X. Ho Yen, Author

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (26 Mar 2026)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 20:46:39 +0000

Greetings Dear Readers,

To subscribe: the subscription box “Older Posts >” link available at the bottom of the web newsletter
Or subscribe to my Substack (which is free)

If you’d like to UNsubscribe from this newsletter, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem. (Unsubscribing from Substack is separate and is done there.) Unsubscribing if you’re not interested HELPS me. Having subscribers who aren’t engaged throws me off.

My substack content replaces social media, and contains fun, thoughtful, and/or serious material (including my videos) that would never fit into tiny SM posts. (no more Youtube, which is google)

=== Status ===

As previously announced, I'm now donating all net royalties to Ukraine. The flag pic is a link to Help99. You can also donate to United 24. Or buy my books as gifts and donate that way—net royalties will go to either of those two places. They both go directly to help Ukraine, and helping Ukraine also directly helps civilization as a whole, including you. Few things so clearly do.

I still don't know how to handle these newsletter mass mailings without gmail. That's why this is coming from my old email address.

Today’s Substack post essentially constitutes an Author Newsletter, so let me direct you there. The Gort/Klaatu pic is the same link:

https://open.substack.com/pub/xhoyenauthor/p/writer-thoughts-on-the-future

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. There’s info on how you can gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together in the midst of one kind of strife or another.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

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X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (05 Feb 2026)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 22:13:45 +0000

Greetings Dear Readers,

To subscribe: the subscription box “Older Posts >” link available at the bottom of the web newsletter
Or subscribe to my Substack (which is free)

My substack content replaces social media, and contains fun, thoughtful, and/or serious material that would never fit into tiny SM posts. (no more Youtube)

=== Status ===

Per this article's announcement:

https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/all-net-proceeds-go-to-ukraine-until

I'm now donating all net royalties to Ukraine.

I still don't know how to handle these newsletter mass mailings without gmail. That's why this is coming from my old email address.

Since the last newsletter, "Space Autistic Author, Log 4" was published.

You can see it here: https://XHoYenAuthor.substack.com/p/space-autistic-author-log-4

It's fun. I'm proud of it. It's also dead nuts honest about my situation.

Anyone who knows original Star Trek will especially enjoy the nods.

I have a number of new "My Books"/"Fiction Related" substack posts:

An updated writeup for the video ditty about the MSD cover, with more about the book's background: https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/something-fun-about-the-minimum-safe

A "Custodians of the Future Primer [no spoilers]": https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/custodians-of-the-future-primer-no

A piece about "V for Vendetta": https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/v-for-vendetta-the-movie

and

' A "Good Cartoonist" created something rivaling "Star Trek" ': https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/a-good-cartoonist-created-something

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. There’s info on how you can gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together in the midst of one kind of strife or another.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

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X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (18 Jan 2026)

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 03:06:26 +0000

Greetings Dear Readers,

To subscribe: the subscription box “Older Posts >” link available at the bottom of the web newsletter
Or subscribe to my Substack (which is free)

My substack content replaces social media, and contains fun, thoughtful, and/or serious material that would never fit into tiny SM posts. (no more Youtube)

=== Status ===

In case you hadn’t noticed, last newsletter saw the removal of all the annoying, distracting “how to help” stuff at the bottom. Fewer pics, less text.

Now, I’m in the midst of transitioning in protest away from the google so-called ‘ecosystem’ and others. I’ve unpublished my books from Amazon and Google Play, and have removed links to Apple Books. I take removing myself from the data theft/monitoring and content-funneling economy seriously now that the way that economy funds the Reich is clearer to me, aside from how it has ruined the minds of generations of kids.

I’ve moved my media content from youtube (which is owned by google) onto substack, and FINALLY ORGANIZED my substack page with tabs for easier content filtering (I didn’t know about tabs until two days ago…). If/when substack becomes equally problematic, I’ll migrate again, but for now, this is my situation.

See my substack home page, where you’ll now see the new tabs. “Anim: Space Autistic Author” has all content related to my fun, animated cross-promo series (Log 4 is nearing completion). “Media” has all other video, podcast, and other such material. See also the “Fiction Related”, “Life & Times”, and “My Books” tabs.

Along those lines, I’m transitioning away from gmail

Within the week, I’ll be resending this newsletter from XHoYen@protonmail.com instead of gmail. Please note that it’s me, and keep an eye out for it in case it ends up in your spam box. Please allow and whitelist as needed. My web site’s subscription box has already been updated with the new address. (Proton is a Swiss non-profit created by the folks at CERN and is privacy focused, with client-side encryption so even Proton can’t read your emails. Gmail dumps your emails and addresses into its AI in order to “give you an improved personal experience” by selling what it extracts to info merchants who target you with ads and who knows what else they do with your tracking data. I was naive about all this, and lazy about it for too long.)

New content for you that’s not about the Reich

I have a number of new substack posts NOT related to the Fourth Reich, so do please check them out in the “Fiction Related” and “My Books” tabs. There’s a short piece on the retconning of Captain Kirk and why it was bad for all of us. There’s a brief Primer on “Custodians of the Future”. The video about the fun thing about the “Minimum Safe Distance” book cover is now within a brief post that has some more info about MSD. And there’s a post about “V for Vendetta” (although that spills over into “Life & Times” topics, not surprisingly.)

I’ve taken the opportunity to update “Space Autistic Author” Log 1 by fixing a couple of visual issues and also updating the laud badges on the MSD book cover shots. And in a few cases, I’ve updated the “thumbnail” image for certain items, notably the article on “Representation in my Writing”. For that one, I felt it was important to change the thumbnail lest a glancer immediately get the opposite and incorrect impression from the old thumbnail. All in all, I’m getting better at substack’s features (before I was relying on it to automatically generate the thumbnail pic, now I know how to handle that myself).

The new thumbnail for my “Representation” article (the old one was the sardonic, mocking, AI-generated one representing so many other authors’ works)

== AotF ==

I’ve resisted saying anything online about works in progress. Here I’m going to violate that rule, but I’ll attempt to avoid actual spoilers.

In “Attendants of the Future”, the final reveal in “Custodians of the Future” has consequences that are affecting everyone, everywhere. This leads to conflict at a lunar colony. But in parallel, something else is happening that will give readers a glimpse into how the lives of a couple of the colonists might have gone very differently.

There. I hope that’s somewhat intriguing. :)

== Sci/Eng ==

While I’ve vowed never to pretend we’re in a status quo situation, I nevertheless here offer you some more enjoyable content as a brief diversion and so that you won’t necessarily associate my newsletter only with gloom and doom. :)

These “game-changers” will have huge, positive impacts on our world, but they don’t make the news or social media feeds. This is by no means a complete list. (And I get no kickbacks from these products.)

Aircraft Riblet Coating (read the estimate of each 787 aircraft’s annual environmental impact improvement)

Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (most efficient rocket engine ever, no moving parts, already test flown, can be used for supersonic atmospheric flight; these will change everything in a decade or two)

Donut Electric Motors (more torque and power than other motors, donut shape removes much of the drive train weight; these also will be endemic soon and will revolutionize vehicle efficiency, and not just wheeled vehicles)

Non-toxic, biomimickry-based insect repellant as effective as DEET (and tested for 7 years as of 2025)

Finally, some biocircular shoes (made for zero environmental impact as well as proper shoe design and durability; currently quite expensive, but let’s try and change that through scaling sales)

Deflectr helmet tech (this revolutionary design adds rotational dampening to standard helmets’ radial dampening; it will become endemic and will have a huge impact, so to speak, on TBIs; currently just in bicycle helmets, but eventually will be part of every kind of helmet; look for these when your kids are old enough to ride bikes)

Carvykti white blood cell retraining puts multiple myeloma into remission (just one example of some of the new approaches to cancer treatments and possibly even cures)

Greentell system dramatically reduces brake dust emissions (to comply with European pollution standards)

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory came online last year and is already making big discoveries while the team tunes it for it’s 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time aimed at illuminating several fundamental mysteries.

The first personalized gene therapy (approved) was used to save a baby with a rare 50% mortality genetic disorder. In the first half of 2025 renewable energy provided more than a third of global electricity, more than coal for the first time. That’s big. China made huge strides in solar manufacturing and deployment.

Meanwhile, the United States ended crucial infant vaccination and rolled back decades of environmental protections in order to make life easier for oil and gas industries. It had to be said.

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. There’s info on how you can gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together in the midst of one kind of strife or another.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

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X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (04 Jan 2026)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 16:56:15 +0000

Greetings Dear Readers,

To subscribe: the subscription box “Older Posts >” link available at the bottom of the web newsletter
Or subscribe to my Substack

If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem. (Unsubscribing from Substack is separate and is done there.) Unsubscribing if you’re not interested HELPS me. Having subscribers who aren’t engaged throws me off.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts.

=== Status ===

AotF is unofficially on hold. I’m too uncomfortable in The Fourth Reich to write novel-length fiction, especially given I haven’t found my audience, and it may no longer exist. Right now, psychology is against me, hard. It’ll be all I can do to complete the current episode of my animated outreach series, “Space Autistic Author”, which reflects my current state of mind and thus acts as a bit of a relief.

My recent substack posts include a call to make real changes in one’s life—the status quo helps the regime. While voting with our money has been a big part of our lives for decades, I feel there’s more I must do. What that looks like is currently unclear, and as an old autistic with soft bones I’m full of excuses, but this incredibly destructive regime is simply too itchy. I need to spend my time working toward something different rather than pretending there’s shelter in the status quo, even if that something different is escape. Maybe I can escape via a return to aerospace work somewhere else. That’ll be difficult at best, but it can’t happen if I don’t put in the effort.

When it gets bad for resisters, when assets are frozen, employers driven to fire people, landlords driven to evict people, etc., there will be a wave of refugee emigrants, at which point the rest of the world probably will close their gates. Now would be the time.

If you’re on Social Security and you’ve ever commented online against the regime in any way, or donated to a progressive organization like Public Citizen, what is your contingency plan for when they stop sending your Social Security payments, possibly in a stealthy way by introducing impenetrable bureaucratic ‘delays’ to obscure their real intent? (if they even bother to try to obscure their intent) You have no recourse to law any more, at least no recourse that would be quick enough to help you if this happens. That’s their most effective trick, the delaying actions.

If you’re loud online against the regime, like I am, what will you do when they confiscate your bank accounts? At this point, rule of law is out the window, so don’t tell me “they can’t do that”. Checks and balances are not functioning, except in the form of payoffs and the growing wealth of the fascists. Unfortunately, I have zero faith in future elections in the U.S., as the regime has infiltrated voting systems, shut down cross-checking systems, gerrymandered like hell, will deploy ICE and troops in blue areas, and they own the USPS so they can intercept mail-in ballots. Independent sources say they did not actually steal the last election, which apparently means the cult is still huge, so even if you don’t believe they’ll actively interfere in the elections, they might win it outright, which is pretty damned frightening. I was hoping the reverse was true.

Florida is using a fraud-hunting tool used by the right to look for voters to remove from the rolls

I think they’re pushing so hard with the government overturn because they know they’ll interfere with the next election and they expect a backlash when that becomes clear, but they want it to be too late by then. With Murrica apparently in consumerist status quo mode, I’m concerned that’ll be how it plays out. Once they get past that next milestone, there’s zero reason to believe they won’t start putting Dems in front of firing squads and really ratcheting up the Nazi playbook. Whether they win by having enough cult votes or win by stealing the election, it won’t matter—at that point they’ll be so entrenched that even if more of them jump ship, they can get away with murder and replace people with an infinite supply of rabid supremacists. Then MTG will rejoin them, loudly and rapidly.

How Nazis stole assets

White House orders a review of exhibits at Smithsonian museums ahead of nation’s 250th birthday

US removal of panels honoring Black soldiers at WWII cemetery in the Netherlands draws backlash

US plans to ‘run’ Venezuela and tap its oil reserves, Trump says, after operation to oust Maduro

Coming from a family of refugee immigrants who escaped authoritarian regimes over at least two generations, seeing all this stuff coming is in my bones. I’m unclear on how anyone can not believe it’s coming, or at least that it’s possible, which is functionally the same thing.

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

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X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (02 Dec 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 19:42:02 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Status
* The genre association issue - DEFEAT
* Holiday Gift-giving

* Std Stuff: How to help

I’ve written FIVE new substack posts since the last newsletter, including a writeup about my experience with a neat novella by Caitrín Casey — check ‘em out here

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box. You’ll receive these by email.
OR you can subscribe to my Substack and you’ll receive newsletter notifications along with my other Substack content via Substack’s notification methods.

IF YOU’RE NEW and want to catch up, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts.

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link! (see see the ‘How to Help’ section at the bottom) https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== Status ===

AotF
I’m over 42k words in the WIP MS, and it’s taking on a life of its own. It’s such a fun phase in writing! This book will probably be over 100k words, but we’ll see. (MSD was 86k words, for reference.)

We are less than a week away from my favorite multi-holiday, December 8th. On that day, I’ll be reposting my Substack ‘post’ about it in a substack ‘note’, but here’s a link in case you missed it last year.

== The Genre Association Issue — DEFEAT ==

Having discovered that world-famous Canadian author Margaret Atwood (of “The Handmaid’s Tale” fame) to this day resists the ‘science fiction’ genre label (despite urgings from Ursula K. Le Guin years ago) has pushed me over the edge. Even Atwood sees ‘science fiction’ as only space opera and such tropes. In interviews she can barely contain her hatred of that label. The distinction she makes, which I think is silly, sorry ma’am, is that ‘science fiction’ is always about things that cannot be, whereas ‘spec fic’ (speculative fiction), her preferred category/label/genre, is about things that could be.

For the record, it has been commonly understood that works set in the future, even ‘near future’, are science fiction. To set a story in the future requires many science-based projections, even if limited solely to psychological and sociological projections. To say that “The Handmaid’s Tale” is not science fiction is to assert that psychology and sociology are not sciences. No matter how “soft” you might think those areas of study are, they are in fact pursued and advanced through scientific methods. They are sciences, and they are about the real world. The complexity of the human world fools many into seeing these sciences as “soft” because they aren’t as A+B=C as, say, chemistry or physics. Atwood’s education is not in those areas, so she doesn’t see what she’s done as relating to psychology and sociology, but all that means is that she has believable intuitions and probably internalizations of psychology and sociology that have reached her through other pathways. But those fields make successful testable predictions about incredibly complex things, whereas Atwood’s fiction doesn’t make predictions so much as imagines scenarios that feel believable based on all we know about human psychology and sociology. That is, Atwood would be correct to say that “The Handmaid’s Tale” is not science, but that doesn’t make it not science fiction. A story set in the future is science fiction.

One of her other famous books usually considered science fiction, “Oryx and Crake”, is also set in a future, in this case a future post-apocalyptic world. I’m still reading it, but I expect it extrapolates in other scientific realms beyond psychology and sociology.

I’ve mentioned before that it blew my mind that even my fellow CAL authors (Colorado Authors League) tilt their heads and ask “well then what do you write?” when I explain that I write science fiction but not space opera, time travel, military, etc. standard Amazon categories.

It’s disappointing and frustrating, but if an entire world of fans of Margaret Atwood (via books or the tv series) are absorbing her definition, distinction, and disgusted dismissal, then I can’t keep fighting this battle of reeducation and inclusiveness within the ‘sci fi’ rubric. Even Ursula K. Le Guin met with failure in this battle.

Hollywood and George Lucas won. Now and forever, ‘science fiction’ has come to mean, to both the masses and to authors, fantasy with a science hook instead of a magic hook, and since the vast majority of readers now only want magical fantasy and ‘dislike science’, and, like Atwood, don’t see psychology as a science, I can’t keep using the ‘sci fi’ tag. The times have already changed. I need to get with the program. “Firefly” is the classic example of sci fi that people don’t consider to be sci fi, and it was way back in 2002! (“Firefly” is set in a distant star system after “the Earth-that-was got used up” and is about a crew of a spaceship struggling to survive and thrive on the fringes of a despotic regime. It is so unequivocally sci fi!)

So, I’m in the process of changing all references, book categories/tags, etc., from ‘sci fi’/’science fiction’ to ‘spec fic’. It’s disappointing and frustrating. The official definition of ‘spec fic’ is actually wider than all of sci fi and fantasy, and includes superhero stuff, so it’s an accurately all-inclusive yet imprecise label (which definitely includes many things that cannot be).

But Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Hammer of God”, for example, is science fiction, and it’s definitely about something that could happen. There are so many other great examples. I wanted to remain associated with that classically revered category, but it has become permanently sullied, and in order to find my audience I really have no choice.

If ever my books come up in conversation, do please refer to them as spec fic/speculative fiction. (Watch the difference in receptivity and duration of receptivity — I’d love to hear what you discover.)

== Holiday Gift-giving ==

I’m not a fan of holiday-based gifting, which is often performative, wasteful, and polluting. I like to give gifts whenever, and I usually do.

But this is the time of year the vendors have sales. My ‘Books’ page has DISCOUNT purchase links. Give them a whirl. Now that my book covers each tastefully show one award badge, you can feel less guilty about gifting my books — you’re not giving someone trash, and even if they don’t like it, they can probably find it a good home.

So, in keeping with standard protocol, I hereby explicitly and humbly request that you consider gifting my books, especially if you know any young people who are likely to enjoy “Puzzling Innerverse”. See Literary Titan’s review here for inspiration. And here’s Andrew G. Gibson’s review of “Minimum Safe Distance”, also rockin’. And The Wishing Shelf’s 5/5 silver-level award review of “Custodians of the Future” here.

Thanks for considering!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===

Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

Please help with discovery by posting this week (or maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:

Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.

Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

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X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (02 Nov 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 22:25:30 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Status
* This Week in History

* Std Stuff: How to help

Latest substack: Grand Unification Theory: To Geek is Human — On the stories in which we reside, plus TTRPG stuff!

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

IF YOU’RE NEW and want to catch up, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts.

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link! (see see the ‘How to Help’ section at the bottom) https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== Status ===

Well, it’s 02 Nov in a couple of times zones, so I’m sending this now. :)

AotF
I’m about done with my recent big research push for AotF, and have started the process of using it. It has already driven a couple of good fleshing-out go-backs.

MSD
On the heels of last month’s Literary Fiction award win for MSD, the novel was voluntarily read and reviewed by Andrew G. Gibson, and he declared it shortlisted for the 2026 Gibson on Books Sci-Fi Award.

While the review’s sheen is obviously from the use of AI presentational assistance, which Gibson has conceded, the substance nevertheless is his. Wow, did he grok MSD, or what? It’s good to be grokked! And the review is a wonder in literacy, fun to read in and of itself.

https://andrewggibson.com/2025/10/29/minimum-safe-distance-x-ho-yen-review/

I say voluntarily, but it wasn’t out of the blue. Via some rabbit hole search I had discovered his page, saw the recent release of his book “The Plausible Bullshit Theory of Human Consciousness”, read the description, and immediately concluded that we must be on the same frequency. Then I saw that in addition to his paid review service, he also invites submissions on a who-knows-if-I’ll-read-it-let-alone-like-it basis. So I sent him the PDF. It must have been a slow week, because five days later he had finished it and written this review. Yeah, we’re on the same frequency.

It’s great to be grokked. It was only three weeks ago I wrote my “Art Appreciation Primer (esp. for readers of my novels)” substack article in which I attempted to show how using basic knowledge of art movements not only helps us appreciate art and understand why we like or dislike a piece of art, but it’s also useful in evaluating fiction. MSD is not a standard

Romanticism-Minimalism genre novel at all. It could be described as Expressionist-Impressionist-Realist instead. As Gibson says in his review (excerpts),

”This is not a beach read, nor a comfort read.”

”For readers who crave science fiction that challenges rather than consoles, that treats intelligence as a moral hazard and beauty as an emergent property of loss…”

”Ho Yen trusts the reader’s intelligence.”

“Despite the complexity of its ideas, Minimum Safe Distance is remarkably readable. The pacing is deliberate but never ponderous; the language elegant without pretension. Readers who prefer spectacle over speculation may find its quiet intensity demanding, but those who engage with its ideas will find themselves rewarded.“

That last excerpted sentence is precisely what my “Art Appreciation Primer” article was all about. :) MSD is literary science fiction. So is, CotF, really, since it’s also very much not Romanticist and has Impressionist “visible brushstroke” analogous elements.

These last two lauds have reminded me how easy it is to lose confidence. Before them, I was getting down about MSD. But these have ratcheted my confidence upward. Now, maybe I can press on with a tad less need for external validation. Maybe. A tad. Maybe. :)

By the way, the metal medal from Firebird arrived. It’s not quite as gaudy as the pic makes it look. But without an inscription on the front, it would definitely seal the “Look at me! I’m a winner!” sad vibe that I suspect I’m projecting when I share good news. lol Whatever!

Authors in Grocery Stores

There’s a new program I might try, “Authors in Grocery Stores”. It’s a straightforward idea. A participating grocery store registers your book in its sales system, makes a little space inside for an author table (scheduled, of course, and the author brings the table, signage, and books), the author is present to interact with the public, books are taken to the register and the sale and the sales tax are handled by the store (no need for the author to have an in-person sales tax permit and to file quarterly returns, if they don’t already), and the store/program takes a 38% cut.

