2022 - 02/2022 Meeting

Page Created: 02/13/22. Last Updated: 02/17/22.

J L DOTY

ONLINE

Website: https://www.jldoty.com/misc/aboutjld.html

SELECTED TITLES

Novels:

.....The Gods Within

...............Child of the Sword

...............The SteelMaster of Indwallin

...............The Heart of the Sands

...............The Name of the Sword

.....The Treasons Cycle

...............A Choice of Treasons

...............Of Treasons Born

.....The Dead Among Us

...............When Dead Ain't Dead Enough

...............Still Not Dead Enough

...............Never Dead Enough

.....The Black Sword Regiment

...............A Hymn for the Dying

...............A Dirge for the Damned

...............A Prayer for the Fallen

...............A Requiem for the Forsaken

.....The Deck of Chaos

...............The Thief of Chaos

.....Standalone Titles

...............The Thirteenth Man

Meeting Date: February 12, 2022.

Meeting Site: Zoom Video Conference.

Attendance: 32.

Meeting Program: Talk, Q & A with SF / Fantasy Author

Notes:

The Virtual Dinner Run was attended by club members Philip De Parto, Efua Kamau-Adegbalola, Eileen Madison, Anthony Pawlak, and John Upton. Topics discussed included Orson Wells as a narrator, adjusting monitors to reduce glare, Joseph Campbell and Star Wars, the short film GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE; the television series THE MANDALORIAN, THE BOOK OF BUBBA FETT, and GHOSTS; the play Harry Potter & the Cursed Child; science fiction conventions; and the non-fiction books INVENTING ACCURACY by Donald MacKenzie and ROCKET RANCH by Jonathan Ward.

Newsletter Account:

Notes for Newsletter Account:

"BAD ADVICE IS EASY."

INFLUENCES

Influences were a biography of George Washington Carver (read at 8 or 9) and All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque (read in late teens). Didn't read science fiction until his early 20s when he read Stranger in a Strange Land. Then devoured Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke, E E Smith, etc.

PLOTTING

Mostly a pantser who knows the beginning and end, but not much in the middle when he stars.

Has rehearsed a number of key scenes and important dialogue before he starts writing.

Walks around mumbling likeMr Magoo about the upcoming new book for several weeks before he starts to write.

A lot of this deals with the world building.

He doesn't construct a formal bible, but does build up a list of scenes.

Then he binge writes, stopping every 30 - 40K to see if he is missing anything.

He goes back and plants plot seeds which will germinate later in the work.

He works out what he conceives as a single book which usually grows to a 3 or 4 book series.

Tim Powers carefully does a 39 page outline.

Screen shared his plot outline program.

BOOK COVERS

Originally he outsources his indie covers.

Now creates his own covers for his self-pub books.

Uses https://depositphotos.com/

Showed how he creates a cove through Share Screen.

Learned Photoshop to create covers.

Gets bar codes through a bar code website.

AUDIO BOOKS

FaceBook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/authorswhonarrate/

If not reading your own book, you pay someone.

Two payment options: either a set fee or a split royalty where narrator is paid along with author.

ACX is the largest audio book platform.

ACX for authors: https://www.acx.com/help/authors/200484540

He creates his own audio books so that he does not have to pay ACX or narrators.

It took him 6 months to learn how to build a cheap, portable studio and learn the technology.

He Screen Shared his set up and answered questions about his equipment (mic, sound baffling).

He bought baffle squares from Amazon and fastened them to large sheets of cardboard.

Drapes his metal filing cabinets with a tablecloth when recording.

LASERS

Gave Worldcon talk that Lasers would never work as weapons.

Started being shadowed by an aspiring author who kept asking, what if I did this?

Started peeking around corners to make sure the guy wasn't there.

EARLY WRITING

Stumbled into writing.

Started writing in the 80s when he was in his 30s.

Wrote 250K unpublishable trunk novel.

Is picking through some of its ideas for his next book.

GENRE WRITING

Some of his books are coming of age stories about a young person, but they are not YA.

YA publishing has a formula. It must contain teen angst. It is not as restrictive as romance, but there is a formula to follow. His novels are unconcerned about dating and how cute a guy is.

HIS BOOKS

The 13th Man - Standalone from HarperCollins. The Man in the Iron Mask in Space. ERB! Dumas!

When Dead Ain't Enough - Urban Fantasy set in San Francisco about a man living the ghosts of his wife & daughter.

A Choice of Treasons - Hard Military Science Fiction.

Child of the Sword - Self pubbed. Child soldiers. 4 book series.

SELF PUBLISHING

Amanda Hocking sold millions of paranormal and YA romances as an indie author, but bombed when she switched to traditional publishing.

John Lock it the king of the .99 ebook.

PATH TO SUCCESS

Started another book after he was done with his trunk novel. Sent it out and started the next one. He papered his walls with rejections.

He decided he might as well self-publish. He hired a cover artist and someone to format his book back in 2012.

Had self-pubbed three books in a series to minimal (1 sale per month) success.

Book four came out (with no publicity or anything different) and it took off by word of mouth.

Sold 25 - 13 - 360 copies in the first three days before settling in at 100 - 200 copies / day for a while.

Sold by word-of-mouth. GoodReads reviews were a help.

Flush with this success, he went to the San Diego Worldcon figuring he could use his self-pub sales to land a traditional publisher without success. The editors and literary agents all felt threatened by self-pub and were afraid it would put them out of business,

Met Betsy Mitchell at later LA convention. She took him on at HarperCollins and at Open Road Media. Contrary to horror stories he had heard, he found the contracts fair and reasonable.

FUTURE PLANS

Wants to get back to writing fantasy.

Concept is in its early stages.

It councerns a young, uneducated hero who wakes up on a battlefield still alive after a major battle.