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What Happened After My First Book Was Published?

What Happened After

What Happened After My First Book Was Published? Learn what I learned through six years of writing and publishing. I’ll cover my failures and successes, and what led to an exponential growth of sales and revenues.

The First Year 2016

My book Zombie Turkeys was published in ebook and paperback formats.

Oddly, Kindle did not accept my paperback cover. It was “too bloody”. I had to change the colors. So I have these two covers:

Best Science Stories Zombie Turkeys Gift
What Happened After
Get your Zombie Turkeys here. You get a bushel of laughter with each book.
What Happened After
ebook version Get your Zombie Turkeys here. You get a bushel of laughter with each book.

Events: 1. Book launch at the Peoria North Library on October 31st. I had about 20 people and sold 5 books. Combined with 5 presales and I had ten in October.

2. Wheel Art First Friday – My wife made pottery here and I set up a table to sell books with their permission. I sold 4 books.

3. Peoria Library Author Fair – Sold 1, but I also made some author friends

4. Chambanacon in Bloomington – My first book fair. I sold 5 books. I made more author friends.

5. I started my newsletter in November, using addresses I picked up from my events.

Year total: 28 books, 27 paperback, 1 ebook.

Got questions? Ask me.

What Happened After 2016? 2017 happenings

I started writing another book in November 2016, My Undead Mother-in-law. It came out in August 2017.

Zombie Turkeys Thanksgiving
What Happened After
My Undead Mother-in-law front cover. Click to get

Events: 1. I Know You Like A Book author signing. I sold 6 books.

2. Lit-on-Fire bookstore author reading and some sales.

3. I joined two author groups and sold some books to other authors.

4. I went to Her Majesty’s Tea Room and sold 4 books.

5. I sold 3 books at the Book Nook.

6. I sold some books to Barnes and Noble.

7. My Undead Mother-in-law launched at Barnes & Noble and I sold 1. I also appeared on TV here in Peoria.

8. I went back to Chambanacon and sold 8 books, 5 ZTs and 3 MUMs.

9. I published an audiobook version of Zombie Turkeys on 11/1/2017. You can get it for free by clicking here. I sold one later that year.

Zombie Turkeys Laughter 2021 Reviews
What Happened After
Zombie Turkeys audiobook cover. Click to get!

Final results for 2017: 96 Zombie Turkeys sold and 37 My Undead Mother-in-law.

This post is long enough. Let me show you my sales chart to date and I’ll write another blog post soon. Notice my sales have increased every year except 2021. I sold so many in 2020, that my number of sales declined. 2022 isn’t over, but I expect to pass both 2020 and 2021.

The circle size represents the percent increase (or decrease) from the previous year.

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March Fourth! Science and Science Fiction for You

March Fourth! Science and Science Fiction for You! I cruise the internet constantly and pick up interesting science articles and science fiction. Here are the best ones I’ve found.

But first, a laugh for you.

March Fourth! Science Incoming

I read science articles all the time. I subscribe to GE’s newsletter to get these cool news bits from them. Then I post the best ones on my Facebook page.

Zombie viruses? Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah–

Life After Life Chronicles March Fourth
Enjoy all four novels in audiobook, paperback, or Kindle format!

Do you have something to say to me? Do you have a question? Let me know by clicking here.

Floating an anvil

Did you ever play with mercury as a child? I did, both at school and at home. Our home thermostat had a bottle with mercury in it.

There is danger in inhaling mercury vapors, since they’re poisonous. But the quantity is quite small and non-fatal.

Let me know if you played with mercury and I’ll send you a free book!

March Fourth! Science Fiction for You Coming Up Next!

Here’s my review of Liu Cixin’s last book in his ‘Three-Body Problem” trilogy.

book cover from Goodreads

Author Liu Cixin concludes his trilogy in fine fashion. He maintains the reader’s interest through 1,800 pages and manages to surprise them time and time again. His characters suffer much but triumph through perseverance.

The Earth and Trisolarian invaders’ conflict is finally resolved. Like most wars, no one wins. But the dark forest view of the universe, where everyone is out to destroy any intelligence turns out to be optimistic. As humanity’s technology advances, they find out more about other civilizations. And they’re not nice.

There is wonderful hard science throughout the series, including string theory, curving space for speed of light travel, and changing the physical constants of the universe, such as the speed of light.

That’s my only criticism, from a hard science point of view. There’s a subplot that hinges on changing the speed of light through a solar system–and Liu doesn’t realize that would wreck the sun in the system. Fusion hinges on converting matter to energy, and if the speed of light is reduced, the energy of the star goes way down, (due to e=mc2 – reduce c and energy goes down) the star collapses, and it no longer warms the system. 