Within the context of my novels being literary fiction, I’m not entirely sure this is a great fit for me. “Puzzling Innerverse”, on the other hand, would likely be the front runner, followed by “Custodians of the Future”, it being a romp. This would not pay a job’s wage, but it could help with exposure. So yeah, I’m weighing the discomfort of being in public against the potential value. Hours in a loud, busy grocery store every day for a week is not an autistic’s dream, especially since sensory availability is required. No ear plugs, no looking away. I dunno…

Anyway, fellow authors take note of the program.

=== This Week in History ===

02 Nov

1969: Vocal recordings are completed for The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”, with the astounding, emotional power vocals of Merry Clayton. If you’re not familiar with it, look it up, have a good listen.
2000: The first resident crew—including one American and two Russians—arrived at the International Space Station.
1988: A computer science student named Robert Morris released the first computer worm onto the Internet; meant as an experiment, it brought some 6,000 computers (one-tenth of the Internet) to a halt.
1963: Ngo Dinh Diem, who used dictatorial powers to rule South Vietnam as its president, was killed in a coup led by his generals.
1947: American aviator and filmmaker Howard Hughes piloted the Spruce Goose, an eight-engine wooden flying boat intended to carry 750 passengers, on its only flight, which covered a distance of one mile.
1932: Members of the Royal Australian Artillery fired the opening shots in the Emu War, frightening a group of about 50 emus and scattering them in all directions. After two months, less than 5% of the targeted 20k emus were reported killed. The failure was the subject of national and international ridicule.

01 Nov

1952: First thermonuclear bomb tested by the United States, on an atoll in the Marshall Islands
1994: NASA launched its Wind spacecraft on a mission that would include a “halo orbit” between the Sun and Earth to explore the space environment there.
1993: The Maastricht Treaty entered into force, thereby establishing the European Union.

31 Oct

1517: Luther's Ninety-five Theses posted
1968: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered an end to American bombing in North Vietnam.
1922: Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy; he was the first of Europe's fascist dictators in the 20th century. (Italy once again became a fascist regime as of Oct 2022. It’s not pretty.)

30 Oct

1961: The Soviets detonated Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean; the largest nuclear weapon ever set off, it produced the most powerful human-made explosion ever recorded. It had a 100-megaton capacity, though the resulting fallout from such a blast was considered too dangerous for a test situation. Thus, it was modified to yield 50 megatons, which was estimated to be about 3,800 times the strength of the U.S. bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.
1938: Orson Welles's radio dramatization of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds was broadcast, causing great alarm as some listeners feared a genuine invasion from Mars. (See my ~42 minute youtube presentation on the history of Mars exploration to understand why in 1938 many people believed it could be a genuine Martian invasion.)

29 Oct

1929: Collapse of U.S. stock market prices, start of The Great Depression
1618: British adventurer and writer Sir Walter Raleigh was executed for treason. (This guy’s life is all about “It’s good to be the Monarch’s favorite” followed by “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal”.)

28 Oct

1886: Statue of Liberty dedicated
1962: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev capitulated to U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s demands to halt delivery of nuclear-armed missiles to Cuba, bringing to an end the Cuban missile crisis.
1636: Harvard University, the oldest institute of higher learning in the United States, was founded by the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

27 Oct

1978: Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for negotiations that resulted first in the Camp David Accords (brokered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter), then in a peace treaty between their countries.

1961: The first Saturn rocket was successfully launched, and years later the Saturn V was the launch vehicle used in the Apollo Moon-landing flights.
1795: Pinckney's Treaty, an agreement between the United States and Spain (which held Mexico), was signed, giving the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River. This fixed the southern boundary of the United States at 31° N latitude and established commercial arrangements favorable to the United States.

26 Oct

1979: South Korean President Park Chung Hee was assassinated by his lifelong friend Kim Jae Kyu, head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, who was sentenced to death for his actions. This is an illuminating piece of history that has a kind of “V for Vendetta” (the movie) feel to it.
1970: Following an absence of more than three years, American boxer Muhammad Ali returned to the ring, defeating Jerry Quarry; Ali had been barred from fighting after he refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.
1825: After some eight years of construction, the Erie Canal, which connects the Great Lakes with New York City via the Hudson River at Albany, officially opened; its success propelled New York City into a major commercial center and encouraged canal construction throughout the United States.
1813: British and U.S. troops clashed in the Battle of Châteauguay during the War of 1812.
1795: The National Convention, the assembly that governed France during a pivotal period of the Revolution, was dispersed.

25 Oct

1936: Germany and Italy established the Rome-Berlin Axis.

It’s time to listen to “Gimme Shelter” again, isn’t it? Art, baby!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===

Please help with discovery by posting this week (or maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:

Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

They will want information like this:

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

Space Autistic Author

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (21 Oct 2025 mini)

X. Ho Yen — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 23:18:00 +0000

IN THIS (mini)ISSUE:
* Status (big news for me)
* Science News - one source of hope

* Std Stuff: How to help

Latest substack: Art Appreciation Primer (esp. for readers of my novels)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

IF YOU’RE NEW and want to catch up, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts.

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link! (see see the ‘How to Help’ section at the bottom) https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== Status ===

AotF continues to grow, slowly but surely, now around 30k words in the first draft MS. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of research, so more has gone into notes than the manuscript. It’s all progress.

MSD
But the bigger news (for me) is that yesterday “Minimum Safe Distance” earned an award, and not a finalist mention this time, but 1st Place in the Literary Fiction category in the International Firebird Book Awards contest for Q3 2025 (run by “Speak Up Talk Radio”).

This is huge for me. As of now, all three of my books have garnered actual awards (not just finalist lauds or great reviews), and from different legitimate literary award organizations, so my impostor syndrome about calling myself an award-winning author is waning.

MSD earning the 1st Place award in a Literary Fiction category is also an absolutely huge validation for me. I took real risks with the way I wrote MSD, and I know people who stopped reading it because it was too far out of genre expectations for them. Now my insecurity about saying I write literary science fiction is also waning. Categorization is a huge issue when it comes to reaching an audience. See my new substack article “Art Appreciation Primer (esp. for readers of my novels)”. There’s no easy way to know that you’re writing literary science fiction — there’s not a lot of it about, or at least not to my knowledge. Heinlein’s “Job: A Comedy of Justice” comes to mind. Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” comes to mind. Other examples that come to mind are also from decades ago and/or from famous writers we know from decades ago. It’s not easy to compare one’s writing to theirs! It is, in fact, extremely discomfiting!

This is a dangerous niche to try to write in, since everyone I meet tilts their head in confusion when I say I don’t write space opera, time travel, alien invasion, and the other commonly expected tropes of Hollywoodized sci fi. “Well, then, what do you write?” is always the response, even among fellow writers. I have several substack articles related to this topic:
https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/in-2024-is-sci-fi-dead
https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/more-good-sci-fi
https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/why-this-hard-sci-fi-author-still
https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/p/hugo-winning-novel-disappoints

Anyway, for me this award is one humongous personal and career validation milestone. It helps. It really does. Especially because it’s about MSD, which is very autobiographical and personal, i.e. vulnerable exposure.

On the amusing side of this, the International Firebird Book Award physical medal (that winners may purchase for $45) looks like this:

No dis on Firebird, but does that come across as, um, gaudy?

The description:
”2-inch 3D Die Cast Gold Finish Medal with multi-level design – Black Neck Ribbon
Backside Plate says Firebird Book Award Winner Speak Up Talk Radio, as seen above.”

Maybe it looks better in person. :)

Anyway, I hope you got a kick out of that. I did. But it didn’t stop me from buying one. :)

=== Science News - one source of hope ===

Structure of promising solar tech molecule cracked with aid of machine learning:
https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251001092218.htm

Scientists find brain circuit that traps alcohol users in the vicious cycle of addiction:
https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251006051124.htm

Scientists finally discover what’s behind long COVID’s mysterious brain fog:
https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251006051127.htm

Birds around the world share a mysterious warning cry — parallel evolution in action:
https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251006051113.htm

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===

Please help with discovery by posting this week (or maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:

Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

They will want information like this:

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

Space Autistic Author

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (5 Oct 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 21:55:39 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Quick Status
* WIP SAA (a different kind of gift of art)
* Some News Items
* VIPER rover news
* Citizen Science opportunities — save the world!
* Sardonic Masterclass
* How to help

Latest substacks: Ethics & Validation in my Autistic Brain [updated 28 Sep]; Awesome Science Communicators - this is not ‘fact collecting’; and Red Dwarf - substance over style, but with style

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

IF YOU’RE NEW and want to catch up, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts.

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link! (see see the ‘How to Help’ section at the bottom) https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== Quick Status ===

AotF continues to grow, slowly but surely, now around 26k words in the first draft MS. Not as much progress as at my last report, but day job retirement hasn’t helped as much as I’d hoped. That recent substack article on my meltdown will explain a lot. I’m still adjusting. But I am back to it.

Some of you may have noticed that I changed the top quote panel on my web site. Very important stuff that goes back long before the current situation. Those who don’t know history will be tricked into repeating it.

=== WIP SAA (a different kind of gift of art) ===

Space Autistic Author

SAA isn’t just my way of doing cross-promo with other creatives. It’s not a collection of infomercials. It’s art.

Sure, it’s not a Caravaggio, a Muse progrock opera, or “Ted Lasso”, but if you don’t consider SAA art, then neither do you consider to be art a great many other simple artistic pleasures without which our world would feel barren.

There’s a long history of animation being art, from the amazing visual art of the early Disney works, regressive as they were, through to lowbrow/highbrow works full of brilliant cultural and intellectual nuggets, like The Simpsons, Futurama, Home Movies, Family Guy, Archer, Rick & Morty, and on, through to the Hiyao Miyazaki works, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse, and Flow (see poster shown here). And no doubt others.

I’m not saying “Space Autistic Author” is great like those other works are great. It’s put together by one person. How could it possibly be compared? But what criteria are we using here? “Flow”, for example, could be described as “a cartoon about a cat who survives a flood and has a few somewhat anthropomorphized interactions with other animals”. If that’s the level of investment we’re willing to give something like “Flow”, then sure, we can easily dismiss SAA as the sad rantings of a tortured autistic who should keep his perspectives to himself. Is that really the right way to approach citizen art?

Come on, admit it… my “the smoking man” adaptation in SAA Log 3’s X-Files homage was fun, and unique!

You may not like the particular works in that list above, but you like, or would like, some things very much akin to them, I’m sure. Now imagine your life devoid of your list. The works in your list and mine were created because someone genuinely wanted to create and share something fun, possibly educational, maybe even enlightening. Everything else related to their actually coming into existence for us to experience is about the resources needed to make that happen, and the dedication required to power through all the inertia factors.

Art is not defined by the overblown auctions(/money laundering tricks) of “high society”.

So, yes, SAA is art, damn it. And a great deal of human creativity and artistic and technical effort goes into it. Recognize it for what it is — something heartfelt that joins many other honest works that add those little bits of enjoyment to our lives in an otherwise coldly and manipulatively commercial world.

Ahem. End of inner child defensive rant. :)

As mentioned in the last newsletter, over the last couple of years I’ve had very little success getting creatives interested in a guest appearance on SAA. So, in the absence of better ideas, I’m just going to use it for my own purposes until fellow creatives desire to participate.

On that note, as mentioned above, recently I had a major meltdown. My two psychiatric war buddies were there to hear me with compassion and no judgment, and that (amazingly) pulled me right out of the crisis phase of it. The next episode of SAA will explore that dynamic through more pop sci fi homage (sort of like what I did with Log 3) — I’ll be returning to my roots with a number of Star Trek: The Original Series references. I’ve already built most of the exterior animations, and that was fun. :)

=== Some News Items ===

Here are a few news stories I feel need to be shared.

6th grader's science fair project answers age-old question: 'Do cat buttholes touch everything?'

Levar Burton named ABA’s Indie Bookstore Ambassador 2025-2026

Ex-Trump lawyer says president using Comey indictment to conceal being ‘criminal’

Trump and Putin are carrying out a pincer movement on Europe’s democracies. Suddenly, it all feels a bit 1939

=== VIPER News (which is much bigger than just VIPER) ===

On the science front, here’s a bit of news (thanks, Jay). The VIPER rover I supported for the last three-ish years, and which was inexplicably cancelled very late in the program, has been resurrected as a payload to fly on a Blue Origin vehicle.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-blue-origin-to-deliver-viper-rover-to-moons-south-pole/

That’s nice, but there are so many questions. The way this program (and Artemis as a whole) has been screwed around with from above is unprecedented. Why was it cancelled in the first place? Was it a political stunt to make the current administration seem like saviors of the mission? Was it a way to take the lander contract away from Astrobotics (the original ride) and give it, without going through proper evaluations, to another billionaire collaborator (originally SpaceX, but they can’t get their Starship working reliably in time, so now Jeff Bezos)? I don’t know, but all these unprecedented overrides from above make me wonder. Right now, the Artemis program is only alive through first landing of astronauts. Perhaps a lunar development program named after a female god is simply unacceptable? One must wonder about the value the administration places on VIPER aside from its public relations value and its value as a tax money gift to friends.

If we’re lucky, smarter minds have prevailed and this is the first step in reviving Artemis, because losing it is losing the Moon, and losing the Moon means giving the Moon to China. As noted in this linked story, China routinely pushes its boundaries into international waters and beyond. Dangerous incidents have occurred. Space is no different.

Imagine looking up at the Moon, knowing it’s owned or at least controlled solely by China as a result of these kinds of machinations, just like its other claim-pushing in international waters. That’s a real possibility if we abandon the Moon for what’s nominally a pie-in-the-sky, flags-and-footprints push to Mars but which is really just intended to be a money funnel to Musk/SpaceX. This would be the equivalent, a hundred years ago, of using a cannon to launch cars across the San Francisco Bay Strait rather than letting the engineers build the Golden Gate Bridge, just because the bridge would take years to design, fund, and build properly and one rich guy with the leader’s ear wants the tax money to build a flashy but unsafe car cannon.

=== Citizen Science opportunities — save the world! ===

A special thanks to my old pal, Chris, for pointing me to this Citizen Science resource.

https://CitizenScience.gov

There are many opportunities for casual participation, handled by NOAA, USGS, NASA, etc., from hands-off distributed computing opportunities (where you leave your computer running software that downloads raw data for a given project, processes it using your CPU, then uploads the processed data), to CrowdMag (a cell phone app that collects, processes, and uploads geomagnetic data using your phone’s in-built magnetic sensor in conjunction with your GPS location feature being enabled), to a variety of other more hands-on opportunities (up to building your own backyard radio ‘telescope’ to pick up signals from the Sun, Jupiter, etc. for upload to institutions that know how to use such data).

=== Sardonic Masterclass ===

Normally I wouldn’t include something like this, but this one is for the books, historic.

The All New Government Approved Daily Show with your Patriotically Obedient Host, Jon Stewart

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===

Please help with discovery by posting this week (or maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:

Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

They will want information like this:

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

Space Autistic Author

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (5 Sep 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 17:43:10 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* A Gift of Art to Subscribers
* Quick Status
* Engage! (your creativity, in 20 seconds)
* Science News (and a Seth MacFarlane bit)

* How to help

Latest substacks: on author-targeting scams, also a letter to the new NASA leaders

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

IF YOU’RE NEW and want to catch up, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts.

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link! (see see the ‘How to Help’ section at the bottom) https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== A gift of art to subscribers ===

Another poem, for what it’s worth.

No, it’s not more zombie haiku…

Back in the 80s I wrote a bunch of poems. They were from the heart, and that made them ok. Most were quite short.

In the years between then and now, my attempts at poetry have been less than ok. I couldn’t get out of my own head and just write, aside from the fact that I simply am not a poet by nature.

But a year or two ago, I wrote one that I was proud of, and posted it, I think, on social media. What a waste! I may have also posted it on my now defunct “Ditties” page. I’ll have to dig it up, because it’s worth having. Perhaps some day I’ll have a decent collection of poems.

Life without art is no life at all! Art for life! Here’s my new one, shared exclusively with you, here in my author newsletter.

————————————————-

curbend

Just past dusk,
on a corner
where the curb ends
Under the flickering
helium streetlamp
you wonder

On one side, houses
and the distant glow of
city you can't quite see
On the other hand
dark fields, obscured by
a few trees and bushes,
the forward scouts of
the woods beyond,
or perhaps their
haggard rear flank

At a place where
the road becomes,
more rapidly than you'd expect,
one you don't
merely take
but travel

Where headlights
no longer merely warn
of your impending
but make you
a bubble of civilization,
a spearhead, or perhaps
an escape pod,
an envoy,
an arbiter,
or all
in addition to nothing

Where the curb ends,
venerable concrete,
once mountain,
an asymmetric block
falling in slow motion
On its long
but not so long
freeze-thaw journey
to weed and soil
and sibling stone

You wonder,
on a darking corner where
something approaching
has no good reason
to have left the place
from whence it came

What broke
that vanguard curb

An errant iron horse,
a bolt of lightning,
a flaw in its pouring,
perhaps rushed as
dusk and shadows
approached this
liminal curb and brush

Is there no plan
to fix it

You wonder
what brought
you here
What drove you
from the wood
or the urb
to stand at curbend
and wonder

And the sky to one side
is reflected glow
but to the other
a billion flickering hints
————————————————-

=== Quick Status ===

AotF continues to grow organically, now at >22k words of proper manuscript, plus more in roughs.

Soon enough I’ll need Test Readers for the early chapters! Interested?

I’m retiring from my day job career, so things are settling down and I look forward to having more time and focus to put toward writing.

Also, I’ve updated the covers of my books to include their award badges. My original plan was to be purist about the covers and leave them alone, but that’s just silly. In an age where one must do everything possible just to be glanced at, this had to be done. I did it tastefully, though. :)

In any case, this means those of you who already own a copy have a rare early edition with the virgin cover. :)

Strongly worded letter to new NASA leadership

Recently, the Trump administration’s second NASA Administrator appointee, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, gave an Agencywide Address. After watching that, I sent a strongly worded reply to him, his new Associate Administrator, Amit Kshatriya, and the demoted Associate Administrator, Vanessa Wyche. You can read it here: https://XHoYenAuthor.substack.com/p/strongly-worded-letter-i-sent-to

Share it in support of the NASA family!

=== Engage! (your creativity, in 20 seconds) ===

Space Autistic Author

Over the last couple of years I’ve had very little success getting creatives interested in a guest appearance on SAA.

Should I conclude that the whole idea was bad? Or at least that in execution it’s somehow embarrassing to be a part of it? I personally think it’s charming and fun, but I’ve been wrong before. Thoughts?

I find it enjoyable to reach out via the silly, self-aware low-budgetude of SAA, not to mention its non-podcast nature. My autism prefers to appear on the web not as myself but as my X. Ho Yen persona.

So, I’m considering using SAA as a themed setting in radical new ways, not just cross-promo interviews.

For example, I was wondering about just having even easier, shorter guest spots. Like this:

“I don’t always read irreverent, hopepunk sci fi, but when I do, I read X. Ho Yen.”

You could flank yourself with two attractive people, record that into your phone, and hold up one of my books. Boom! Ten seconds, piece of pie, easy as cake, no fancy recording setup or 60 second self-intro required. You still get the guest credit on youtube and in the credits, of course.

Or maybe a riff off the famous Betty White ad for Snickers bars, where she’s the hangry alter ego of a football player until a Snickers bar transforms her back into him.

“You’re not yourself unless you’re reading X. Ho Yen’s irreverent, hopepunk sci fi!”

I’d add that to the end of an SAA animated sequence:

Wouldn’t you have fun with this incredibly easy-to-record bit?

Shirley there are many possibilities. Like a “Police Squad”-style ten second pre-title guest appearance that ends in you being ejected from an airlock!

In case you’re not old enough to get that reference, “Police Squad” was the “Dragnet” spoof origin of all those Leslie Nielsen “Naked Gun” movies. Before those, Nielsen was known for straight roles. Very straight roles. Anyway, each “Police Squad” episode began with a prominent “Guest Starring ” credit over some dramatic car chase or other danger situation in which that very guest star gets killed, all before the show even started. (Or at least that’s what I remember of it! Gimme a break! It was the mid-80s!) I distinctly recall Florence Henderson being thrown out of a fast-moving car. It was a pretty damn funny, and inexpensive, guest star idea. Abrahams, Zucker, and Zucker were very silly guys, the same whackos behind “Airplane!”, in which Beaver’s mom says something like, “I can help. I speak Jive.” And then she does!

There must be countless geeky/gaming related bits that could also be done. Pull out your CosPlay outfit and channel your already active imagination. :) There could be Star Trek references/scene-bits, or Airwolf, or whatever is your particular thang. Crocheting humor? Why not? Ham radio esoterica? Not only maybe, but hell maybe! :)

You know how to reach me!

=== Science News (and a Seth MacFarlane bit) ===

I like to occasionally share some cool bits of science you won’t get in the popular media vectors, not unless you dig deep. Here are a few items:

Getting closer to artificial photosynthesis — a new way to turn sunlight into carbon-neutral fuel (Switzerland)
This tiny iron catalyst could transform the future of clean energy (China)

Astronomers capture breathtaking first look at a planet being born (Ireland, Netherlands, USA, European Southern Observatory)

Sagan’s Cosmos edited by/for rednecks (25s humor vid from Seth MacFarlane)

Better living through science correctly funded and applied for the common good!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

Please help with discovery by posting this week (or maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:
Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (14 Aug 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 04:57:09 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Quick Status
* STD stuff - how you can help

Latest substack, on author-targeting scams

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
OR subscribe to my Substack and you’ll receive newsletter notifications along with my other Substack content.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem. (Unsubscribing from Substack is separate and is done there.)

