FOR SCI-FI LOVERS ONLY!
For some time now (fifty years, actually), I’ve wanted to publish a book. It didn’t really matter much what kind of book; just something with my name on it that could sit on the shelf alongside the “other” authors.
My first sporadic starts were made when a manual typewriter was the weapon of choice and a publisher was some unreachable entity. It was a laborious task to create the material in the first place and pretty much impossible to find someone to publish it for you once you were done. You could find a printer that would charge a setup fee and print as many copies as you were willing to pay for, but they wanted their money in advance. In practice, it simply wasn’t affordable. Especially for the amateur writer trying to hit the big time.
Today, anyone can use a computer to typeset their labor of love and publish it on-line with no out-of-pocket expense. The upside of cutting out the middle man has been the explosion of Indie endeavors in audio, video, art, and printed matter. The downside has been the explosion of Indie endeavors in audio, video, art, and printed matter. When Newton Minow first warned us about the “vast wasteland,” there were only 3 channels on TV (and no cable!). Today, there are effectively billions of them and, not surprisingly, most of them are not worth tuning into.
Now there’s one more:
I had toyed with the idea of making illustrations with SketchUp and KerkyThea, but I convinced myself to focus on getting it finished instead (I tend to procrastinate, sometimes). Maybe an illustrated version someday (before my copy of SU8 bites the dust).
Anyway, if you follow the link, you can “Look Inside” the first few chapters. If you make it that far and still want to continue, then I’m sorry to say that I’m asking for money to find out the rest of the story. When I started this, many years ago, I was originally planning on putting it on the web for free. But my wife and kids insisted that I charge something, at least, for my efforts. And their inheritance, of course.
If you read the first few chapters and say, “W.T.F.?” then it’s probably not your cup of tea and there no need to spend any money. I wrote this for fun and I wrote it for me. If others enjoy it as well, then so be it. If not, well, this is why I have a day job 