, and the best ranking I saw in the course of the day was it hitting #41 overall in the free Kindle store. In addition, it sat at #1 in a number of categories related to aging and care-giving. Excellent!
Communion of Dreams also had a good day. A total of 1,993 downloads, hitting #144 in the overall ranking as well as #4 in “High Tech Science Fiction”. I’m going to have to go back and get a total count, but I think that puts us within spitting distance of 19,000 copies of this edition of the book being out there. Combine that with approximately 35,000 downloads of the earlier .pdf, and I think it is quite impressive. What’s really cool is that the 35,000 number was reached in about 5 years, whereas the Kindle edition number is for just 5 months.
I’m currently planning on doing another promotional weekend soon — details will be forthcoming. But in the meantime, please feel free to go ahead and promote the book to friends and forums — at $4.95, it’s still a real bargain.
As always, thanks to one and all who helped make this another successful promotion!
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the HFY blog.)
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Kindle edition promotion today! Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year are both *FREE* to download!
Also be sure to enter a drawing to get a signed paperback copy of either book. To enter your name for each book, post a comment on the appropriate blog, Facebook Page, or send a Tweet to the correct account between now and Sunday morning when I check each. You can enter once per book per venue (a total of 6 entries if you entered for both books at all three locations.)
Jim Downey
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Yesterday I posted something of an infomercial-length piece about tomorrow’s big promotion. Here’s the 30-second ad version:
The Kindle edition of both Her Final Year and Communion of dreams will be free all day.
There will be a drawing for a signed paperback copy of each book (two separate drawings). To enter your name for each book, post a comment on the appropriate blog, Facebook Page, or send a Tweet to the correct account between now and Sunday morning when I check each. You can enter once per book per venue (a total of 6 entries if you entered for both books at all three locations.)
There, that’s it. At 1,095 words shorter than yesterday.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the HFY blog.)
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“Now, you would normally expect to pay $16.95 for a book of this size and quality! Just look at it! 420 pages full of the touching story of caring for a loved one! And those aren’t little trade paperback pages, either, but memoir-sized pages, each one charged with honest emotion and providing insight into one of the most challenging — and rewarding — experiences in life!”
“That’s right – you would expect to pay $16.95 for such a book – and it would be a fair deal. A modest price in exchange for access to the innermost thoughts and feelings of four people, each on a personal journey of love and self-discovery.”
“But you don’t have to pay $16.95. No you don’t. Why you can get the whole book — containing every single word, every single lesson learned — in Kindle format for the low, low price of JUST $8.99. That’s right — a huge savings, including no shipping or handling fees!”
“But Wait! There’s More!”
* * * * * * *
Shawn Colvin has a new book out, and has been doing the promotional circuit. I had the pleasure of hearing most of an hour-long interview with her this morning on the Diane Rehm show.
Colvin is just a couple of years older than I am. I can’t say that I have been a huge fan of hers, but I have been aware of her for a long time, and have always appreciated her talents. And Diane Rehm is one of the best in the business. As noted, I’d love to have a chance to have her interview me. The interview was engaging, and touching.
Because Colvin’s book is a memoir. No, not of care-giving. Not care-giving for someone else, anyway. Rather, it was about her own path to deal with her own demons. Depression. Substance abuse. Bad relationships. Anorexia. Toss in the usual professional stresses and failures, and it makes for a compelling story.
* * * * * * *
“That’s right, friend, there’s more: a *LOT* more.”
“Because not only can you get Her Final Year for the low, low price of just $8.99, but you can ALSO get this incredible companion volume: Communion of Dreams! That’s right — James Downey, one of the co-authors of Her Final Year, has also written a novel. And not just any novel — a work of speculative fiction which has fired the imagination of thousands, and prompted dozens of 5-star reviews on Amazon!”
“For such a work you would expect to pay at least $11.95 for the 350 page paperback! But it is available in the Kindle edition for just $4.95. That’s fight, LESS THAN one thin five-dollar bill. Such A Deal!!”
“But Wait! There’s More!”
* * * * * * *
Fascinating story this morning about efforts to stop the spread of Dengue Fever on NPR. The basic idea was to use a known effect where mosquitoes infected with a naturally-occurring bacteria are unable to transmit the virus which causes Dengue Fever. The science in the story was good, but what really caught my attention was how the effort to get this idea to work had been a *very* long and frustrating quest for the scientist behind it.
See, Scott O’Neill had been working on this project for some 20 years. The biggest problem was technical — it is phenomenally difficult to infect living mosquitoes with the bacteria. It takes thousands and thousands of attempts, working at a microscopic level, to inject the necessary bacteria into a mosquito egg, and then having said egg develop to adulthood and actually *have* the disease. Failure is a constant companion.
And so this is what caught my ear when I heard it:
Take the day in 2006, when one of Scott’s graduate students told him he thought he’d finally succeed in infecting a dengue mosquito with Wolbachia.
I figured this must have been a red-letter day for Scott, a day of sheer elation. Scott told me looking back on it, it was. But at the time it didn’t seem that way.
“Because you’re so used to failure that you don’t believe anything when you see it,” he says. “And so you can think back to when there was a Eureka moment, but at the time, you’re probably, ‘this looks good but I’ve been burnt thousands of times before. Let’s go and do it again, and the do it another time, and check and check and make sure it’s actually real.’ “
* * * * * * *
“That’s right, friend, there’s more: a *LOT* more.”
“Because while you would think that just $8.99 for Her Final Year or only $4.95 for Communion of Dreams would be a STEAL — and you would be correct to think that! — you can get *BOTH* of these books for FREE this Saturday!”
“That’s right, I said FREE, friend. As in beer! The Kindle edition of each book will be completely and totally FREE all day Saturday! All you have to do is just go and download it. Why, you do not even need to own a Kindle in order to take advantage of this phenomenal offer! That’s right, you can get a FREE Kindle app for almost every computer, tablet, or mobile device known to man!”
“But Wait! There’s More!”
* * * * * * *
I sometimes wonder whether I shouldn’t play up my own “demons” more.
Now, I haven’t been shy about talking about them. Anyone who has read my stuff for any length of time knows this. I’m honest about my background (orphaned at 13), my failures (both recent and older ones), and my own struggles with mild bipolar disorder and health problems. Talking about these aspects of my life helps to provide some context for the things I think and do — it is all part of who I am and why I see the world as I do.
But I try not to dwell on such things. I have never considered myself a tragic figure or particularly burdened. Whether or not it was Plato who actually said “be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” that aphorism is still very true, and my own battle hasn’t been especially more difficult than the one many people fight. In very many ways I have been extremely fortunate, and I know that. And I’m thankful for it.
But still, there is no denying that tragedy sells.
* * * * * * *
“More? How can there be More? The Kindle edition of both books are already FREE — what more could any reasonable person ask for???”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. How about a *signed* copy of the paperback edition of each book? For FREE!”
“That’s right. FREE!”
“All you gotta do is post a comment here. Or on our Facebook page. Or send a Tweet. Do any of these things between now and Sunday morning, and your name will be entered into a drawing for a FREE signed copy of the paperback! You can enter once for each book at each venue — a possibility of 6 chances in total! What more could you possible ask for?”
“So, don’t delay — enter your name, today! And remember to download your FREE copy of the Kindle edition of Her Final Year and Communion of Dreams this coming Saturday!”
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the Her Final Year blog.)
Communion Of Dreams 