IF YOU’RE NEW and want to catch up, after finishing here click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts. :)

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link!
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== Quick Status ===

Poll Results

I received one reply to my polls from the last newsletter, and it supported the status quo.

Therefore, here’s what I’ve decided do. I’ve moved the “Lauds” page in the navigation bar to immediately beside the “About”/landing page to make it more noticeable, I’ll retain my current branding graphic and keywords, and going forward I’ll post an announcement on my Substack channel any time I release a newsletter. Fans can subscribe to my Substack and get both Substack articles and newsletter notifications. The separate newsletter subscription pathway will be retained, and delivery will continue to be on the web site and by email to subscribers.

I also decided to remove my Ditties page.

AotF WIP

Work on AotF continues. I’m up to >15k words of proper manuscript. It has begun to take on a life of its own, which is incredibly fun. And it has enough momentum that I’m able to more easily switch back into AotF writing mode after doing other things, which is also great!

But this project is deeper than CotF was, and the constant gear-switching between my space exploration career and writing work has been a major factor in my slower pace, aside from apocalyptic concerns about ‘Murrica. (e.g. NASA lost 20% of its employees, and Artemis was gutted) Soon I’ll be making a major life change that’ll yield more time and energy for author work, and just might help with my other distractions as well.

CotF Audiobook

The CotF audiobook is on hold until October while my narrators get married and go on a honeymoon. This was not sprung on me. Congrats to Amy and Dan. I wish them all the best.

I Tried to be a Podcast Guest

Recently, we attended another enjoyable meetup with my fellow members of Colorado Authors League, where I learned about PodMatch.com. The next day I had a milestone birthday (60… but don’t worry, 60 is the new 57) which I spent trying to make PodMatch.com work for me. I’ve since sent a systems engineering mentoring missive to a young Nigerian fellow, recent U. of Benin mechanical engineering diploma holder Ezekiel Iferia, who’d just started a podcast 9 days prior. It’s not yet clear whether or not I’ll appear on his podcast, or, if I do, whether or not it would be helpful to me from an author outreach standpoint.

I’m also in the queue for being considered for another podcast… that’s booked until November 2026. PodMatch is a subscription service. As of the release of this newsletter, I’ve already cancelled my subscription. They just added a general search feature for podcasts, and it immediately became apparent to me that my kinds of podcasts aren’t in podmatch’s database. Fortunately, having cancelled that subscription doesn’t preclude the opportunities I just mentioned.

’Puzzling Innerverse’ in the Puzzling Outerverse

In other news, no matter what I do, hands off or hands on, Mindcraft Makerspace simply stopped communicating after saying they wanted to carry “Puzzling Innerverse”. I even dropped off a few copies. Ghosted. My best guess is that the GM visited my web site and found themselves politically incompatible with my progressiveness. If so, that’s a damned shame, and counter to what I would’ve expected from a STEM-oriented company. Regressives are anti-science. But I have no other guesses! My communications were all very professional!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

Please help with discovery by posting this week (or maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:
Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter *MEGA EDITION* (7 Jul 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 02:41:17 +0000

IN THIS =BIG= ISSUE:
* CRUCIAL POLL
* Status: AotF
* NEWS: SAA-PI (+poll)
* ‘Like/Subscribe/Share’ (+poll)
* Status: CotF Audiobook
* Poe Poem; Phone Addiction
* Cosmos Pt1 w/Intro by Ann Druyan
* Std stuff - how you can help

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW and want to catch up, after finishing here click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts. :)

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link!
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== CRUCIAL POLL ===

There are other mini-polls below, but this is the big, crucial one. As always, it’s about DISCOVERY, the #1 challenge for any indie.

Should I switch from a push-delivered text email newsletter to a follow/subscribe-delivered method? Is text acceptable, or must it become video?

FACTORS TO CONSIDER:

This email newsletter is not growing in readership. Let’s ignore for now all factors related to my being an autistic weirdo and occasionally, inevitably annoying. After all, if that were the real problem, one would have expected occasional new subscribers followed by occasional unsubscribes, especially back when I was actively trying to engage with new (albeit ultimately poorly targeted) groups on social media, and after announcements here of big milestones, like awards or great reviews. But it’s just flat. That would strongly support the notion that email and friendly forwarding of email newsletters simply isn’t a method of growth.

I’ve asked around, and have learned that this is because email is problematic for many people, especially anyone younger than 40 (or even 50? a decade makes a difference when the internet is concerned). There’s so much spam that it’s now the norm to not use email for human communication. Nobody wants to wade through dozens of spam messages and transaction-related emails to find one newsletter they may or may not have noticed came through. Someone at work told me this directly. He isn’t interested in email for anything, and managing these things using multiple email addresses is not something he does. He asked family members about this, and they all seemed to suggest that follow/subscribe-based delivery is preferable.

Even follow/subscribe-based delivery has that “lost in the feed” problem, same as stacks of emails. But with follow/subscribe, users seem to be okay with scanning through their feed knowing it’s all stuff they subscribed to. Maybe neurotypicals and those under 40/50 have an easier time organizing their feeds while scanning it just because of that. (?)

Plus, the follow/subscribe-based delivery approach seems to involve apps that push a notification to your phone (if you allow such notifications).

Substack is a follow/subscribe-based delivery system, and perfectly suited for newsletters. It feels like the world is pushing me to switch my newsletters from siteblog+email to Substack.

Both this blog (which I manually copy to email and send from home, because Squarespace would charge me money to send it from the website) and Substack have RSS URLs. I port this blog to Goodreads via its RSS URL, but Substack also supports RSS, so that feature would not be lost by switching to Substack.

But switching to Substack by no means guarantees more exposure. Sharing and cross-stacking won’t increase compared to email forwarding just because it’s Substack and not email. The only real difference is that Substack is follow/subscribe and email is pure push.

Youtube is also follow/subscribe-based, but ultimately has the same “lost in the feed” problem as anything else. And videos are far and away more time-consuming to create.

Best I can tell, BlueSky is structurally no different from Twitter/Facebook. If it hasn’t become enshittified yet, I suspect that’s more a selection effect than anything else. In any case, I simply can’t use SM, by psychology, by temperament. No, social media, even BlueSky, simply is not for me. I rely on the kindness of strangers (and not-so-strangers) among my subscribers to cross-post to their SM.

Catalog expansion and receiving lauds also have had no effect on subscribership.

What do you think of all this? Is switching to follow/subscribe-based delivery valuable (enough) in and of itself? Or is this a non-problem, and I should just keep doing what I’m doing for outreach? Would you be okay with subscribing to my Substack in order to receive my “author newsletters”? Or would making that switch ultimately decrease my subscribership? Would that be problematic if it also included my other substack articles, which often are very Op/Ed? Would it be preferable for me to start a second channel on Substack solely for my “author newsletters”, to isolate those from my other Substack content? Would that have a better chance of cross-pollinating? Or is text itself just dead and should I switch to video? Or what? I definitely don’t have the temperament or energy to do multiple outreach media, like text, podcast, and video.

Please send me your thoughts/opinions/expertise, Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!

=== Status: AotF ===

I continue to work on AotF. Lately, I’ve been thinking about and researching world elements that both set the realism tone and support and inform later story events: looking into the physical conditioning requirements on the Moon, modeling the Sun’s location in the time frames of the story using a tool called Celestia, using lunar topography maps as a way to estimate terrain on the horizon (yes, I know precisely where the story takes place on the Moon), calculating resultant lengths of shadows, that sort of thing.

Don’t worry, these kinds of technical elements are background elements. But getting the background right is crucial, especially early on. This work has already revealed some important things about the characters! It also just about has its own momentum (in terms of the writing), except for the CotF audiobook project (see status below) which tends to interrupt me. One of my autistic things is having a strong need to finish one big thing before moving on to the next…

=== NEWS: Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse (+poll) ===

"Puzzing Innerverse" has another 5-star review on Amazon, this time from world famous author, space artist, and recent Antarctic science data collector, Michael Carroll. That’s wonderful! I know Michael, but he did this on his own. (and then at lunch he asked for my autograph on the copy he bought for his neurodivergent grandson…damn!) Here’s his fb page about his latest book, which is about Artemis.

There are reviews, and then there are reviews.

In response to submitting the book to their awards contest, Literary Titan wrote a review of “Puzzling Innerverse” that’s astoundingly and unequivocally positive, and very well written, too. It’s crystal clear that the reviewer truly dug into and dug this book, i.e. did not merely skim it in order to write a first impression review.

Check it out! https://literarytitan.com/2025/06/18/space-autistic-authors-puzzling-innerverse/

See what I mean? It’s hard to beat that line about C&H and CJ, but there are so many deeply complimentary turns of phrase in this review, I can’t decide which is most impactful. So, on the book’s website page I’ve quoted two of them, while letting readers discover the C&H/CJ one for themselves.

As always, I include these kinds of things on my /lauds page on my web site, which is starting to look impressive for a new writer. I might make that one my web site’s landing page instead of the /about page. Poll: Should I do that? What say ye?

= THE EVEN BIGGER NEWS =

Puzzling Innerverse also won a Gold Award at Literary Titan!

Click to visit the award announcement page, look at Row 4, Column 2!

https://literarytitan.com/2025/07/07/literary-titan-book-award-childrens-books/

=== ‘Like/Subscribe/Share’ (+poll) ===

You know how youtubers always take a moment to ask you to like/subscribe/share? It’s a human nature thing. The rule about discovery on the web is to proactively request help. And it works. Nice people want to help, but sometimes need that request. Otherwise, us little guys are just posting in cul-de-sacs in small neighborhoods somewhere off the information superhighway.

Please help with discovery by posting this week (maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:
Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds

That /lauds page is a good one to share!

Amusingly (?), I saw someone skim those descriptors and read that first one as “irrelevant”, at least in scan. Zowee! Should I change my web site and outreach branding graphic to use a different word? Which word? Sassy? Subversive? I think “sassy” isn’t quite apt. And I had intentionally chosen “irreverent” over “subversive” to avoid the latter’s negative connotations. Am I being too prissy about that? What say ye?

It goes without saying that if you’ve read one of my works and it worked for you, but you haven’t yet posted a review, please do so. Every positive review helps, both the legitimate pro reviews (like that Literary Titan one) and reviews by readers like you. A nice person named Daniel posted this one shortly after SAA-PI was published:

=== Status: CotF Audiobook ===

Here’s my wonderful, brilliant team! You should hear them!

I’m pleased to report that we have completed production on chapters 1 through 3 and have our sea legs. Chs.4-6 are almost done. Tomorrow, the world! (When Amy and Dan become famous, I’m hoping they’ll drag my books along in their wake after attaching their names to the CotF audiobook. :) )

We’re making…

=== Poe Poem ===

This poem speaks to me profoundly. EAP went through early life trauma, too.

“Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe

Analysis of “Alone”, via shadowofiris.com

I urge anyone with a few moments of time to look up a brief biography of Edgar Allan Poe (e.g. wikipedia’s). His short life (<41 orbits) and unexplained death were quite, eh, gothic.

“After Poe's death, Rufus Wilmot Griswold wrote his obituary under the pseudonym "Ludwig". Griswold, who became the literary executor of Poe's estate, was actually a rival of Poe and later published his first full biography, depicting him as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman. Much of the evidence for this image of Poe is believed to have been forged by Griswold, and though friends of Poe denounced it,[3] this interpretation had a lasting impact.” — wikipedia articles

Illustration by Édouard Manet for a French translation by Stéphane Mallarmé of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". (1875, public domain)

=== Phone Addiction ===

”How I Cured My Phone Addiction (permanently)”

I accidentally ran across this video while researching a tech tool and felt it had a smart approach to life management worth sharing.

This gent seems like he might have OCD, and if someone with OCD can cure phone addiction, his approach is worth a few moments, even if on your phone. :)

=== Cosmos Pt 1 w/Intro by Ann Druyan ===

If this isn’t still apropos in every way, if this doesn’t stir in you the joy of intellect and curiosity, then you’re a monkey’s ancestor and descendant!

Gather your kids (if any), allocate 40 minutes of your time with this video set to 1.25x play speed, and bask in the poetry of the original Cosmos! (but prepare for ads, hover over the skip button, lower right)

https://youtu.be/W9dptug4wzY

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

Please help with discovery by posting this week (or maybe set reminders in your calendar for July and November?) something like the following:
Know someone who likes irreverent, inclusive, hopepunk sci fi? Check out this award-winning author: XHoYenAuthor.com/lauds

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (6 Jun 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 15:57:06 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Status: AotF
* News: CotF
* Hyoomons, LandSat
* Std stuff - how you can help

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW and want to catch up, after finishing here click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining.

My substack articles & youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and/or thoughtful material that would never fit into tiny SM posts. :)

=== Status: AotF ===
I’m in the second chapter of “Attendants of the Future”, at least as important as the first.

What one finds when writing the second chapter is that there’s enough skeleton to start adding tissues and organs, and that’s not a process I want to rush. It affects everything else. So it’s daunting.

I don’t want to do to this book what the Talosians did to Vina! I want to mull and give it organic depth, discovering where and how to do that properly as the world and characters become more real. I’m not going to rush this.

And I can assure you, AotF will be different from CotF and MSD. An improvement on both, I hope.

Vina, rebuilt incorrectly by the Talosians! lol (Star Trek, 1966)

=== News: CotF ===
Part Eins

After shipping/reshipping delays caused by the administration’s border policies, The Wishing Shelf Awards in the UK finally was able to get my Award Winner medal through to me.

See pic. This makes the win feel more real! Award-winning author!

Part Zwei

Before release in Oct 2023, a most egregious error snuck into the “Custodians of the Future” manuscript.

Right there at the top of Chapter 1, Page 1.

I noticed it some months after release, after buying a box of them for local sales, after friends and family bought some, after I gave some away. I know that some folks who bought it have read it, including reviewers. But not one person/organization has called me out on this error, including the one that gave it an award.

Until now, I’ve tried to ignore it, especially because no one has complained. That’s a good sign, of course. I’ve told myself no one cares or even noticed once they got going in the story.

But I can’t ignore it any more! It’s wrong! It’s broken! I must DESTROY the error!

So, I have just uploaded to all sites the revised book with that error fixed.

For copyright purposes, it’s just a minor correction, three letters, so a whole new cert is not required. It’s also such a minor change that the revision does not constitute a new edition. The substance of the story has not been affected.

And yet, it truly is (was!) an important thing to fix. This sounds paradoxical, but IYKYK.

Are you curious? Did you notice the error but decided not to say anything? Write me and tell me what you think it is (was!). I promise to divulge.

Those of you who already own a copy of CotF now have a “rare original release”. :)
Part Drei

In other news, and this is partly what has disturbed my calm about the error and drove me to fix it, I’ve begun the process of making an audiobook rendition of CotF!

We can’t have that error narrated into an audiobook!

MSD’s audiobook was so much work and so costly that it ionized me. But I got better. (Bonus merits to anyone who recognizes that movie paraphrase.)

Yesterday I had a WhatsApp vidchat with the UK-based narrator duo I’m hiring to build it. I should say no more about this right now, it’s too early, but after that chat I was full of hope! (mark your calendar! me, hope!) If all goes well, someday I’ll be trying to blast their names all over the place while promoting the audiobook, at which point I’ll ask for your help in doing so. :)

=== Hyoomons ===
Need more be said? Watch the vid.

https://youtu.be/VckBixF-H-A
Kiwi describes injuries from hospital after UK cheese race win
Every year there are multiple ambulances and a helicopter on site. They were used.

=== LandSat ===

LandSat-7 was decommissioned a couple of days ago after a 25 year mission, 20 years longer than the planned mission.

This satellite and the LandSat program have completely transformed our lives in amazingly valuable ways we totally take for granted. Enjoy this article!

https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/news/a-final-farewell-landsat-7

LandSats 8 and 9 are currently operating (since 2013 and 2021, respectively), and ‘LandSat Next’ is slated to launch in 2031.

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (6 May 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Tue, 06 May 2025 23:23:56 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Kilometerstones
* Reality, Fun & Not
* Std stuff - how you can help

Check out my substack articles! They’re like a math problem you thought would be difficult, but turned out not to be!

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back to catch up.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned vampiric “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :) My substack articles and youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and thoughtful material.

=== Kilometerstones ===
AotF:
After organizing my story concepts, a process which further lased through the stone block to uncover important complementary aspects of the story, I’ve finally started the writing proper for “Attendants of the Future”.
I often wish I had a creative collaborator with whom I could explore ideas (safely). It was something we did in our youth, me and my two friends, separately, and it was a blast. The last time this happened was twenty years ago, with MSD. But adults have neither the time nor the inclination, unless they’ve gone down the dark road of writing, too, in which case they’re wary of discussing their ideas with other writers, as am I. Or they’re just weary, as am I.
It turns out that chatGPT is a useful tool for organizing and crystallizing story concepts, as long as you don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking of it as sentient or perfect. It has real limitations.
I did not use it to write anything, although one or two of its organized regurgitations sparked one or two incidental naming choices. No, I used the thing to reflect my disorganized firehose blast of story ideas back at me in the form of thematically consistent, structured, outline-type materials of one kind or another. Those outputs were not perfect, but they achieved what I was having trouble achieving on my own — arriving at a broad skeletal structure that captures my ideas, thus allowing me to fill in the details with the writing proper.
My hope is that in the future I’ll be able to internalize those processes and just get there on my own. For now, chatGPT allegedly doesn’t upload your stuff to their servers. It’s probably a good idea to not assume that will always be the case, so I don’t want to become reliant on it.
Thus far, I’ve written about half of the first chapter, which is nothing to sneeze at. That first chapter is crucial for laying groundwork and hooking the reader. There’s no rush — even after I finish the manuscript, I’ll be hiring a pro editor again for a developmental edit. I have a good feeling about this novel.
As mentioned in my recent substack about using AI for marketing, I also used the thing to improve the blurbs for MSD, CotF, and Puzzling Innerverse. You’ll see those new blurbs on each book’s page, and I truly believe you’ll agree that the globe’s experience in marketing as reflected in that large-language model/generative pre-trained transformer tool exceeds my experience in marketing. The new blurbs are a real improvement.

New discounted direct-buy links on my /Books page:
IngramSpark recently added discount direct-buy links in Pounds Sterling (GBP), in addition to the old ones in USD. I’ve added those GBP links to my books page. Those are only for paper copies. The /Books page provides all other purchase options, e.g. for eBooks, of course.

=== Reality, Fun & Not ===
First, the fun side of reality:
Curt Jaimungal is a physics communicator/journalist on youtube. He’s very smart and does not merely regurgitate what others are saying or the ways in which they communicate. Curt appreciates rigor, and he’s not afraid to have frank interactions with famous, big names. (see his interview with Leonard Susskind, for example)

Allow me to share two of his videos. Stick with them. The second one might sound like one long stream of Star Trek Voyager-esque technogibberish, or it might actually make some sense to you, depending on your background and proclivities. (For me, it’s somewhere in between.) I HOPE THAT EITHER WAY YOU CAN DERIVE ENJOYMENT AND/OR OTHER VALUE FROM THESE VIDEOS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-ybecvuEo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcY3ZtgYis0

And here’s a completely different experience from StarTalk. I think you’ll agree that it’s just a wonderful discussion that everyone should see.
https://youtu.be/49X-XB7Gj8o?feature=shared

Next, the not so fun side:
As expected, the current U.S. administration’s proposed budget:
includes a 25% reduction in the NASA budget, unprecedented since the post-Apollo rampdown; as a reminder: the NASA budget hasn’t changed from around $25B (absolute) in decades, and is a tenth of a cent out of every tax dollar, orders of magnitude less than the military budget, and, for reference, is much smaller than the alcohol and big sports markets; NASA expands our knowledge, inspires us, boosts the economy, and literally saves the world — there’s zero reason to ruin it and every reason to give it more support;
includes ending our Artemis lunar development program (after the first attempt to get astronauts there, so they can either take credit for it or use a failure to whack NASA — governance by posturing, not by prudent, hardy, forward-thinking policy pursuits);
includes ending climate research programs — ‘nuff said!;
and includes a redirection of billions to a Mars program (i.e. to SpaceX/Musk); elsewhere I’ve explained that the best, fastest, cheapest, safest, most reliable way to execute a crewed Mars program is to develop our capabilities on the Moon (i.e. the current Artemis program); also, the rest of the spacefaring nations, notably including China, are going to the Moon and will be developing fueling and staging infrastructure there, to go to the asteroids or anywhere else more effectively and efficiently, including Mars, and notably occupying a military high ground unlike any other, one where abused advantage is world-changing, not merely ‘at some front line on Earth’; our not going to the Moon would be a geopolitical failure of epic, historic scale — engaging in cold war both prepares for hot war and prevents hot war, and, make no mistake, we have been in a space race cold war since the 1950s, keeping the geopolitical balance in that highest of high grounds. This administration has offered to hand all that to the Chinese and others for short term tax budget funneling to Musk.
In the past, budget hostage-taking always happened, but it was expected that after negotiations a 95% status quo would be reached. There used to be 80% overlap between parties on what was good for the nation. In the current political situation, those in power really don’t care about what’s good for the nation and don’t want status quo, they want to redirect billions to their clique of billionaires while being able to spin these changes as ‘bold leadership’. What they propose is designed to be a win for them and NOT for the public regardless of how negotiations pan out. So it really is very possible for a catastrophic budget like this one to go through. The forces of sanity and statesmanship only have so much fortitude and leverage. Gird your loins. Engage as appropriate.