Andy Zach’s review

Of course, this is the third book in the series and you need to read the first two. That’s what libraries are for!

March Fourth
The library of my dreams. Is it yours too?

More Science is always Better

Oops! I guess this is science fiction. It’s hard to tell them apart these days.

Here’s some real science:

Still more science follows.

One More Science Fiction Review

2021 Reviews Zombie Turkeys Audible
March Fourth
Audiobook cover – click to listen.

Zombie Turkeys

What did you like best about Zombie Turkeys? What did you like least?


There were times when the book was laugh out loud funny, but other times it was just cheesy. Also, repetitive use of the word “said” in the dialog portions was obnoxious.


I’m increasing my rating on this book, because I listened to it over a year ago, and it still pops into my head sometimes. I still say “Zombie Turkey” every time I hear a turkey gobble. And I felt compelled to order an autographed copy of the book. All of this says to me that I under-rated it the first time, and need to make it right.

Kim
03-17-18

If you want ALL my audiobooks, you can get them FREE HERE. (While supplies last.)

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2022 Best Science Stories So Far – and Reviews

Writer's Block: My Experience

2022 Best Science Stories So Far. We’re only five weeks into 2022 and here are some great science stories. Plus, I’ve been piling up reviews I want to share with you.

Let’s begin now!

2022 Best Science Stories – Military SciFi

The first military scifi story with automatic aiming was by Heinlein. He used it on a battleship with all of its cannons and guns controlled by computer.

Speaking of Heinlein, here’s a review of his book, Starship Troopers:

Starship Troopers

2022 Best Science Stories
Click to get

…Thinking he was safer if he moved out of Los Angeles (because at the time it was considered a nuclear target), he moves to Colorado only to find out years later that the military had built NORAD only 7 miles from his home.

So angered by the events around him, he wrote his most controversial novel to date: ‘Starship Troopers’.  Heinlein was very concerned the US would not survive the Cold War and pens the story as an ode to the military. It was based on the premise that citizenship should be earned and that “freedom is founded on each individual taking responsibility for something greater than himself.” Critics argued that the novel glorified military conflict.

In ‘Starship Troopers,’ Heinlein’s military fought the aliens wearing power suits with high tech robotic exoskeletons that granted humans extraordinary strength and ability. Although it was just fantasy when Heinlein wrote about it, the US military is actually developing a version of Heinlein’s suit.  Using robotic and Nano technology, they are working on a suit that will allow the soldier to be a “superman” on the battlefield.

‘Prophets Of Science Fiction: Robert Heinlein’

Let me know if you’ve read Starship Troopers and what you thought of it. Click here and I’ll give you a free book.

Your Next Science Story

Yup, you read that right. The US Air Force has developed a computer which is a pilot’s assistant.

Where did I hear of that before?

Another SciFi Review

5.0 out of 5 stars

 Short stories to keep you looking for zombies!

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2022

I started by reading this author’s book about the Turkey Apocalypse. I had so much fun (yes, fun, even though the turkeys were out killing everyone and thing in their path!) Then I read about the Undead Mother in law. Even better! Each book gets more accomplished than the next.

This one was a surprise! I thought I had purchased the same book twice (I’ve been known to do that!) However, this is just a group of short stories that are prequels or sequels to the others that fill in some questions I didn’t know I had or start me on a new train of thought. Fun to read! Just make sure you check all wildlife around you for metal caps before you settle in! They’re watching you!


june

More Science Stories Coming Up Next

Regrowing limbs has long been a scifi staple. Looks like we’re making progress!

Then there’s my next science fiction novel, I’m still writing: Secret Supers in Space. I found this article researching Space Camp.

It will be the third novel in my Secret Supers series. Here’s the first:

Jeremy Gentle fell flat on his face at therapy. That was normal since he had cerebral palsy. But his new superpower wasn’t normal. Then, things got weirder when his best friend Dan Elanga got a different superpower. But Dan was still blind. 

Kayla Verdera and Aubrey Wilcosky, two girls in their middle-school special ed class, discovered they too had new superpowers. Kayla was mute and needed a walker. Aubrey lost two legs and used crutches. But they were as powerful as the boys. What should the four friends do? 

Jeremy knew if the word got out, it’d be a media circus. Then, they started fighting crime as the Secret Supers. Who knew a disability could be a perfect disguise? No one would ever think of disabled kids as superheroes. But they ran into problems they never expected.

ACX audiobook

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