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (5 Apr 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 15:52:30 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Kilometerstones!
* A Taxing Account
* Std stuff - how you can help

Check out my substack articles! They’re like a math problem you thought would be difficult, but turned out not to be!

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back to catch up.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned vampiric “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :) My substack articles and youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and thoughtful material.

=== Kilometerstones! ===
Allow me to share two nice kilometerstones that are helping to keep me at this, despite myself.

First kilometerstone of note: Earlier this month the UK’s The Wishing Shelf Awards (TheWSA) announced their 2024 book award winners, and “Custodians of the Future” is among them, earning a Silver-level win in the fiction for adults category.

Yes, Virginia, X. Ho Yen is now an award-winning author! And The Wishing Shelf is legit, too. For example, “Puzzling Innerverse” did not win at TheWSA, although its reviewers had fairly nice things to say nonetheless:

Star Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)
Number of Readers: 15
Readers’ Comments:
“I enjoy a good puzzle, so this was good for me. I liked how chatty the author was, making it fun. I couldn’t do all of them – too difficult, but I did most.” Boy, aged 11
“There’s maths and logic and all sorts in this puzzle book. I thought it was very original. Me and my pal, Albert, worked through them in a lesson. Our TA helped. There’s sort of a story as well as the puzzling. Fun!” Boy, aged 12
“You had to find words and work out the right way to go. You have to think a lot which is always good to do. The innerverse was interesting too, but a bit complicated. A+ for originality. I thought the cover could be better.” Girl, aged 12 – with a little help from mum
“Interesting book for 9 – 12 year olds. Plenty to keep minds twirling! The layout’s a bit messy, but it’s still interesting and even thought-provoking for young minds.” Primary school teacher, aged 44
To Sum It Up:
‘A wonderful array of clever puzzles and games to keep 9 – 12 year olds engrossed.’ The Wishing Shelf Book Awards

How nice! :) It’s hard to pit Puzzling Innerverse against passive-read kids’ books. Any time the user considers one of its brain tasks challenging, that will tend to count against it. And it isn’t as “warm and fuzzy” as typical kids’ books. I get it. No sweat. :)

Second kilometerstone of note: “Puzzling Innerverse” is soon to be on the shelf at the STEAM/STEM-oriented store MindCraft Makerspace, in The Stanley Market in Denver. It has continued to sell at least one a month at Boulder’s “The Bookworm”, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it fares at MindCraft, where customers are already STEAM/STEM-oriented.
We recently discovered that Puzzling Innerverse also got a 5-star review on Amazon shortly after release (its only review there as of this writing). That’s gotta count for something.

=== A Taxing Account ===
I believe that governments of/by/for The People are big Unions, existing to protect serfs from oligarchs. So I’m fine with paying union dues (taxes) in exchange for rule of law protections, not to mention infrastructure, parks, safety nets, etc. (And I want my representatives to ensure that tax money isn’t merely funneled into the accounts of corrupt officials. There’s the rub that requires eternal vigilance.)
Some events that authors attend involve having a table and selling books directly to customers. A state tax representative approached me (and others at author tables) at an event in 2023 to point out that we need to pay sales tax on direct sales.
I was a bit surprised by that. Okay, Dealers Room vendors who sell a lot of stuff at multiple events every year, sure. But individual indie authors selling maybe a few books at one or two events a year, mostly for the exposure? To make such activities onerous through tax bureaucracy not only costs the state more than it’s worth, it discourages authors from coming to such a state and engaging with the public, which has a dampening effect on state commerce.
Anyway, wanting to handle this legally, and anticipating the possibility of having an author sales table at future events, I obtained a Special Events sales tax license in late 2023 covering 2024-2025.
Either I forgot to file my $42 in gross sales at COSine in January 2024 (we had cancer and surgeries in that same time frame), or I thought that such a low amount (often <$100 is a threshold) would not require filing.
Well, having totally forgotten about my three books in direct sales in January 2024, I recently received a tax+penalty+interest levy from the state to the tune of $1287.00, $1260 of which was the assumed tax owed.
The state DOR rep I recently communicated with explained that they knew I had attended COSine 2024. The only way to have known that was to have someone at the event watching and taking notes. Spying. On individual, indie authors selling a few books. Imagine how much that cost the state, compared to possible tax revenue from a few books sold.
At 2.9%, in order to owe $1260 in taxes I would have to have sold $43,448 worth of books at that one event. And at something like $1.50 margin on each book (~50% more than my margin for vendor online sales), that would mean I would have to have sold 65,172 books. At that one event.
Apparently, they levied some kind of maximum estimated tax amount in order to get my attention and punish me for not filing my $42 in gross sales at that event. They succeeded in getting my attention.
But this demonstrates that Colorado is applying event sales tax requirements to the letter, even though processing the $2 in taxes on $42 in sales costs the state much more than that to process such a filing, answer email questions, and send spies to events.
I would not be surprised to learn that a number of my fellow small-time indie authors who sell books (and maybe bookmarks, stickers, etc.) at events have also recently received such a shocking, punitive levy.
I was told “You need to file an amended sales tax return for that event to reverse the estimated return.” Okay, great. So I did that online. Colorado has a nice online system for filing various returns, including Special Event sales tax returns. The processing fee for my $2 in owed tax was $0.81. So some credit card company got 40.5% of this transaction. Did Big Finance have something to do with the laws that force state DOR reps to do these silly things? At least I did get confirmation that the punitive levy was retracted after I filed my amended return.
I was also told “Anytime you attend an event, it will expect that you made sales at that event. You would have to file a return for each event you attend. If you file the return, it will not place an estimated return on your account.” “It” will expect. “It”. AI? Or just bureaucrats doing the bidding of Big Finance? “It” will assume big sales for every event! So now, every event I attend requires me to file a Special Event sales tax return of $0.00 gross sales in order to avoid this punitive assumed sales tax levy. Is this Constitutionally legal?
Not only that, the online system does not allow one to enter $0.00 in sales. The state DOR representative told me to enter $1 in sales, which would process out to zero tax. So, to be clear, the state DOR representative told me to lie on a sales tax return, which I did for my COSine 2025 return to avoid the assumed 65,172 books in sales. I didn’t even have an author table at COSine 2025, I just attended panels. (The DOR rep told me that the state is aware of the $0.00 entry problem.)
I didn’t get an answer to the question of whether the state, after my Special Event sales tax license expires, would stop assuming I’m selling 65,172 books at every event I attend. For now, I’m making that assumption, because otherwise they’d have to deploy monitoring and punitive measures against anyone/everyone attending events, which would be rather draconian not to mention shoot-yourself-in-the-foot expensive. The DOR rep did close my Special Event sales tax license for me when I asked about this, so I think that’s the answer.
My Special Events sales tax license expires at the end of 2025. I can’t wait. I will never do direct sales again. The way this was handled by the Colorado DOR serves as a strong disincentive to register for such a license in the first place. I would not be surprised if many of my fellow small-timers don’t even try to follow this path, nor would I blame them at this point. It’s this kind of ham-handed, officious handling of such matters that gives governments and taxation a bad name. I sent letters to my various representatives.

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (22 Mar 2025)(upd. 31 Mar 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 16:36:49 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* The (latest) Big Theft
* Quick Update
* Actual Good News
* Me & Aviation
* Std stuff - how you can help

I’ve written another substack article since last newsletter. Check it out!

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back to catch up.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned vampiric “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :) My substack articles and youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and thoughtful material.

=== The (latest) Big Theft === (upd. 31 Mar 2025)
I woke up this morning to an email from the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers Association) noting that Meta is known to have stolen millions of published works to train their AI. The note pointed to an article in The Atlantic with a search option. (upd. 31 Mar 2025: Here’s an Author’s Guild link that doesn’t require a subscription to see all the info, with an easy pathway to send a letter.)
I checked, and lo and behold, both “Minimum Safe Distance” and “Custodians of the Future” are in that database.
I then searched for other authors and found:
James S. A. Corey
Levi Jacobs
Mike Torreano
Ben Weilert
Jodi Bowersox (until very recently President of the Colorado Authors League)
John Scalzi
N. K. Jemisin
Mey-Yen Moriuchi (art history professor and author)

I stopped there.
It’s the SFWA’s policy, as with other organizations of creatives, that permission should be required and payment should be made for the use of creatives’ works, i.e. Thou Shalt Not Steal.
With names like Scalzi, Jemisin, and Corey among the theft victims, and who knows how many other famous and influential authors in the database, I wonder if a class action lawsuit will be brought.
This is another example of a corporation weighing the costs of taking illegal and unethical action. There’s no way that any legal actions, if successful (a big question when oligarchs are currently in power), could take away Meta’s AI, and I can’t imagine that the AI could be reverse-trained to remove the stolen works. If anything, after years of legal sandbagging there might be a class action payout of two cents per crime victim. At least, that’s my cynical view. That’s what has happened with so many class action lawsuits when products were found to cause health problems due to negligence or outright cost-benefit calculation, or companies let their databases be breached, releasing fundamental personal data to hackers (possibly their own hackers, to bypass legally required safeguarding).
My cynicism on that point is not an argument against class action lawsuits. There simply must be some punitive cost associated with companies taking illegal and immoral actions. I prefer it to be painful, to establish discouraging precedents for future companies making this cost-benefit calculation. If our legal system is going to consider corporations to be legal persons, then the same legalities about theft must apply to corporations as apply to les miserables who steal bread. If they’re not legal persons, then since they’re so powerful, even more stringent legalities should apply! As has always been the case, white collar criminals can steal a billion times more than petty thieves on the street.
Anyway, here I am, among countless other creatives getting their stuff stolen. I’m in good company.

=== Quick Update ===
Owing to things of the above nature, I’m having a great deal of difficulty writing my next novel. Not story development, the actual writing.
I’m striving to write from a place of joy and to stave off my pedantic side as much as possible, at least from an expositional standpoint. I’ll always be a protest writer.
But as I’ve mentioned before, I only have a few joy neurons, and the current state of things continues to make it extremely difficult for me to find a way to infuse my writing with joy. My state of mind has always been tied to the wider world. I’m not an out of sight, out of mind kind of person. It’s a bit of a curse.
I promise I’ll keep at it. It’d be a crime to stop now. They’d win.
In happier news, The Bookworm in Boulder, CO, continues to move my books. Three more have sold since the last time I replenished their stock. That’s not nothin’! And, as always, it’s not about sales, it’s about exposure. I’ll likely remain in the red on this endeavor probably until the day I die, but when walk-ins at a college town bookstore buy my books, I have to consider that some kind of validation.

=== Actual Good News ===
Recently, I scanned through Science Daily. I was surprised to find that there’s actual good news. Let’s take heart in some of these news items.
These first few are a bit removed from daily life, but they’re good news! Basic research advancements always yield countless improvements to life on the streets.
First operating system for quantum networks
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250312123858.htm
(quantum computing and quantum networking will solve so many currently untenable big problems)
New DESI results strengthen arguments that dark energy may evolve
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250320214311.htm
(this is just one big news item in cosmology, along with stories about Penrose’s ‘gravitise QM’ efforts and the developing Quantum Holonomy Theory which will finally break the last century’s stagnancy in basic physics)
Weather emergencies affect older adults’ views on climate and health
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250320145454.htm
(people, especially older people, actually changing their views on a topic like this is always good news)
Experimental mRNA cancer vaccine shows potential for advanced stage cancer patients in Phase 1 trial
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/09/240913145621.htm
(we’re finally entering the era of actual medical progress against cancer)
Anti-amyloid drug shows signs of preventing Alzheimer's dementia
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250319225201.htm
Robotics and spinal stimulation restore movement in paralysis
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250312145730.htm
Paralyzed man moves robotic arm with his thoughts
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250306153135.htm
These are just some of the good news items coming from science research. I saw another one about a new method for creating biodegradable plastic (vs. the big problem of forever chemicals), and another about good news related to carbon absorption in wetlands. It really is possible that we might beat this thing through science rather than government action, which continues to fail us all, across the world but especially in the D.S.A. So join me, the ultimate cynic, in taking heart. Fight on!

=== Me & Aviation ===
The following is not boasting. It’s me trying to feel good about myself, and, hopefully, offering inspiration to keep learning and creating, no matter the context.
Owing to the above paralysis, I recently found myself flightsimming again. It’s expansive (see the world), technical, and genetically fun (we evolved jumping around in trees). Countless real world pilots (i.e. aviation addicts) are flightsimmers, not just armchair aviation enthusiasts. And many flightsimmers also create freeware or payware addons — sceneries, flyable craft, utilities. It’s a big thing.

A couple of decades ago, I had my fifteen minutes of fame in the flightsimming addon world.
Afterward, I decided to test my simulated aviating against reality by getting a PPL Glider ticket at Mile High Gliding at Boulder Muni. Years of “edge of envelope” technical simflying translated perfectly, and my instructor, Dave, agreed. I also had a discovery flight with a coworker, Richard, in his Piper Archer II. Thanks, Richard!
Glider training is great — it’s ultimately less expensive than powered flight (the money people spend on alcohol could easily pay for it), you generally fly out of uncontrolled airports, so all that annoying ATC radio work and “airspace flying lawyer” stuff isn’t required (unless you move on to cross-country gliding, depending), and you get to do stuff single-engine prop students don’t get to do (cable towing ops is a kind of formation flying, tricky on its own, and take my word for it, stall-spins in a medium performance glider with a parachute on your back will get your blood pumping).

My fifteen minutes of fame in flightsimming, just to close out this bit, came from having created a wildly popular aircraft carrier experience package. This was early millenium, and there was no such capability in general flightsims, MSFS in particular.
One aspect was landable top and middle deck surfaces for a very nice aircraft carrier static scenery (created by Javier Fernandez). At the time, it was absolute computing wizardry to put landable surfaces on stuff in the sim, and that took great effort and patience to work out experimentally. The other aspect was a software add-on that allowed cable traps and steam catapulting, with sound effects. My product, ArrestorCables, started out as freeware. That version received a ‘Bear Gold Award’ from one of the big online repositories. For a few years there, multiple online flying guilds used ArrCab for traps and cats, doing realistic oval patterns, coordinating with each other on voice comms. I even received a note from a former naval aviator thanking me, saying it felt (and sounded) realistic to him. Then I was approached by Abacus for inclusion in one of their products, Flight Deck III, which was on store shelves for a time. When that exclusive license contract ran out, I put ArrestorCables back into freeware. Eventually, it was replaced by other utilities, but it opened the door.
I have a shadow box to remember all this. This is an example of what I mean when I say I’ve always been a creative, one way or another. You can, too!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (23 Feb 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 04:32:34 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Kilometerstones
* Life Things
* Std stuff - how you can help

I’ve written another substack article since last newsletter. Check it out!

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back to catch up.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned vampiric “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :) My substack articles and youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and thoughtful material.

=== Kilometerstones ===
More Finalist lauds for “Custodians of the Future”!
“Custodians of the Future” has two new Finalist lauds, The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2024 and Indies Today Awards 2024. TWSA is pending the winners announcements in April (at which point a link will become available). I don’t expect CotF to win, but Finalist lauds are nothing to sneeze at!

=== Life Things ===
This January I had two surgeries and a family life event in the midst of work upsets caused by Executive Orders driven by posturing and corruption. (What affects civil servants affects me, as my company is essentially NASA employees offloaded to a contracting company to save overhead money.) So it’s all been pretty distracting. But I’m not daunted. “Attendants of the Future” will happen. I want to make it a good one, and not just more of the same. I’m allowing myself the possibility of not completing it until 2026. I never want to write more of the same.

In parallel, last year I started pursuing the professional creation of my AotF cover design, but have run into months of snags and delays. I’m cutting MiblArt slack on this — they live in a country invaded! (Ukraine!)

We attended a pro-Ukraine rally today. Defense of Ukraine against the Russian invasion and the new attempts to rape its resources by the new U.S. government is nothing less than defense of the free world and of the very idea of government of, by, and for The People. It’s that important.
https://www.bbc.com/news/war-in-ukraine
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/15/europe/zelensky-trump-putin-ukraine-russia-peace-talks-intl/index.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/ukraine-russia-crisis/

S.S. United States, larger than the Titanic, to be sunk in the Gulf of Steve Martin.
(I call it the Gulf of Steve Martin, because that’s what Steve Martin calls it now, according to his SNL 50th Anniversary show opening monologue. Works for me.)

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (27 Jan 2025)

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 22:24:51 +0000

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Kilometerstones
* Convention Report
* Eulogy for sister Heide
* Std stuff - how you can help

I’ve written more substack articles since last newsletter. Check them out!

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW, after finishing here, click on the “Older Posts >” link at bottom (web newsletter only) to read a few newsletters back to catch up.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned vampiric “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :) My substack articles and youtube channel replace social media, and contain fun and thoughtful material.

=== Kilometerstones ===
Bona fide journalism coverage!

As a result of MSD earning a Finalist laud in the CAL Book Awards 2024 (both novels now have 2 Finalist lauds), the Colorado Sun ran a Sunlit piece on me on 29 Dec 24, a day after my 28 Dec newsletter. :)
That led to public radio station KUNC contacting me for an 8-minute interview for their “In the NoCo” show. It went really well!
I’m absolutely thrilled by this coverage, and I’ll be pinching myself for a long time to come! These are permalinked on my Media page. Share and enjoy!
Speaking of my Media page, I continually improve my web site as I update it. If you haven’t visited in a while, please do! Go down the rabbit hole! :)

=== Convention Report ===

Colorado Springs Science Fiction Convention (COSine) 2025

I was on three panels at COSine this year, and I also enjoyed chatting with some con attendees and my fellow creatives (in no particular order) Lena Johnson, Ben Weilert, Jim Henderson, Tiffany Passmore, Caitrin Casey, Rachael Kuintzle, and Stephanie A. Gillis, plus Science Guest of Honor Dr. KaChun Yu (grad school buddy, also with Cantonese roots). Look them up! We’ll miss you, Stephanie! Bon voyage to Ohio!

The panels:

FRIDAY 24 January, 2025
5-6pm: Cripple Creek
War in Space
”Our panelists discuss what war in space might look like, both realistic as-of today, and potential based on the trajectory of technology.”
Wil McCarthy (M), Jim Henderson, X. Ho Yen, Chris Miskimon

This was a fun discussion. I started off with my framing of the topic, which was that

Another year with snow at COSine

Dead seXy! (Adding this hotel pic to see who’s reading. Way outside my comfort zone! Not me! Regrets already!)

cold war is war, and cold war has two purposes — to prevent hot war and to prepare for hot war — so tech research and recon are part and parcel, both of which involve a ton of activities. Then I stated my position that we have been at (cold) war in space since October 1957, when Sputnik I was launched. Ever since then, there have been many anti-satellite weapons programs, and a number of demonstration tests, including tests that actually destroyed satellites. I also mentioned the high ground problem (revealed starkly in “The Expanse”), and the space junk problem, wherein every destroyed satellite brings us closer to the space junk avalanche (Kessler syndrome), and those who have less to lose by initiating the Kessler avalanche might just do so. Various possibilities were discussed, and I was glad that the conversation was based on realism and not a romanticized and unrealistic pulp vision of hot war with pew pew guns and crewed space battleships. (I sincerely hope we cross the transhumanism barrier before we have those capabilities.)
FRIDAY 24 January, 2025
7-8pm: Cripple Creek
The Guild, Dr. Horrible, & Other Straight-to-Web Shows
”Not every show needs a $60 million budget per episode. Our panelists discuss shows that were made specifically to go to the web. Followed by a showing of some episodes of The Guild (Felicia Day’s straight-to-web series).”
David “Shady” Shadoin (M), X. Ho Yen, Amy L. Kessler, Mark Stallings

Unfortunately, we had no attendees to this panel. Perhaps the Friday evening/dinner time slot was a factor. So, we just shot the shite amongst ourselves about this topic, which was fun. Kudos to knowledgeable moderator Shady for spurring and guiding the conversation, which actually ended up much more interesting than I’d expected it to be. :)
SUNDAY 26 January, 2025
10-11am: Cripple Creek
The Case For/Against Mars
”There’s been a lot of talk about colonizing Mars, but is it remotely practical? Our panelists discuss the reasons and challenges.”
Dr. KaChun Yu (M), Hawkings Austin, David Gibbons (not the author), Jim Henderson, X. Ho Yen

We all expressed our support for space exploration. We as a species can’t ostrich and pretend that Earth is a safe little bubble and that not exploring space is an option (e.g. space weather, “asteroids are the universe’s way of asking ‘how’s that space program coming?’”, etc.). But the panelists ranged from “I want to go to Mars now” to “let’s develop the Moon while making informed forays to Mars” to my (and David’s) side of the range, which is that developing the Moon is the fastest, safest, least expensive way to get to Mars, both in terms of money and human life.

Mars may as well be another star system, the distance is so vast (given rocket propulsion). Everything that goes there to overcome the challenges and make going there worthwhile must be proven spaceworthy and reliable with no support. We could throw a lot of stuff at Mars and watch it go dark (the history of Mars exploration is exactly that — JPL makes it look easy). So, not only would going directly there be wasteful, it would not teach us any lessons about how to improve matters, and it leaves us behind China, et al. in lunar development. So my case for Mars is, sure, go if you want to, but via lunar development, which also gets you easier, faster access to everywhere else, including the asteroids and asteroid deflection, in addition to proving out the technologies required to work on Mars with no backup support from Earth.

Direct to Mars, even if it works, then leaves you with nothing to show for it in terms of reach into the solar system, which is nothing compared to having infrastructure and production capability on the Moon. But most likely direct to Mars efforts will fail miserably and without revealing why on any iterative time frame that matters.

All the panelists were intelligent and civil, even if we disagreed on some points, so all in all these were great fun.

I even had two attendees come up and grab my info postcard afterward (once at each of the two attended panels), so I guess I gave a good account of myself in their eyes. Yay! :) Saturday would have been better for public visibility, though.

Side note: I predicted in December that the new administration in Washington would kill the rest of our lunar program in order to funnel money to SpaceX (quid pro quo tax money funneling corruption), which would put us behind the rest of the world in terms of military strategic capability, economic capability, and education/inspiration. Guess what?
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4992934-elon-musk-trump-space-policy/
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5065804-trump-administration-space-decisions/
Note that they already killed VIPER prospector rover and they’re going to kill SLS and Orion, in order to divert that funding to SpaceX. It’s blatantly corrupt quid pro quo, and helps push the States into “third world” status, dangerously. From a purely practical standpoint, SpaceX will get a lot of tax money until their efforts kill enough fanboy volunteer astronauts and otherwise fail repeatedly, just like ‘Starship’ is years late and who knows how far overbudget, and our nation will have nothing to show for it. Note that SLS took longer and cost more than proposed, but everyone knows proposals are undershoots, and SLS worked the first time it was used. So did Orion. Starship has flown multiple times unsuccessfully, aside from booster return-to-pad. Who cares if your booster comes back when you fail to deliver a working payload?

Heide died in glorious battle with a universe harsher than her own.
May her memory move our universe toward hers.

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (28 Dec 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 21:05:54 +0000

For those who FAILED to successfully answer my quiz question from the previous two newsletters,
the answer was, of course: “Mr. X”.
:)

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Kilometerstones
* X’s Files
* Convention News
* * Standard stuff — How to Help

I’ve written a bunch of substack articles since last newsletter

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW, after finishing here, click on the PREVIOUS button to read a few newsletters back to catch up.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :) My substack articles and youtube channel replace social media.

=== Kilometerstones ===
The Boulder Bookworm has sold those two copies of “Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse” they put on their shelf on consignment! Those are my first consignment sales. :) I’ve restocked them with four copies, plus two each of MSD and CotF. Go Bookworm! :)
In other news, on the heels of making Finalist in AWA 2024, “Custodians of the Future” also just made Finalist in Global Book Awards 2024, in the Science Fiction - Crime & Mystery category! (For context, the other Science Fiction categories in GBA were -Action and Adventure, -Colonization, Dystopian, -Hard, -Romance, -Space Exploration, and -Time Travel, so CotF went up against “proper” Crime & Mystery SF novels.)

=== X’s Files ===

Log 3 is an homage and a protest, but mostly just for entertainment (and cross-promo, of course)

Space Autistic Author, Log 3 is now live!

Here’s the direct link, but as always you can find my youtube site on my Media page:
https://youtu.be/Cxi3XYsD4U8
It’s our first foray into “X’s Files”. I think you’ll enjoy it, especially if you’re familiar with “The X-Files”.
Featured guest stars: award-winning fantasy author Levi Jacobs and artist Elisa Wikey of Tiny Framed Things fame.
PLEASE WATCH Log 3, like/subscribe/SHARE and all that. It’s less than 7 minutes long, easy peasy. Many thanks to my voice volunteers, who did all the lines in this episode (X makes only a brief visual appearance). :)
And now I can finally return my focus to “Attendants of the Future” (and upcoming surgeries…). Yay!
(In Spring 2025, SAA Log 4 will, hopefully, feature authors Alex Kingsley and Stephanie A. Gillis! Stephanie graciously stepped in to understudy for the Engineer/Lone Groningen part in Log 3! Thanks, Stephanie!)

=== Convention News ===
I’ll be on 3 panels at the Colorado Springs Science Fiction Convention, COSine 2025, January 24th to 26th.
The panels are:
• Fri 5p, Cripple Creek: War in Space
• Fri 7p, Cripple Creek: The Guild, Dr. Horrible, & Other Straight-to-Web Shows
• Sun 10a, Cripple Creek: The Case For/Against Mars
This will be my first time on convention panels! I need to make sure my brain can still load my Public Socialization Emulator 2.1.
Hope to see you there!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, and that’s unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 to 3, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Logs 2 and 3 demonstrate how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 4 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (01 Dec 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 19:08:27 +0000

FEMALE UNDERSTUDY NEEDED for ENGINEER VOICE in Space Autistic Author, Log 3! Our regular has taken ill!

ONLY THREE LINES of audio to record, cell phone audio recordings are fine.
Watch Logs 1 and 2 to get a gist — Engineer (Blucifer coin-op horse) first appears in Log 2. Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi! You’re my only hope!

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.

IF YOU’RE NEW, after finishing here, click on the PREVIOUS button to read a few newsletters back to catch up.

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :) My substack articles and youtube channel replace social media.

* AAR: “Meet a Local Author” event
* Book News
* INSIDE PEEK at next novel cover development
* Standard stuff — How to Help

Two new substack articles since last newsletter

=== After Action Report: “Meet a Local Author” event ===
Yesterday afternoon, after negotiations and preparations going back months, I had my first in-store table event at my local Barnes & Noble at Southlands, Aurora, CO, DSA, Earth, Sol, MW-A. A shoutout and hearty thanks to Joe and Megan, the store managers there. Store Web Site Store Facebook Page

To populate the table, the store bought ten copies each of MSD and CotF from IngramSpark (currently $1.51 and $1.46 royalty each, so $29.70 to me) and I brought 10 copies of SAA-PI which I had bought at author prices from KDP and IngramSpark. B&N handled those as consignments at 40% to me.

The event was in every way better than my three previous table experiences at geek conventions, especially considering that geek conventions cost money to attend.

My old pal from United Launch Alliance, Engineer Scott, came to visit, bringing MORE POWER! He stayed a good long while for good conversation. Thanks 1e6, John! It was great to see you!

Some other customers also conversed a little, beyond merely asking questions. That was fun, too. Many requested autographs and inscriptions, including one young lady with a connection to Sweden — I’m hoping her purchase of Custodians of the Future (which is set in Stockholm) will lead to some word-of-mouth exposure there.

We sold 6 copies of MSD, 8 copies of CotF, and 6 copies of SAA-PI, a significant fraction of all sales thus far. I was fully expecting SAA-PI to be the big seller, as a holiday gift for tweens, so this spread was a surprise to me.

Money-wise, I received $27 for my 40% consignment cut. Since the 6 author copies of SAA-PI that were sold there cost me about $24 including shipping, net earnings from a book sales standpoint were $29.70 + $27.00 - $24 = $32.70. It’s a hard business, this.

But it’s the exposure I’m hoping will pay off in the long term. The goal is to find my way to a self-sustaining “critical density” of word-of-mouth. It’s a hard goal, this.

The copies of MSD and CotF that we didn’t sell will be put on the store shelves. See pic. Looks like I’m right beside a Polly Ho-Yen. I’ll have to look Polly up.

Interestingly, folks who came up to the table (most of whom took more than one book) seemed utterly uninterested in the lauds I showed on the standup signs. Apparently, being hosted by a Barnes & Noble is enough of a quality check for customers, and purchases were determined based on general info like subject matter, topics, and style. See pic for what Spock says about that. This is quite relevant to my recent inflammatory-title substack article about B&N corporate.

But I am autistic, after all, and this sort of thing is always a major “raw nerve exposure”. So last night, the night after the event, I had a screaming night terror of the usual “attacked while sleeping” type. That hasn’t happened in quite some time. My unconscious mind probably still has CPTSD, and it being unconscious, I don’t think there’s a practical way to heal it. My books are my insides, down into my unconscious mind. It’s like cracking open my skull and leaning toward complete strangers who use sharp tweezers to inspect the contents. Can’t I just do promo from home?

=== Book News ===
“Custodians of the Future” made Finalist in the 2024 American Writing Awards, science fiction category! :)
At least for now, I’m using a new service ($$) that helps match a book to the most compatible contests. This was their first contest submission on CotF’s behalf, so maybe it works.

Now both of my novels have Finalist lauds, which is nice, since they’re stylistic polar opposites. It says something.

Also, until tomorrow, 02 Dec, IngramSpark is waving their fee on DISCOUNTED DIRECT PURCHASE sales (e.g. the ones with the yellow “Buy Now” buttons on my Books page), in case anyone wants to use that as a trigger for holiday gift-giving season. But don’t use the 02 Dec deadline as a showstopper, that’s only about my margin. Those discounts are ALWAYS THERE for you.

Example of those Discounted Direct Purchase buttons

=== INSIDE PEEK at next novel cover development ===
Every book cover is created differently.

For MSD, I had art depicting “two SelfMades contending on the Moon” that I had commissioned from local artist Casey Weeks. I gave that as source material to MiblArt, my preferred Ukrainian design studio, along with some notes. With some iterations, MiblArt created the stylistically interesting cover for MSD. In a youtube video, I show how that cover can be seen as representing the portion of the story at the start, when the SelfMades are on the Moon OR near the end of their battles, which take place on the sea floor. Neato!

For Custodians of the Future, I gave MiblArt a description of key elements of the book and a requirement to make the ensemble of characters silhouettes. It’s a requirement of mine that my book covers NOT succumb to the “always white people, usually gorgeous white women” problem you see on book covers everywhere. My books are inclusive and the ‘demographic’ details of my characters are never important to the story. Optimally, just about anyone can see themselves in my characters. MiblArt put it all together quite nicely, with fireworks over Stockholm at the bottom, and stylized viruses floating about.

A few weeks ago I decided that the cover of ‘Attendants of the Future’ should reflect the focus/kickoff event that I included in the ‘next book blurb’ at the end of CotF. A crazed tourist steals the Kyrgyz flag from the Kyrgyz Moon Landing Museum and jumps into the nearby crater without regard to safety, and VJ, the Attendant on site, feels he must give chase. What’s going on? What will happen? What does it say about humanity that people will do such things while wearing vac suits?

So, with my sketching skills of a 4-year-old, I hand-sketched this concept, keeping in mind the space required for titling, blurb, bar code, and imprint icon. See pic.

I then cleaned it up a bit and ‘colorized’ it, adding text based on the CotF cover text, and a detailed warning sign on the back cover that I feel will be an important bit of tragihumor. See pic.

You can already see it coming together in the colorized and tweaked version.

Then I put that colorized 4-year-old’s sketch into a Powerpoint slide package containing lots of notes for the designers, with the detailed warning sign and other helpful pics and notes. I included that package in my illustrated book cover order with MiblArt.

The cover will cost me multiple hundreds of dollars, but I don’t mind helping Ukraine’s artists and I have confidence that MiblArt will turn this 4-year-old’s sketch into…”something wonderful”. [See pic - who knows that reference?]

I should be receiving their initial whack at this in a couple of weeks, but of course it’s not mine to share until we’re done iterating. Keep this inside peek in mind when the real cover is revealed next year.

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).

I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).

How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!

It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.

They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, which is unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 and 2, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Log 2 demonstrates how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!

While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 2 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.

https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media

Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby

Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.

Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

Permalink

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (25 Nov 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 00:06:31 +0000

Please read my Ten Zombaikus on substack.
Yes, zombie haikus. :)
Ten of them. They go together.
They’re poetic, yet prosaic, yet poetic, but apropos. :)
Share and enjoy, preferably forty-two times.

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.
IF YOU’RE NEW, after finishing here, click on the PREVIOUS button to read a few newsletters back to catch up.
NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :) My substack articles and youtube channel replace social media.
* Book news
* When is my “Meet the Author” event? Real soon!
* Reading Report: Stephanie A. Gillis’ “The Humane Society for Creatures and Cryptids”
* Video production notes on Space Autistic Author, Log 3
* Standard stuff — How to Help

=== Book news ===

=== Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse ===
This week IngramSpark is waving their fee on sales through their discounted direct sales links (e.g. the ones on my Books page). If anyone wanted to pass the word about this great holiday gift for kids ~10-12+, this week would be a perfect time to do so. For me at least. :)
All seriousness aside [anyone old enough to get that reference?], I channeled my newly sentient, age 10 self when I wrote it, and my confidence in its value is growing.
RECOMMENDATION: Give them this book before cell phones and social media do their damage. It’ll help with that.
Last time I mentioned that I’ve entered it into the 2025 CAL Awards book contest, based on all the positive feedback and reactions. I’ve also entered it into the Colorado Book Awards, run by ColoradoHumanities.org. We’ll see (next year) how that goes. One of the things an author learns is that not winning or not making finalist does not mean your work isn’t good.
See those discounted direct purchase links for all my books on my Books page.
If you’re at all interested in the stuff an indie author has to do to promote a unique book, see my substack entry on that topic.
=== Attendants of the Future ===
Development continues on AotF. The state of the world makes it especially difficult to write near future fiction. Fortunately, AotF is set in 2100, so it’s not that near, and some creative license is available. But mostly I just want take my time and continue to do things the right way. I will sell no book before its time. [Anyone old enough to recognize that paraphrase?]
After SAA Log 3 is completed, AotF will be my main focus again for several months, and that’ll be a relief.

(cover with a digital capture of Emma A.’s post-it note)

=== “Meet the Author” stuff ===
I’m still scheduled (30 Nov, 2-4pm) to be at the Aurora Southlands Mall Barnes & Noble store for my first ever in-store “Meet a Local Author” gig. And I’m hoping the Puzzling Innerverse will be a hit with parents doing gift shopping for their kids. I have book inventory and signage. Here’s hoping I can make myself presentable.
If you’re in the Denver area during those two hours, please do stop by. Don’t leave me standing awkwardly alone in a store as people walk by!

=== Reading Report: Stephanie A. Gillis’ “The Humane Society for Creatures and Cryptids” ===
Once again, despite this being not my usually preferred reading material, I thoroughly enjoyed “The Humane Society for Creatures and Cryptids”. I think I’ve grown. :)
This novel is very well crafted and paced, acknowledges history, and is just plain fun. I was impressed.
And though it’s the first book in what will become the Teraglossa series, it has a well-defined ending.
This book straddles YA and Adult categories. I’m not sure I’d recommend giving it to kids younger than, say, age 11, but 11+ definitely. Don’t think it’s “just for girls”, either, in case the cover or anything else might lead you to think that. It’s just plain good, and stands in contrast to that NYT Bestseller I read last year that I absolutely hated. This book is yet another example of why indie writing should not be dismissed out of hand. Consider it!

=== Video production notes on Space Autistic Author,
Log 3 ===
The draft script and sample voice recording (for inflection/intonation help) have been sent to our voice stars for recording!
Guest stars on this episode will be artist Elisa Wikey, of Tiny Framed Things and other fame, and Levi Jacobs, award-winning author of The Tidecaller Chronicles!
The superficial story hooks are about “X’s Files”. I’ve completed the X-Files-esque opening sequence, and I think you’ll enjoy it for its own sake. As of now I’ve completed animation through Elisa’s sequence.
The two main characters are Muldrake and Leski. POP QUIZ: why these names and not Mulder and Scully? (no, it’s not a copyright issue, you can’t copyright names)
Here’s a 4-pic reminding you of one of the sequences in the X-Files opening, and a similar 4-pic from SAA Log 3’s opening. In addition to graphics from pixabay, I also sampled some commercial-use music from pixabay and tweaked and arranged the samples to make a bare-bones musical backdrop for the opening sequence that’s at least evocative of the X-Files theme music.
Many work days of production lie ahead! After animation come the music and word bubble production.
As always, I continue to seek creatives for easy “no vouching required” cross-promo on “Space Autistic Author”. Participation is easy, and the only other requirement is a permalink on your web site pointing back to your episode of SAA. This kind of cross-promo is how we spiral each other upward. Stephanie A. Gillis is interested in doing a future episode!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).
I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).
How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!
It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.
They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!
I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, which is unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 and 2, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Log 2 demonstrates how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!
While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 2 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media
Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (10 Nov 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 19:43:39 +0000

Once upon a time, a creature named X. sought to keep his potential readers informed, and perhaps, through forwarding, find new potential readers.
[that weird synthesized music from ‘The X-Files’ begins to play —
]
This is his latest attempt. Will it contain anything about the paranormal? Or UFOs? Will there be a Smoking Man? Will there be a Well-Dressed Man? Will there be other well-dressed sociopathic men who see themselves as the hero of their own story? What about Steven Williams? (What was his character’s name, anyway?) Will the government deny knowledge? Find out! Read on…

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :) I could use the shot, so to speak, and not the Key & Peele “Tha Incredible Mack” kind of shot. :)

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :)
* New book news: Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse
* “Meet the Author” stuff
* Other news
* Standard stuff — How to Help

=== New book news:
Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse ===
In the nine days since release, which overlapped with a google keyword search ad as well as the distracting U.S. election, there have been three sales. I hope that’s a good sign for this holiday season. I hope the world still loves its children. :)
And I’ve entered it into the 2025 CAL Awards book contest, based on all the positive feedback and reactions.
There are discounted direct purchase links for all my books on the Books page.
If you’re at all interested in the stuff an indie author has to do to promote such a book, see my substack entry on that topic. Compare all that effort to the three sales so far achieved to see why this endeavor is so challenging. This is never “write it and they will come” like it is for the wet and sticky romance writers. This situation is a microcosm of the overall human condition, just like U.S. politics.

(cover with a digital capture of Emma A.’s post-it note)

=== “Meet the Author” stuff ===
I’m still scheduled (30 Nov, 2-4pm) to be at the Aurora Southlands Mall Barnes & Noble store for my first ever in-store “Meet a Local Author” gig. And I’m hoping the Puzzling Innerverse will be a hit with parents doing gift shopping for their kids.
If you’re in the Denver area during those two hours, please do stop by. Don’t leave me standing awkwardly alone in a store as people walk by!
Also, my long-form interview on Howard Lovy’s Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) Inspirational Indie Authors podcast is live as of today. See the link on my Media page.

=== Other news ===
For my own inspiration, I’ve laid out what I think the cover should look like for “Attendants of the Future”, my WIP third novel. It looks like a 5-year-old drew it. :) But that’s okay, I’ll be hiring my Ukrainian friends at MiblArt.com to render the proper artwork. We’ll see how things go!
Space Autistic Author, Log 3, is in work! Artist Elisa Wikey will be joining author Levi Jacobs as my guest stars. It will be X-Files themed and will feature a number of Elisa’s famous ‘tiny’ artworks. I’m working on the script now. After Log 3 I’ll finally be able to get back to “Attendants of the Future”.
As always, I continue to seek creatives for easy “no vouching required” cross-promo on “Space Autistic Author”. Participation is easy, and the only requirement is a permalink on your web site pointing back to your episode of SAA. This kind of cross-promo is how we spiral each other upward. The others I contacted recently have not replied.

If you’ve made it this far, you get to vote on whether or not the government should deny knowledge! But only if you send me a basic human connection note containing at least your guess as to Steven Williams’ character’s identity!

Please forward this newsletter to the literate people in your life, and/or to those who have or know people who have tweens. Word-of-mouth outreach is crucial for an indie! Blame this explicit appeal!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).
I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).
How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!
It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.
They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!
I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, which is unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 and 2, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Log 2 demonstrates how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!
While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 2 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media
Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve earned ten merits! Mention this in your note! Who knows what these merits might eventually do for you? You get an extra twenty merits if you can tell me what content in the Standard Stuff section has changed recently! Mwuhahahahahaaaaaa!

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (19 Oct 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 01:26:58 +0000

Once upon a time, an oxygen-deprived creature named X. sought to keep his potential readers informed, and perhaps, through forwarding, find new potential readers.
[that weird synthesized music from ‘The X-Files’ begins to play —
]
This is his latest attempt. Will it contain anything about the paranormal? Or UFOs? Will there be a Smoking Man? Will there be a Well-Dressed Man? Will there be other well-dressed sociopathic men who see themselves as the hero of their own story? What about Steven Williams? (What was his name, anyway?) Will the government deny knowledge? Find out! Read on…

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
If you’d like to UNsubscribe, hit reply and say as much. Easy peasy, no judgment, no problem.
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :) I could use the shot, so to speak, and not the Key & Peele “Tha Incredible Mack” kind of shot. :)

NOTE: Having finally and happily abandoned “social media”, I’ll be sending newsletters slightly more often. But I’ll try to keep them somewhat entertaining. :)
* New book news: Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse
* Upcoming “Meet the Author” appearances
* Other news
* Standard stuff — How to Help

=== New book news:
Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse ===
As a reminder, “Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse” is an immersive, educational brain tasks book for ages ~10-12+ promoting emotional health and critical thinking.
The Puzzling Innerverse was well received by its evaluators, including two primary school educators, experienced parents, and 5th grader Emma A.! This is deeply gratifying. I start with the assumption of zero value until readers weigh in with positive reviews, so for weeks I was holding my breath. The color is only beginning to return to my skin.
This neato book will be available for purchase online (multiple options) on 01 NOV 24.
You can see all the testimonials on the Puzzling Innerverse page. (The “BUY IT HERE” links go to my Books page, which will be updated when the book goes live online.)
It will make a fantastic holiday gift. Make a list of parents with kids in the 10-12 age range, and precocious 9 yr olds, and perhaps 13-14 yr olds who are delayed in their development (hey, that was me, no judgment) or haven’t had an appropriately challenging education.
I’m actively seeking outreach opportunities for this book. Any ideas? Hit reply!
Also, The Bookworm used bookstore in Boulder, Colorado, is consigning this book! (see pic!) That’s a real “reader’s bookstore”, so I’m hopeful this catchy cover will, er, catch the eyes of many parents passing through the store.
The folks running the counter at The Bookworm are wonderful. This person in the pic was wearing a shirt that said, “I tried being normal. It was the worst two minutes of my life.” Anyone who’s spent years (or decades) masking can relate!

(cover with a digital capture of Emma A.’s post-it note)

=== Upcoming “Meet the Author” appearances ===
As of right now, I’m still scheduled (30 Nov, 2-4pm) to be at the Aurora Southlands Mall Barnes & Noble store for my first ever in-store “Meet a Local Author” gig!
Next week Howard Lovy of Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) will be interviewing me for his Inspirational Authors podcast. I’ll let you know when that recording has gone live (and will perma-link it on my /Media page, of course). It’ll be a 30 minute interview/conversation, so, yeah, I’m nervous.

=== Other news ===
New Substacks: As usual, I’ve written several new substacks since the last newsletter. Check them out. The content is very different from this newsletter.
CROSS-PROMO WITHOUT VOUCHING FOR ME: I continue to seek creatives outside of the white-cis/het-male variety for cross-promo on “Space Autistic Author”. I simply can’t continue to give the impression that I’m a club member. So Log 3 won’t happen until I find them!
Here’s hoping Adeena Mignogna, J.E. Thomas, and/or Alex Kingsley come aboard!

If you’ve made it this far, you get to vote on whether or not the government should deny knowledge! But only if you send me a basic human connection note containing at least your guess as to Steven Williams’ identity!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).
I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).
How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!
It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.
They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!
I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, which is unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 and 2, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Log 2 demonstrates how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!
While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 2 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/media
Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve earned ten merits! Mention this in your note! Who knows what these merits might eventually do for you? You get an extra twenty merits if you can tell me what content in the Standard Stuff section has changed! Mwuhahahahahaaaaaa!

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (19 Aug 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 20:24:04 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :) I could use the shot, so to speak, and not the Key & Peele “Tha Incredible Mack” kind of shot. :)
* AAR: World Science Fiction Convention, Glasgow, 2024
* Reading Report
* Standard stuff — How to Help

=== After Action Report: WorldCon Glasgow ===
We’ve been wanting to travel again (it’s been a decade!), so WorldCon 2024 being in Glasgow became an excuse to spend the money.
The hope was to find ways to reach out to readers at the con. Unfortunately, the con decided not to assign me to any panels, and my brilliant ‘writer’ vest idea completely backfired. (If folks recognized the ‘Castle’ reference, they assumed I was cosplaying Castle! If they did not get the reference, somehow the message they got was that I’m about military stories, confirming their autonomic ‘judge a book by its cover, seeing a white male writer’ reaction. Argh!)
Nevertheless, the sessions I attended in person or via replay of recordings were valuable, and usually fun.
Here’s my sessions list:
* Fighting Fungi in Space
* Vegetables in Space (e.g. which you'd need for space ships or colonies, and why)
* Magnetic Technologies
* The Expanse
* It's Life, Jim, But Not As We Know It (what is life, how could it be remotely detected, what's likely to be found in our solar system and on exoplanets, ...)
* "Another Castle" Finnish Geek Women's Choir performance
* Hopepunk Meetup
* The Awesome Scottish Space Sector
* Nanomedicines
* All of Biology in Less Than 60 Minutes (the overall theory of biology)
* Inadvisable Rocket Science
* Is There a Dragon in Your Garage? (cognitive biases etc.; the title comes from Carl Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World”, required reading!)
* Neurodivergent Approaches to Stories
* The Case of Frankenstein 2.0 (or, life from a bag of chemicals, or life from a network of systems, or sf as science's/society's ethics horizon?)
* Low Earth Orbit Space Stations - What does the future hold?
* Are You Smarter Than A Monkey? (on science literacy)
* What Makes Childhood Books Memorable?
This is the difference between a WorldCon and a regular, local sci fi convention. A local convention might, if you’re lucky, have one panel along these lines, maybe two, maybe a few, and that’s assuming it’s not a local con that’s focused entirely on autographs and photo ops (or on fantasy and romance). And this list is only the ones I’ve partaken of, not the full list. Among WorldCon attendees, there’s true appreciation for real science and exploration as well as the arts and diversity.
I met a few fellow writers and have reached out to several panelists, but it’s easy to be cynical about that. The panels were worthwhile, though.

Let me speak of Scotland. This was our first visit. Everyone we encountered was awesome.
Before the con started, we hopped a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh and superficially toured the city. After the con ended, we had a bus tour out of Glasgow up to Loch Lomond (of “you take the high road and I’ll take the low road” fame), Inverary, Oban, and Glencoe, which was awesome. We saw highland cows up close, and we saw “Castle Argh” of Monty Python and the Holy Grail fame. Alas, a visit to “Castle Anthrax” was not in the cards.
Edinburgh is Scotland’s capital. Its large, main train station is named Waverley Station after a series of NOVELS.
Edinburgh also sports the coolest looking monument I personally have ever seen, the Scott Monument, built for a WRITER, Sir Walter Scott (of Waverley fame). Scott is credited with inventing the historical fiction genre.
The Scott Monument (1844) looks like some kind of Gothic rocketship.
Centered under it is a statue of Scott in a moment of reflection while writing, with his dog at his feet.
I can’t express how wonderful it was for me to see a capital city’s main train station named after novels, a gothic rocketship monument honoring a writer, and a statue of the writer including his dog, in contrast to endless castles, cannons, and statues of military men. Oh, there’s plenty of war in Scotland’s history, but that fact renders these things even more special, and speaks to the depth of Scottish culture.
Unfortunately, the timing was the worst. Apparently, the first three weeks of August are about several big festivals, so the number of visitors and the associated tourism peddling activities both shoot through the roof. The loud buskers made being in thick crowds very uncomfortable. It felt a lot like being in Las Vegas, at least down on the Royal Mile and near Edinburgh Castle. My pic from the upper level of the tour bus was in a relatively less crowded area up on Princes Street by the monument.

(pic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

my pic of a gothic rocketship

Nevertheless, we very much enjoyed our hop on/hop off bus tour of the city, and our tour of the castle. For me, the highlights of Edinburgh were Edinburgh Castle (for its physical layers of history going back to the 1300s), the Scott Monument (gothic rocketship for a writer!), and The Real Mary Kings Close (subterranean!):
https://www.realmarykingsclose.com/
The Glencoe tour was fun and informative. Our driver/guide, Tom, was a funny guy and full of information. Inverary and Oban were tourist stops (to me), but Glencoe canyon and surrounds were astonishingly cool (and I’ve been in the Grand Canyon). Pictures don’t do it justice. The fact that it was rainy with a cloud base just at the tops of the mountains made it even more Scottish! The volcanic origins of Scotland are evident everywhere.

They blended our pic with one of theirs that included 'the plague doctor'. In hindsight, I should have requested the raw shot.

Glencoe and its resident Highland Cows

We have house exterior work being done and another couple of trips this year. We’re unaccustomed to spending so much money!
It’s a busy and disruptive time (remember all that medical stuff earlier in the year?). But I have confidence that I’ll continue to make progress on my puzzle book through this solar orbit and into the next. It’ll be a unique work, “very me”, so I also have confidence that it’ll be difficult finding its audience. Yet in ironical parallel I have confidence that I could be wrong because I’ve been wrong before — can anyone say “writer vest”?
I continue to seek creatives outside of the white-cishet-male variety for cross-promo on “Space Autistic Author”. I simply can’t continue to give the impression that I’m a club member. So Log 3 won’t happen until I find them!

=== Reading Report ===
After reading “Tales of the Incorrigible — Flummox or Bust!” by Kevin Bowersox, which I reported on in the last newsletter, I immediately proceeded to book 2, “Tales of the Incorrigible: The Ouroboros of Oon”.
What’s to say? It’s just as fun and smart as “Flummox or Bust!” and still has heart. The plot is impressively well thought-out and will surprise you.
Give it a try! For half the price of a matinee ticket, rediscover the joys of good, fun science fiction that has much more to it than a movie! These are quick and easy reads, and remember, I say that as someone who considers himself a slow reader.
Kevin Bowersox page
The third book in the series released just this week!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).
I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).
How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!
It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.
They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!
I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, which is unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 and 2, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Log 2 demonstrates how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!
While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 2 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/videos
Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (04 Aug 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 17:48:23 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :) Especially if there’s anything you like about anything I’m doing here — I could use the shot, so to speak, and not the Key & Peele “Tha Incredible Mack” kind of shot. :)

* Catching up
* Reading Report
* Standard stuff — How to Help

=== Catching up ===
My knee returned to ‘good mode’ by itself after I drove changes to my PT regimen, and is well on its way to normalcy. I use a no-load brace when appropriate.
I have 32 pages of content developed for my puzzles/activities educational entertainment book, good progress! Every page requires quite a lot of thought and work. Also, through family I’ve found a puzzle aficionado (possibly two) interested in alpha reading/testing this book. Yay! (Thanks, Alysia)
Now I’m gearing up for World Con. Alas, I’m too small-fry to have gotten a seat on any panels (self-fulfilling…), so I’m relegated to guerrilla marketing and meeting people with my winning autistic personality. (Wish me luck…)
I’ve released 5 substacks since the last newsletter.
Hugo Winning Novel Disappoints — and I daresay MSD is at least as good as a Hugo winner
Fireworks 2024 — the once and future history of the D.S.A.
Representation in My Writing — whom do I represent?
The Left is Stupidly Purest at Times Like These — and it has allowed the corrupt right wing to win the last century
Life’s Riches — a page, split and reunited across time
Give them a try! Subscribe and pass the word.
https://substack.com/@xhoyenauthor

=== Reading Report ===
Recently I finished reading “Tales of the Incorrigible — Flummox or Bust!” by Kevin Bowersox.
What a blast! So much fun. Just brilliant! The level of care he put into it is obvious, and not just with the humor. (It’s very funny.)
Here’s the review I posted on The Story Graph, Goodreads, and the ‘Zon:
“You would be WRONG if you assumed a book full of this much humor could not have heart or be thought-provoking. Bowersox has done something truly impressive here.
I'm certain the author has carefully avoided comparing his book to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", because doing something like that would sound arrogant. It's the nature of things when dealing with comparisons to such famous works.
BUT, this reader dares to suggest that this book might be the better one.
You must read "Tales of the Incorrigible: Flummox or Bust!" Decide for yourself!“
Give it a whirl! Use it as your easy way to rediscover the sublime joy of reading novels!
Kevin Bowersox page
There’s a second book in the series, which I’m reading now, and Kevin’s working on the third. Who says funny science fiction can’t also be smart and have heart? That’s what I was shooting for with “Custodians of the Future”!

=== Standard Stuff === How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).
I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).
How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see below, or on each book’s page on the web site) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .

But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!
It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.
They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350

and the Colorado State Library Book Club Resource (https://csl.catalog.aspencat.info/Union/Search?view=list&lookfor=minimum+safe+distance&searchIndex=Title&searchSource=local),

and Biblioboard (https://library.biblioboard.com/content/a3f3fc17-626b-428b-b6a2-5b5a9a44a494).

Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the book suggestion/recommendation page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!
I haven’t been emphasizing “Custodians of the Future” as much as MSD, but only because MSD has more kudos (which is because I spent a lot more money on MSD, which is unsustainable). I’m hoping that interest in MSD will lead to interest in my other stuff.
Space Autistic Author
If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 and 2, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Log 2 demonstrates how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!
While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 2 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/videos
Like, subscribe, and share!

Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (15 Jun 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 04:23:42 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :) Especially if there’s anything you like about anything I’m doing here — I could use the shot, so to speak, and not the Key & Peele “Tha Incredible Mack” kind. :)

* Catching up
* Reading Report
* Work in Progress
* How to Help
* The standard stuff

=== Catching up ===
My knee started regressing a couple of weeks ago, and now I’m almost back to where I was before the surgery. :( It has my physical therapist / pain & torturist stumped.
Level 10 pain zings are PTSD-inducing. I’m walking on eggshells, but it’s not enough to prevent them. Now I know why House, M.D. was such a jerk.
I have a follow-up medical appointment next week. We’ll see how it goes.
My Richard Castle-esque “WRITER” vest turned out well! I’m hoping to put it to good use at this year’s conventions.
And I’ve incorporated it into my new bizcard, along with the new branding graphic.

Thanks for the sewing help, Jennifer and Jade!

bizcard front

bizcard back, which I usually show first

=== Reading Report ===
Recently I finished reading a collection of short stories called “Inner Space and Outer Thoughts [Speculative Fiction from Caltech and JPL Authors]”.
At COSine ‘24 back in January I learned about this book from Rachael Kuintzle, PhD, who organized and edited it while completing her PhD at Caltech. Impressive. Most impressive.
Most of the book is exactly my kind of material. Here we have a group of authors who are scientists and thinkers who aren’t afraid of tackling big ideas using appropriately sophisticated language. I was elated!
Despite having some differences of opinion with super famous author David Brin (we had words on facebook before I unfollowed), his story in this collection was super cool and I enjoyed it tremendously. He was one of two or three famous authors in the collection.
There was only one story that stood out as the opposite of all the others (the author did NOT do their basic homework, mistook deeply offensive mockery for contextually placed absurdism, and chose a story basis that I explicitly avoid, namely alien invasion). That one drove me nuts. But it didn’t detract from the rest of the collection. In fact, it showed just how good is the other material.
I recommend this collection. I would love to cross-promote it with Rachael via “Space Autistic Author”, but, alas, she doesn’t appear to be interested in doing that.
Anyway, you should read Rachael’s inspiring substack post “I got bitten by a radioactive spider”:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-144207283
Now I’m continuing to read “The Three Body Problem”.

=== Work in Progress (WIP) ===
I find myself gravitating more and more toward the puzzle book for tweens idea based on my “Space Autistic Author” Innerverse. So I’m allowing myself to go that way rather than forcing the next novel, “Attendants of the Future”.

Many ideas are in my notebook about AotF, but I just can’t yet crystallize them. It’s quite possible that everything will change with that novel depending on what happens in the November-January time frame, if you know what I mean.
Here’s an example (at right) from my WIP puzzle book. The idea is quite simple — give kids story and fun fictional world contexts for their participation in the book’s puzzles/exercises. Standalone puzzles are boring by comparison!
Who wants their fictional persona to be included in this work? Brother Joe has already signed up to be “The Only Joe You Need To Know”. He will have lost his fez, and the reader will do a puzzle or two to help him find it. Let me know if you’re interested in taking the plunge. :)

=== How to Help ===
Why help? Since I subvert pop genre expectations instead of pandering to them, and because of my autism and other isolating factors, it’s extremely difficult and expensive for me to reach out into the world to find my audience. I don’t have a team helping me. Just writing newsletters like this is an exercise in self-esteem suspension of disbelief (swirly thing alert!).
I truly rely on word of mouth and grassroots support. In case anyone assumes this is some kind of gravy train side hustle, I’m still thousands of dollars in debt on this, and every convention adds more red to my ledger. I’m in this for the long haul, but I must keep reaching out and pushing. This is not “write it and they will come”, that’s the erotic fantasy romance section (which sells itself).
How to help: Reading my books, writing reviews (if you liked them :), and passing the word would be great. If not that, then one could post my one-page ads (see the “standard stuff” section) on appropriate billboards and tell people about my web site, https://XHoYenAuthor.com .
But here’s something very nice that anyone can do to help — request that “Minimum Safe Distance” be carried by your local library!
It’s usually as simple as going to your library system’s web site and searching for “suggest a purchase” or “submit a suggestion”. Usually, there’s a special page for that, and often it’s at the front of your dashboard.
They will want information like this:

Title: Minimum Safe Distance
Author: X. Ho Yen [please get the capitalization and spaces right, one after the period, another after ‘Ho’]
Publication year: 2022
Format: Book/Paperback
# of pages: 396
ISBN: 978-0-9766158-1-1
Publisher: Grand Unification Monastery
Audience: Adult
Language: English
Notes:
Good professional editorial reviews, including Kirkus:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
“…Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.” Our verdict: Get It
Carried in Arapahoe County Library System:
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S115C2180350
Author web site: https://XHoYenAuthor.com

This process usually takes only a few moments once you find the suggestion page. Thanks! Put a reminder in your calendar right now!

If you haven’t watched “Space Autistic Author”, Logs 1 and 2, yet, do check them out. They’re only a few minutes long, but they’re fun! Log 2 demonstrates how SAA allows cross-promotion with other creatives without requiring anyone to vouch for anyone else’s work. Pass the word!
While you’re there, check out the other videos on my channel, especially the Galacticon ‘23 video (in 2 parts). That one’s longer, but it shows why my pen name is not cultural appropriation, and gives a fun overview of Mars exploration (since the late 1800s) with details of my participation in it, mostly on the Mars Global Surveyor mission.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/videos
Like, subscribe, and share!

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (27 Apr 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 28 Apr 2024 03:46:04 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
If you’re here via the web site and would like to subscribe, this link takes you to the subscription box.
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :)

* Catching up
* The standard stuff

===Catching up ===
Back in February, shortly after COSine ‘24, my knee started disintegrating. Long story short, we had to wait for donor tissue for surgery, and an allograft like this takes time to “set”. I’m still only allowed 50% weight on this leg, which means now I can finally stand on two legs without the walker or crutches. I’m now allowed to walk at home with just the brace, but out and about I must use one crutch.
It disrupts everything. Getting to/from the bathroom has been a big production with a brace and a walker. And I haven’t been able to carry things (except some things that can be carried in a shoulder-strap bag). For weeks I had things strapped to my leg that had a major impact on my ability to sleep. These are privileged people problems, I’m not complaining. But it definitely has caused and continues to cause a slowdown in my story development work for ‘Attendants of the Future’. I want and need to continue to improve upon my writing, so I will not rush it.
Shoutout to fellow author Mike Torreano, who’s working through a hip replacement right now.
I’ve written a couple more non-fiction articles on substack over these months. You don’t/can’t post these things on social media. https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/

Author Levi Jacobs sent me some material for inclusion in the next episode of ”Space Autistic Author”. I was hoping to include some female authors in the next couple of episodes, so as not to give the wrong impression. K. Anderson, how about you?
I’m quite proud of what I accomplished with Episode 2. If you haven’t watched it yet, do check it out. It’s only 8m52s long, including credits, but it’s quite a production for one person to have put together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzj4_b4OvK4&list=PLu6INAkWYUJk4SDGWglzEBruaKoT88bzQ&index=11

We’ll be attending at least one Science Fiction Convention this year. For guerrilla marketing/promotion purposes, I’m putting together a ‘Richard Castle’-esque ‘fashion tactical’ vest:

I found a police supplies vendor to make those custom, high-reflection patches in an ‘official’ looking font and with hook material backing. Now I just need to sew the loop material onto the vest.
Jade and Jennifer have graciously offered to help me with this DIY project. Thanks, friends!
The Booklife Prize 2024 evaluator of "Minimum Safe Distance" rated it better than did the 2023 evaluator. The 2023 evaluation was 8.75 out of 10, and the 2024 evaluation is 9 out of 10. Nice!
(link: https://booklife.com/project/minimum-safe-distance-82907)
They wrote that at times the writing is “stiff”. Well, yes, I gave the SelfMades a stiffer ‘voice’ to reflect their highly organized, precise, advanced thinking processes. One is supposed to be intimidated by the SelfMade. In any case, 9/10 is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a debut novel!

When I was 11 years old I somehow obtained one of these fresh off the presses —>:
It probably changed my life. I was just coming out of my ten year autistic fog. One simple book of puzzles and trivia, set in a fictional world rather than abstract and standalone, restructured my brain and opened up whole new realms. Thank you, James Razzi.
For years I've wanted to pay it forward by making a (non-Trek) puzzle book of my own, also for tweens+, also set in a fictional world. My Space Autistic Author innerverse might make a fun setting. Now I've finally decided, yes, I will, I must. Any artists out there wanna help?

As you may recall, after COSine in January I decided that it was time to perform a serious scrub of my branding graphics. I didn’t really have branding graphics before, I was just using the art I’d commissioned from Casey Weeks that was ultimately used on the cover of MSD.
It looked like this, and this was at-a-glance interpreted as military and/or space opera subgenres, despite the words at the top:

Well, after searching for design artists to help me with this task, and failing to get any traction at all, I ended up giving MiblArt a try again.
I've used this Ukrainian design studio for both of my book covers so far, but it didn’t seem like their other services quite fit what I needed for a branding graphic. But after iterating with them, we decided to try their quite affordable logo service. And now I’m happy to announce that we have arrived at a branding graphic I can get behind.
This task was (is) very challenging. The industry is highly tuned to conveying certain tropes and subgenres in the realm of sci fi, and readers assume them. These are: space opera, military, macho individualism, alien invasion, time travel, other forms of science fantasy, and, of course, women-as-sex-objects space erotica. This is doubly true when the writer is a ‘white’ male. I pass for a ‘white’ male at first glance, and I write in none of those tropes/subgenres, so with my branding graphics I must work extra hard to subvert genre expectations AT A GLANCE.
No graphic will be perfect. I must accept that ‘perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good enough’ for this task.
But I’m pretty happy with this branding graphic/logo. I hope you are, too!
Future convention presence will rely upon this graphic, as will my next stack of business cards.
A big DYAKUYU to Nadia and the other folks at MiblArt for working with me on this task.
Here’s a crop of the still-temporary, watermarked final version:

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and I'm in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (14 Feb 2024)

X. Ho Yen — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 20:46:16 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :)

* “Space Autistic Author”, Log 2
* Substack writings
* Shifting gears
* The standard stuff

=== “Space Autistic Author”, Log 2 ===
”Space Autistic Author”, Log 2, is out! This episode includes not one but two guest appearances. Mike Torreano, writer of westerns and historical fiction, participated. And Jim Henderson, writer of space adventures, military sci fi, and sci fi mysteries also participated. Watch the episode, learn more about them, buy ebooks as gifts!
I believe you’ll really enjoy what I did. It makes “sitting through” an interview just plain fun compared to straight podcasting. And the beauty of this method of fun cross-promo is that it doesn’t require anyone to “vouch for” anyone.
It’s basic sharing in a fun, playful, absurdist, and often ironical way. And this episode has nods to #startrek, #firefly, #reddwarf, #galaxyquest, and, as usual, #2001aspaceodyssey.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/vlog, follow the youtube link path, look for “Space Autistic Author” Logs 1 and 2. It’s about 8 minutes you won’t regret spending.
There wasn’t time for an art showcase in Log 2, though. We’ll see about future eps.
Here are some fun teaser pics from Log 2:

=== Substack writings ===
I’ve posted several short entries on substack. These are ponderings/pontifications that facebook can’t handle, due to length or whatnot.
The most recent two:

On discerning a bot from a sociopathic scammer
It’s a science fight! (14 Feb ‘24)

In 2024 is Sci Fi dead? (29 Jan ‘24)

I think you’ll enjoy them. Eventually I'll be ditching facebook entirely.

==== Shifting gears ====
With the release of SAA Log 2, I’m finally able to shift gears back to writing. I’ve been mulling and trying on ideas for size with “Attendants of the Future”, but now I can dedicate more time to it. [You can help make the delay worthwhile by widely posting that link to my VLOG page.]
“Custodians of the Future” was certainly fluffier than “Minimum Safe Distance”, but that’s not saying much, as MSD was pretty cerebral and serious. But AotF will be somewhere in between, I think. Each novel is an opportunity to grow as a writer. I don’t ever plan on writing “more of the same”. My writing heroes didn’t, and that’s a goal worth pursuing, wouldn’t you say?
This shift means a shift away from post-release promo mode, and that means more time between newsletters. Don’t forget about me!
The reality is that I’m still working on updating my branding graphic. Despite the bleak situation described in that latest substack entry, I am now in active discussion with one real artist. It might end up a busy mess, but at least it won’t be “AI” generated theft. And I’m not married to my latest exploratory layout. Once I own some helpful art, I can do with it what makes sense. Wish me luck with this!

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Corey’s The Expanse, Older’s Infomocracy, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suarez’ Delta-V, or movies like “Arrival” and “Don’t Look Up”. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote them for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (30 Jan 2024)--COSine '24 AAR & Poll

X. Ho Yen — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:50:19 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :)

* COSine ‘24 AAR & Poll
* The standard stuff

=== Colorado Springs Science Fiction Convention ‘24 After Action Report and Poll ===
https://www.firstfridayfandom.org/cosine/

We took a Misty Mountain Hop down to CO Springs

This was my third local geek convention as an author with a table. Each one has been very different and educational. These last two have also been fun because of our table neighbors.

We brought Fussy with us. This was her second convention. She’s getting accustomed to traveling, fortunately. (The ride to Fan Expo Denver a couple of years ago was quite upsetting to her. This time we used a quarter dose of a sedative to help, plus a raised, strapped-in cat bed in the car so she could see around her. It worked out well!)

My COSine buddy Lena M. Johnson was there as usual. Always nice to see Lena and shoot the shit. Hi, Lena!

Our neighbor to the right was K. Anderson, who was just a lovely neighbor! Hi, K.!

I'm hoping K. will make a guest appearance on Space Autistic Author and tell us about her creative journey and works! Keep an eye out.
Our neighbors to the left were Jim and Rhonda Henderson. Same deal there. Lovely people. Hi, Jim and Rhonda! Jim is in the middle of sending me A/V assets for his guest appearance on SAA.

The Directions Robut (think Zoidberg when you read that) at the check-in table.

Some cool pottery by Melanie Unruh in the Art Room

and this 1.5m tall bizarre alien/fantasy globe display thingy with an $8k minimum bid, $10k buy-now price. It’s amazing, but I think mostly a demonstration-of-skill piece.

Less misty on day 2, when we saw…

…this unexpected Freaky’s South Jersey Gifts, Tattoo, and Subs place next to the Starbuck’s on N. Academy Blvd., complete with sign with 3 of 5 lights burned out. It was just like visiting the Jersey shore!

We sold a few books, and I contributed a bit to the "Return to the Moon" panel. But it was the enjoyment of meeting some nice authors that made the trip worthwhile. Strangely, there were far more creators there than readers looking for books, based on traffic through the atrium where Author’s Row was located.

This was still during setup, but nonetheless pretty representative of traffic through the atrium.

Keep an eye out for other possible guest appearances on Space Autistic Author by Michael Carroll, Michael Kilman, and Levi Jacobs. (assuming they don't wimp out!) I'm also still hoping to get Adeena Mignogna on the show, and Melanie Trecek-King from thinkingispower.com.
I also met and interrogated Dr. Robert Williscroft, who told some amazing true stories (from first hand experience) about Cold War submarine espionage and treason. His true-life exploits form the basis of his military adventure books.
Finally, Stephanie A. Gillis did a microinterview with me for her tiktok channel. It’s my tiktok debut. :) You can find it on my VLOG page: https://xhoyenauthor.com/vlog Hi, Stephanie!
Yes, this is all very weird for an autistic to be doing, even a “high functioning” one (which mostly means that my autistic stuff is mostly hidden from you). It’s a good thing I have my social interaction emulation software running, based on observations of my brother many years ago. At the end of each day I desperately needed quiet alone time. One day I even turned off the light in the hotel room and put a pillow over my head for a while. Still, these small cons are much less overstimulating than the madhouse that is Fan Expo Denver.

At this con I did, however, confirm once and for all that my visuals are failing miserably to convey what I do, or at least what I DON’T do.

I had suspected, but now I know that my big banner in back allows people who are merely glancing to think I do military sci fi, space opera, and/or military space opera. Despite those words right there on the banner…
Someone right in front of my table gestured at it and said "military sci fi" to people they were showing around. And I learned from a friend that the betentacled, transbiological, spherical beings on the banner are being seen as a spaceship, a warship.
So, I must replace my problematic graphical presentation, and not just for conventions.

I’ve begun the process of seeking an affordable graphical designer who’s up for this task. But damn it, graphical designers cost money and I’ve done a little amateur dilettante graphical design, myself, over the years. So in parallel with that search, I’m also working on my own ideas.
Unfortunately, since I’m not an artist, such work involves compositing and altering already available images, like the free-to-use-for-commercial-purposes images posted on pixabay.com, or (blech) “AI” generated images. I’ve already resorted to using some “AI” scrape-riff images for Space Autistic Author (control rooms and corridors).
Below is a first attempt at an improved branding graphic. It’s a composite of two “AI” scrape-riff images I used bing.com to generate, plus text that I added. It needs to convey things like:
THOUGHTFUL
INCLUSIVE
IRREVERENT
HUMAN
SCI FI
while also conveying that we’re NOT talking about military sci fi, alien invasion, space opera, macho individualism, violence p0rn, or time travel type works.

POLL
Please do tell me if you think this KIND OF thing has potential. I plan on building around eight more different options.
I realize it’s a bit busy for a branding graphic, but from afar there are three basic elements: humans in a desert (metaphorical, can suggest many things), a fascinating wider reality above, and my text prompt about pondering the human condition.
This particular first try has the down side of using that desert visual right at the time a new “Dune” movie is coming out. But I can’t run from desert metaphors just because of that, can I?
But this first attempt does NOT give the impression that X. Ho Yen writes military, space opera, alien invasion, macho individualism, violence p0rn, or time travel, right? Or at least not military sci fi, right?
It has an inclusive feel, right? There isn’t anything particularly “white male ‘American’” about it, right?
And it more conveys realism-based sci fi than sci fantasy, right?
Do share your thoughts, even if you hate this!

Clear day for the return trip

Yes, I am working on Space Autistic Author, Log 2. Lately my body hasn't been doing so well, so my ability to sit and work for the many hours required is reduced, especially after my M-W computer-centric day job. Animation takes time!
I'll let you know when Log 2 is out, with guest appearances by Mike Torreano and Jim Henderson, and introducing a primary antagonist. It should help other potential guests understand what they’re getting into. :)

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Andy Weir’s books, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Corey’s The Expanse, or Suarez’ Delta-V. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (21 Dec 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 03:16:14 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :)

* Books
* Other Stuff
* The standard stuff

============ Books ============
”Custodians of the Future” now has two 5/5-star editorial reviews, which is great.
Another non-professional reviewer on another site totally panned the book, which was not great. But to my eyes it was clear that reviewer was never going to like the book anyway. They simply didn’t get it. They complained, in so many words, that the main character wasn’t a “Perfect Mary Sue” (a character with no flaws who always saves the day), were unable to understand motif, etc. I believe that site encourages such reviews in order to drive authors to beg people to join that site in order to upvote the book (which didn’t occur to me until I read a post about that theory on the ALLi forum, unfortunately long after I’d paid that site to arrange a professional review not knowing their reviewers are not professionals). I refuse to be thusly manipulated.
Ah, well. You can’t please everyone. But now I’m gun-shy, especially since everything costs money and I’m uncontrollably motivated to not just keep pouring money into this out of impatience to find my audience.
But this highlights just how important reviews are for Indie authors. Everyone on the site which shall remain unnamed will see only that terrible review, and unless they visit my site to do further research and see counterbalancing editorial reviews, that’s it. That site will only ever do me harm.

============ Other stuff ============
1)
If you haven’t seen this documentary about Nichelle Nichols, to whom we all owe more than one major debt, do seek it out: https://woman-in-motion.com/
(I’m proud to have met her before she died, although I’m not proud of the fact that I gibbered and gushed uncontrollably. Normally I don’t get starstruck. I wasn’t even starstruck with Buzz Aldrin! Ah, well. There are worse things.)
And do you remember Ed Stone? He should be remembered!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Stone (see pic with Nichelle)
2)
I’ve started a Substack. This is not something I’ve posted about on facebook, since I rag on facebook in my introductory post. :)
Check it out:
https://xhoyenauthor.substack.com/
The vision is to continue transitioning away from facebook by posting videos to my VLOG playlist and intelligent posts to Substack, posts like my simple Sturgeon’s Law post which fb group admins couldn’t handle.
3)
In the CAVEAT EMPTOR department…

Ten years ago, Harvard Business Review warned about trading privacy for convenience:
https://hbr.org/2013/06/beware-trading-privacy-for-con
With that in mind, look at this new product, and the launch ad video:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23953901/humane-ai-pin-launch-date-price-openai
I don’t know about you, but the moment the hawker said the AI would “decide” which incoming messages are “important” to me, my Vulcan eyebrow shot upward. I was done.
Does anyone else find the idea of using AI systems to determine what’s important in your incoming messages insane? In what other ways will it decide things for the user, potentially ignoring your training?
I’ll end my rant with this: Remember that google hides other search engines from its results, and who knows what else that doesn’t profit google. Remember the Panama Papers. Remember how much (little) legal recourse we currently have against big data scraping and algorithmic intrusion. We as a buying bloc need to vote with our dollars and sense to force the technologists to come up with implementations that aren’t FAR WORSE than trading privacy for convenience. Implementations that decide for you what’s important will trade our very sentience, our only collective power, for mere convenience. Enough already with the convenience!

4)
This one little article contains several gems of information and fascinating lines of inquiry. Splendid!
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/earth-and-moon-once-shared-a-magnetic-shield-protecting-their-atmospheres/

5)
My presentation at Galacticon 2023 was kindly recorded by my new friends at HumanistTrek Podcast.
That allowed me to go back and use my slides to create a video of the presentation. You don’t have to see my ugly mug pointing at the screen, I use Powerpoint’s laser pointer mode to point at stuff I’m talking about. It worked out splendidly!

Please visit my VLOG playlist and find the Galacticon presentation. You’ll enjoy it! (The ~45 minute presentation is broken up into separate vids only because I’m not yet qualified to upload longer vids on youtube.)
And while you’re there, check out my guest appearance on Humanist Trek. We discuss the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Day of the Dove”. It was a blast. :) “I’m the X…” :)

6)
I’ll be at the COSine convention in Colorado Springs this January. Hope to see you there.

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Andy Weir’s books, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Corey’s The Expanse, or Suarez’ Delta-V. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (27 Nov 2023) - Galacticon AAR!

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 23:06:03 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :)

* Books
* I met Jordan Peele at Galacticon…
* The standard stuff
Post reviews, not just of my books, on TheStoryGraph.com! I like it better than Goodreads. I think it uses a much smarter cross-connection system than the traditional flat categorization system, helping you find what you’ll enjoy across categories. Plus, it’s not owned by the ‘Zon.
I’m NOT affiliated with TheStoryGraph.

============ Books ============
1)
Both MSD and CotF received 5/5-rated reviews at ReadersFavorite.com, and MSD is now being carried by my local library system! As always, links to editorial reviews can be found on each book’s individual page, which can be found through my /Books page (or /MSD and /CotF directly).
Another way to help with outreach is to contact your local library system and request MSD be carried there. Let them know it has a strong Kirkus review, and is in the Arapahoe Libraries system in Colorado. You can send them these links for reference:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/x-ho-yen/minimum-safe-distance/
https://arapahoelibraries.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S981C15574806
Library availability is a try-before-you-buy tool that does help me with outreach, so this is a great, zero-cost holiday gift for me. :) I’ll probably never break even monetarily, but finding my small audience remains the goal.

2)
As a reminder there will be another *eBook* promotional period (USD0.99) from 4 Dec to 11 Dec 2023, which applies to both MSD and CotF. Please consider passing the word to any possible interested parties. My books are flagged as “for adults”, but really are appropriate for new adults as well as precocious young adults (with parental approval), so they should make good holiday season gifts.
All those wonderful reviews should help make a case for holiday gifting!
As always, all books in all available formats through all vendors can be purchased through my books page: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books

============ Galacticon 2023 AAR ============
This weekend (24-26 Nov) we had a Community Table at Galacticon (Marriott Denver Tech Center). In exchange for the table and a presentation, we got free passes to the con, although we mostly attended our table.
For reasons not worth getting into here, this was not a selling event but an outreach event.
And despite my talk being scheduled for 2 hours before con’s end, I had 12 wonderful attendees! We were only provided a tv instead of a standard projector/screen combo, so I had to mitigate that by boosting its height as shown in the pic below. I’m deeply gratified that my attendees nevertheless expressed tons of enthusiasm at the end.

Our outreach table at Galacticon 2023

Giving my warp 7 presentation on the historical context of Mars space exploration and my role in it through Mars Global Surveyor

Last year at Mile Hi Con 2022, mostly people quickly breezed past my table. I think I managed to hand out 2 postcards. It was, frankly, deeply disheartening, especially since Mile Hi Con is touted as being more about books than other things.
This year at Galacticon, however, we had something like two dozen attendees express some level of interest and take cards for later perusal. That alone was great.
But what really made this a great experience for us was meeting our extremely sympatico table neighbors, Sarah, Allie, and Becca of the humanisttrek.com podcast. They’re the nicest people, and they’re Trek fans who can be critical of its issues while also geeking out and having fun. They absolutely rock, and they filled our area with Trek soundtrack (including Subspace Rhapsody) all weekend! Sympatico!

With Sarah and Allie at their Humanist Trek photo wall (visit humanisttrek.com)

Proudly displaying “Lower Decks” sarcastic Vulcan salutes at the Humanist Trek photo wall

Sarah, Allie, and Becca do a humorous podcast going through every Star Trek episode and evaluating it through the lens of Trek’s humanist message (they’re currently in TOS season 3). I hope to be a guest on a near future episode covering the TOS ep “Day of the Dove”! Stay tuned!
Here are things one might see at a geek-fun con:

In the stall beside mine… :)

A detailed, mobile, articulated RC R2D2 with sounds rolling past completely unfazed conventiongoers. :)

Makers!

Starting in the upper left we have a glimpse at the DENLUG.net (Denver LEGO User Group) offerings. The SATURN V was possibly the only kit there, others being amazing custom designs, such as the huge, detailed “Empire Strikes Back” planet Endor scenes set, the huge DS9 model beside it (lower right), and much more (e.g. motorized ‘The Beatles’ in the Ed Sullivan era, ~half size motorized Zoltar coin-op machine, a custom designed, functional tri-level 1920s themed Escape Room, etc.
Non-LEGO modelmakers filled other tables with models, some from kits, many custom works, all impressive, including the Space Shuttle shown here and the real-CAD-based 3D-printed Mars Insight Lander (lower left).
There were many costumes, of course. One that stood out was that huge dinosaur, who snuck up on us and then activated its blaring roar sound, causing Allie to blurt profanity. lol
Aside from R2D2, there was also a fully articulated and amazing Wall-E RC robot, shown here interacting with a biological near-equivalent.

Peeps!

Our Humanist Trek buddies and a small sample of their visitors. The young Bajoran was brilliant, as was her parental unit. The Mr. Data/Lore cosplayer had facial features resembling Brent Spiner, and he was a real performer, very fun (that’s a Spiner-autographed violin). The Klingon is 81 years old, retired military (iirc), a routine conventiongoer, and had different costumes on different days. At bottom we see our HT friends doing their live podcast, protecting themselves from “maddening ugliness” (TOS ep “Is There In Truth No Beauty?”) with those brilliant visors Becca (at right) handcrafted. We all need something to protect us from maddening ugliness!

Jordan Peele, Space Marine, Galacticon 2023

I lied through my teeth like the low down dirty deceiver I am! I did NOT meet Jordan Peele at Galacticon, and this kind gent is not Jordan Peele. It’s just that at certain angles he reminded me of JP. You can’t really see it in these pics. Our defender patrolling the con all three days, this Space Marine was a good sport letting me use him to temporarily claim I’d met Jordan Peele. Thanks, Space Marine!

This doesn’t even get into the guest stars, panels, etc., but gives you a feel for it.
Sarah (from HT!) was kind enough to capture my entire presentation on audio, so I intend to use that to build a youtube video of the presentation. I’ll let you know when it’s up!

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Andy Weir’s books, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Corey’s The Expanse, or Suarez’ Delta-V. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (9 Nov 2023) - Galacticon (Denver)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 17:22:51 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :)

* Books
* Other stuff
* The standard stuff
Post reviews, not just of my books, on TheStoryGraph.com! I like it better than Goodreads. I think it uses a much smarter cross-connection system than the traditional flat categorization system, helping you find what you’ll enjoy across categories. Plus, it’s not owned by the ‘Zon.
I’m NOT affiliated with TheStoryGraph.

============ Books ============
1)
Good nyews everyone!
In addition to some positive reviews from strangers on TheStoryGraph and Goodreads (where it’s also on several to-read lists), MSD now has five positive editorial reviews (out of five purchased), the latest from Kirkus Reviews:

”Ho Yen’s prose style varies based on which characters he is following, from the grit and suspense of Hutney’s chapters to the wry serenity of the SelfMade: …
Ho Yen’s descriptions of advanced technologies should please fans of hard SF, but what really makes the book work are the questions it raises about what it means to be a person and a member of a species.
A thoughtful, inventive SF fable.
Our Verdict: Get It” — Kirkus Reviews

Nothing to sneeze at!

2)
I’ve begun the long-lead (many months, exhausting) process of trying to get reviews and bookblogger attention on “Custodians of the Future”.

As a reminder there will be another *eBook* promotional period (USD0.99) from 4 Dec to 11 Dec 2023, which applies to both MSD and CotF. Please consider passing the word in the days before that time frame to any possible interested parties. My books are flagged as “for adults”, but really are appropriate for new adults as well as precocious young adults, so they should make good holiday season gifts.
As always, all books in all available formats through all vendors can be purchased through my books page: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books

============ Other stuff ============
1)
I’ll have a Community Table at Galacticon in Denver, 24-26 Nov 2023. (no selling, just handing out postcards and otherwise exposing my books)
https://www.galacticondenver.com/

Also, this con required me to submit a panel/presentation topic in exchange for the table. So I’ve put together a presentation and have sent a query down to long term memory to resurrect my public speaking emulator software. We’ll see how it goes. This will be my third public speaking activity outside my workplace, ever, and my first as an author. The first was when my high school had me reading something over the school PA system (I chose a passage from MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, iirc), and that probably doesn’t count since it was voice only. The second was in a geek club decades ago, and that probably doesn’t count, either. Neither does “Space Autistic Author”, since that’s asynchronous and scripted. So yeah, wish me luck. :)
Panel time: I won’t know until a week before the con!
2)
Some fun stuff:
Could any of these be the real world equivalent of the "Epstein Drive" from "The Expanse"? #theexpanse I'll be watching.

Pulsed Plasma Rocket:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576522001187
VASIMR Plasma Engine (Ad Astra/fmr Astronaut Chang-Diaz):
https://www.adastrarocket.com/our-engine/
Nuclear Thermal Engine (DARPA/NASA):
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2023-07-26

Here's a big "you go, girl!" to chicana writer V. Castro. I felt an immediate kinship on reading this first article because she's doing her own thing, even though it's almost entirely not my thing.
Recently she wrote "Aliens - Vasquez" for Del Ray, which I suspect could be a great gateway book for Latinx youngsters in need of representation in pop culture books.
https://rue-morgue.com/exclusive-interview-author-v.../
https://www.libraryjournal.com/.../Interview-with-horror...
https://vcastrostories.com/
https://lamuertemarket.com

Here’s a funny story!
I worked at ULA (United Launch Alliance) for years, mostly on the Atlas V and Delta IV rocket programs, but also a little on the new “Vulcan” rocket shortly before I participated in a voluntary layoff the new leadership had initiated.
The first Vulcan rocket is scheduled to launch the first Astrobotics lunar rover to the moon, a Peregrine rover design, in late December of this year.
When ULA first named their new rocket, they chose a terrible, terrible name, “Eagle”. (This was, allegedly, after some kind of in-company naming lottery, although I knew of no one who had participated.) This was after SpaceX had named their new rocket “Falcon”, so regardless of the Apollo program’s history with the Eagle lander that name would have just seemed…weak. Very weak.
I was among many of the rank and file employees who immediately “screamed and yelled” that “Eagle” was a terrible name and needed to be changed. Eventually the higher ups arranged for a company-wide naming lottery. Candidate names were submitted. Most of them were better than “Eagle”. In the end, the company chose “Vulcan”, after the Roman god of the forge, which I think is a fantastic name, far better than the original choice. Everyone was also aware of the implicit relationship between the name “Vulcan” and “Star Trek”, but the Roman god of the forge is plenty strong without it.
Then they chose the Vulcan’s logo, without consulting the rank and file. It’s meant to evoke someone working a forge, wrangling heat and throwing smoke, but…take a look…
https://www.ulalaunch.com/images/default-source/default-album/vulcan_art_nowords.jpg?sfvrsn=4474ba8a_4
it just looks like a doob…in the state famous for having legalized marijuana. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. We in the rank and file let them know, but what more could we do? It was out there. ULA had committed itself. We collectively did an arms-up shrug, a corporate "salute” the world over.
I’ve had people in stores see me wearing my Vulcan beanie cap:

(even in this closeup selfie you can barely read “Vulcan” below the smoking doob logo)
and from their reaction I could tell they thought I was an enthusiast of the 4/20 kind rather than of rockets. I don’t know for sure, but there are different reactions when you wear “obvious space enthusiast” garments.
Interestingly, if you go to the ULA store for “Vulcan” now, all you see is this different “Vulcan-Centaur” graphic:
https://www.logosoftwear.com/shops/VulcanCentaur
I wonder if they’re finally transitioning to a different logo…

In any case, keep an eye out for that Astrobotics Peregrine lander flight in December, and subsequent ones. Go Vulcan! Go Vulcan-Centaur! Go Peregrine!
The VIPER lander will rely on a Griffin lander, also by Astrobotics. I’ve been working on the VIPER program (part of the larger Artemis program) for a few years now, and while I have my uncertainties about it, I nevertheless would love to see it succeed.
In January 2024, Intuitive Machines plans to launch a lunar lander to the Malapert crater,
https://spaceflightnow.com/.../intuitive-machines.../
which is not far from where readers are first introduced to the SelfMade in "Minimum Safe Distance" (ch.2, p.25):
"On an oddly shaped plateau between what the humans call the Malapert, Amundsen, and Scott craters, it can see in one direction the rim of a smaller crater atop the plateau, and in the opposite direction the rim of a much larger, much older crater that stamped out the plateau’s sharp southeastern edge."
See this lunar south pole pic:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/uploads/SP_Mosaic.400m.label.png

Here’s a pretty good status on fusion research, for those interested in saving the world:
https://www.geekwire.com/2023/fusion-fever-a-reality-check-on-the-multibillion-dollar-race-to-reinvent-energy-and-save-the-planet/

The "intelligence engine" arms race is picking up...
https://venturebeat.com/ai/meet-nightshade-the-new-tool-allowing-artists-to-poison-ai-models-with-corrupted-training-data/
This tool intentionally “sours” an image for AI image engines that would scrape it, with the intent of protecting artists from AI scraping theft. David Gerrold brought up the topic of “deep fake” pics and vids. Will this kind of technology be able to stop deep fake vids? Time will tell…

This is really good stuff, especially for parents and educators!:
https://youtube.com/shorts/b9gsSDYUvW4?feature=shared
from https://thinkingispower.com/

Finally, I want more Star Trek: Lower Decks!

I recently got a Star Trek tortilla chip. :)
And only after looking up the actual graphic design did I realize my pic is backwards (interesting how that works, me having grown up with original Star Trek). But somehow when I flipped it over it no longer resembled the Starfleet symbol. At that point I ate it. :)

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.
Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Andy Weir’s books, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Corey’s The Expanse, or Suarez’ Delta-V. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (26 Oct 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 02:18:41 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note. Seriously. I’m not kidding. :)

* "Minimum Safe Distance" News
* "Custodians of the Future" News
* Other stuff
* The standard stuff
Post reviews, not just of my books, on TheStoryGraph.com! I like it better than Goodreads. I think it uses a much smarter cross-connection system than the traditional flat categorization system, helping you find what you’ll enjoy across categories.

============ "Minimum Safe Distance" News ============
1)
Good nyews everyone!
MSD now has four positive editorial reviews (out of four purchased…the investment phase continues). As a reminder, there’s no guarantee that these reputable review sources will yield a positive review. That’s what makes them reputable. It also has a reader review on TheStoryGraph, a 5/5 with a lovely writeup (see gif below).
Cite references, you say? Links to all those reviews are available on the MSD page.

That BookLife Prize review is nothing to sneeze at!

============ "Custodians of the Future" News ============
“Custodians of the Future” has been released and I’m using AllAuthor and IngramID to promote both CotF and MSD at the same time (more $…the investment phase continues). Along with MSD’s nice showing with the editorial reviews, I’m hoping these 2023 promotions will ‘kickstart’ more outside-of-friends-and-family readings and reviews. Those lead to new readers trying this material, and any word-of-mouth that gets people to even see the banner pic (above) goes a long way.
To help with that, as a reminder there will be another *eBook* promotional period (USD0.99) from 4 Dec to 11 Dec. My books are flagged as “for adults”, but really are appropriate for new adults as well as precocious young adults, so they should make good holiday season gifts. Holiday season in Australia happens during their summer, which is tragically appropriate given what Dec 31st, 2099, is like in Stockholm in CotF!
As always, all books in all available formats through all vendors can be purchased through my books page: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books

============ Other Stuff ============

1)
Have you had a chance to watch the pilot episode of my vlog? I think you’ll get a kick out of it.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/vlog
If you liked Log 1, I hope you’ll consider emailing and posting the link everywhere (except to young kids). This new outreach method relies on re-posting (rather than relying on facebook admins, who’ve let me down too many times).
If there are any creatives/makers out there who’d like to participate in future episodes as a ‘guest star’ or via visuals for the art showcase, contact GrandUniCOO at gmail and we’ll work out the details.

2)
Back in April I received a broadcast invitation on farcebook, something sent to everyone with “Author” in their profile name. It was an invitation to submit a 300-word “flash fiction” story for queerscifi.com’s 9th annual contest and anthology book.
Since I’m cis-hetero, I replied that I didn’t think it would be my place to participate.
But the gentleperson who runs the thing, J. Scott Coatsworth, said that would not be a concern.
In the end, it is a concern, to me at least. I’d never want to be thought of as someone who appropriates things that aren’t mine. But with Scott’s assurances I went ahead and wrote a 298-word story and submitted it.
The theme this year was:
”RISE (Noun, Verb)
Eight definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell:
1) An upward slope or movement
2) A beginning or origin
3) An increase in amount or number
4) An angry reaction
5) To take up arms
6) To return from death
7) To become heartened or elated
8) To exert oneself to meet a challenge
Rise features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.”
My story’s title is “Either-Or Answers After Sally Ride”. (and for anyone who doesn’t know who Sally Ride was, or why her name might be in the title of my flash fiction piece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride)
It did not win, place, or show in the contest, but it was among the 120 submissions that made it into their anthology out of 454 total submissions. I think it was #119, based on the list of names in the press kit. :) Let’s see, that roughly gives me a grade of 334*100/454 = 73.5%, a C-! That’s okay, I’ll take it, and it officially makes me an author whose work has been published by someone else! Not bad for a cis-hetero contributor who still sucks at short form writing, let alone flash fiction. I’m happy to have contributed something they felt was worthy of their anthology. I’m an ally.
The anthology is now out, so to speak. Here’s some promo. (clickable pics, but here’s the link, just in case: https://www.otherworldsink.com/book/rise/)

I’ve had time to read a number of other entries, and they’re really quite good. If you’d like to try some heartfelt fantasy and sci fi flash fiction, or know someone who would, pass the word!
Also, Queer Sci Fi is giving away a $25 Bookshop.org gift card (through a raffle) with this blog tour (but the raffle ends at the end of October):
Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47301/
3)
I'm reading my first N.K.Jemisin book, even though it's (contemporary) fantasy. Fantasy isn't a preference of mine, but this one’s a real palate cleanser for me after reading that *other* NYT bestseller which I truly hated. (That other one pandered to creeping illiteracy, had a 100% white cast and was the very definition of old-school white privilege safely playing with danger [of its own making, btw], and it relied on painful contrivances in exchange for plot twists. I need to remember that I can’t trust the big name sources of its testimonials.)
Jemisin is so deeply literate, this book is a joy to read. It’s like a biryani.
No sarcasm, I'm reminded of how much I *love* it when an author makes me look up words, new or forgotten.
Obviously, what I like about it isn't the act of interrupting my reading to spend 12.3 seconds looking something up. It's the reminder that there's so much more out there, so much more than what's currently in my mind and field of view, at my fingertops. It's profoundly comforting. (It also led me to find a source of Puerto Rican food not too far away, which provided enjoyable comfort food and will again.)
A new/reminded word is the anti-isolation, the link between us and everyone everywhere throughout time.

4)
One can’t simply write good books and publish them. They’ll never find readers without promotion, and there’s no point in writing and publishing a good book if it never finds readers, right?
I’ll have a table at Galacticon 2023 in November. This is the successor to “StarFest”, which was one of the foundational sci fi cons in the country. But I missed the window for obtaining the necessary state tax license for special events. The one I had applies to my city only. And then there’s locality specific taxes. So, yeah, for Galacticon I’ll be at a “community table” handing out postcards while Grand Unification Monastery’s COO and I figure out how to handle taxes for bookselling at future events.
I’ll also have a table at COSine in January, but by then I’ll be squared away with the legal stuff.
And I may want to submit CotF for various contests and reviews, too. More time/energy/$.
All this “authoring” stuff is exhausting. I’d rather be writing.
My next book probably won’t be ready until 2025. Rushing it is a bad idea. CotF was quick because its structure is so very familiar. I don’t want to do the same thing with “Attendants of the Future”.

5)
Here’s a plug for my friend, Mike Torreano, who writes well-received and award-winning westerns and other historical fiction. I helped with a couple of them as an alpha reader. If you know anyone interested in this kind of work, pass the word! The plan is for Mike to be the first ‘guest star’ on ‘Space Autistic Author’, so keep an eye out for that.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10187716.Mike_Torreano?from_search=true&from_srp=true

6)
Here’s a glorious speech by Ursula K. Le Guin. Every word is carefully chosen, every sentence packs a punch. Glorious!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk

"What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm."
-- Henry David Thoreau

"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?"
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.
Printable, one-page ad for CotF

All purchase options can be found here: https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. Both sites include links showing how several of the big vendors allow you to gift eBooks.
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together. Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoys Andy Weir’s books, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, Corey’s The Expanse, or Suarez’ Delta-V. I'm convinced my books would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (8 Oct 2023) - CotF and SAA releases!

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 03:01:11 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!
* "Minimum Safe Distance" News
* "Custodians of the Future" News
* “Space Autistic Author” VLOG News
* The standard stuff

============ "Minimum Safe Distance" News ============
1)
Good nyews everyone!
MSD has received another lovely editorial review and rating (8.75/10), this one from The BookLife Prize (of Publisher’s Weekly). See the review here.

That BookLife Prize review is nothing to sneeze at!

============ "Custodians of the Future" News ============
“Custodians of the Future” releases tomorrow (Monday, 9 Oct 23) with a USD0.99 discount price. This promotional discount will last one week. MSD is also on sale for USD 0.99. Hopefully the recent very nice editorial reviews of MSD will provide ammunition for recommending this indie author to potential readers! :) There will be another promotional period later this year. Gift a book!
Here’s the CotF universal eBook vendor link: https://books2read.com/CotF
Bookshop.org link (paperback, org supports local bookstores, alternative to the ‘Zon and with better print quality, too): https://bookshop.org/a/89285/9780976615866

============ “Space Autistic Author” VLOG News ============

”Log 1” of my garage-animated, fictional world VLOG, “Space Autistic Author”, is also now available.
I hope you get at least one small kick for humankind out of it.
View it here:
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/vlog

Earn 10 Karma points if you get the Kubrick movie references. Earn another 100 Karma points by posting/sharing the link EVERYWHERE. Email the link to your grandparents and your grandkids and everyone in between. No WAIT, not grandkids younger than age 18! But everyone else, and their friends. Think of all the Karma points I’m giving you the opportunity to earn!

Beyond this mailing list, this youtube channel will be my new public outreach vector, ultimately to replace my ineffectual and actively thwarted presence on social media. It relies entirely on re-posting of the link.
If there are any creatives out there who’d like to participate in future episodes as a ‘guest star’, all it takes is a one minute recording of answers to a couple of standard questions, and maybe some consultation on a preferred visual representation in the animation. Contact GrandUniCOO at gmail to make arrangements.

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
― Leo Tolstoy

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career/hobby thing come together. Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian and Project Hail Mary, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience. Thanks for your support! XHY https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (21 Sep 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 16:55:30 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!
* General tag-up (5 items)
* The standard stuff

============ General tag-up ============
1) Why did I become a writer of fiction? Is this just a “dumb hobby”, an old man’s indulgence?

The simple answer is this is my way of having a legacy of contributing to civilization, which is something I’ve always considered a top priority. I’ve always wanted to contribute to that “something bigger than me” thing that people who are in governments, militaries, and religious organizations talk about. It’s not just for them. It’s for all of us.

My career in space exploration has been tremendously gratifying and I’m proud of it. Looking ahead to my retirement, I knew that I’d need something else. There are many ways to be a good citizen of Planet Earth. This is my way. I will write books, and those books will not only be interesting and entertaining but will speak truths and influence minds and hearts, as did the books that taught me and expanded me when I was young.

When the U.S. assassinated Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, the Iranian propaganda machine said, among other things, that Americans have no heroes, just fictional superheroes. They were wrong, at least for my generation. I can’t speak for the younger generations, but my heroes were astronauts and those space explorers who used robots for exploration, and truth-telling, boundary-pushing writers — and some were both, like Carl Sagan — as well as social justice warriors, and scientists doing basic research without a business or political agenda, i.e. seekers of truth and justice.

Is it really a “dumb hobby” or an “indulgence” to strive to be like them? I say no. I hope you can agree.
2)
Having accumulated a little more confidence in complete strangers’ appreciation for “Minimum Safe Distance”, I’ve taken the plunge and have paid for editorial reviews from three of the industry’s big name editorial review entities: Kirkus, Foreword/Clarion, and Blue Ink. Having submitted MSD as a contest entry at BookLife/Publisher’s Weekly, they will also review it. (These are much bigger names than the UK’s The Wishing Shelf Award.) We’ll see how it goes. I can’t bring myself to believe they’ll flatly pan it.

We’ll also see how it fares over the next year in the Hoffer, Rubery, IAN, and SPSFC contests. This is the ‘authoring’ side of the writer/author equation, and it’s far more difficult and time-consuming now than the writing itself. Promo promo promo. Get reviews. Find an audience. About FOUR MILLION new novels come out every year. This is why sales are alright, but reviews are platinum. Please help if you can. :)

3)
Below are a few quick and dirty sample pics as teasers for my upcoming "Space Autistic Author" VLOG set in my "Innerverse", which will be posted to my new youtube channel. For this project I'm using only copyright-free, good for commercial-use A/V assets, usually customized by me, or my own hand made works. e.g. I made a Hal 9000-esque lens graphic by doing what the makers of 2001: A Space Odyssey did: photographing a camera lens (and manipulating the image afterward). And I’ve had to get into Blender for alteration and manipulation of some 3D models, and am learning more and more about Audacity, Photoshop Elements, and Premiere Elements. I’m in drinking-from-a-firehose mode on this project.
Why would I do this instead of getting going on the next book? It’s that promo promo promo problem, but here's why in particular:
I've now left/unjoined at least half a dozen fb groups "for writers and readers", because my simple posts get rejected/declined.
In one group, just now I saw a guy advertising his book using a background image from a major motion picture (Morpheus from “The Matrix”), a clear copyright infringement, and totally unethical. That post was not removed.
Others post constantly (i.e. spam) with the basest ads for the basest books. Yet my simple post about receiving a 5-star editorial review from The Wishing Shelf Awards was removed. Why?
So was my Sturgeon's Law post.
A different group's admins declined to even approve my Sturgeon's Law post in the first place.
On reflection, I've altered the wording at the end of that post slightly. It was too autistic, I know. But really, was the original so, so problematic that it could not even be posted?

Here’s the original (as best I can remember it):
"
(Theodore) Sturgeon's Law:
Short version:
"90% of everything is crap."
Longer version:
"Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. are crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as other artforms."
I strive to be in the 10%, which is why I've always been terribly uncomfortable with all the writing advice to "write to your audience"/"know your genre/category/subcategory's expectations", and such. Those pieces of advice generate the 90%. I know this won’t make me friends among my fellow writers. But we’re in a world that requires truth be told or we’re all doomed. There it is. Classic X. Ho Yen.
"
In my updated version, I replaced what follows “Those pieces of advice generate the 90%.” with this:
”Be the 10%.”
Thus, I grow ever more disenchanted with "social media". If "writers and readers" groups can't handle posts like my 5-star post (ZERO controversial content) and my Sturgeon’s Law post, how is someone who’s trying to be in Sturgeon's 10% to find an audience there? If I can't post a proud announcement about a 5-star editorial review, what is the value of those groups to me? What is the value of SM?
As a friend of mine has said more than once, many readers can enjoy both the 90% and the 10%. That’s great, but this constant rejection by the machine that generates the 90% is what’s so frustrating, both emotionally and operationally. I would really rather write, but the machine blocks me and forces me to work 90 times harder on the ‘authoring’ side of the equation. Meanwhile, writers of the 90% earn 5, sometimes 6 figures! I’m still very much in the red. (expected at this stage, but it's the principle I'm talking about) So I hope you can forgive my ranting about this.
This pushes me even more to do my fictional world VLOG instead. I’ll get to stay behind my mask and discuss the things I want to discuss, and my vids won't be arbitrarily removed by some fb group admin who's too afraid of boat-rocking. They only want the 90%, possibly because they're making money from ads and the 90% is, of course, 90% of the market. That's the entire problem with SM, and it goes well beyond my struggles.

Thanks for letting me vent. If I can’t vent to you about this stuff, who then?

I hope these sample pics are somewhat titillating (a word that would no doubt get an SM post removed, despite the constant stream of fleshy erotic novel covers being spammed… oh, wait, I’m venting again…):

The central area of the bridge (with placeholder silhouette)

Dizdain in the port nook of the bridge

Part of the authorship Endoprise, from a zooming shot

X. awakens from a night terror instigated by (iN)Security Bot!

The as-yet-unnamed ship’s shuttle. I’m seriously considering naming it the Sagan. Got any better ideas?

4)
I just finished reading Theodore Sturgeon’s “To Marry Medusa”. What amazed me about this book is that it’s written entirely in omniscient narrator. How did he do that?
He has an interesting bio. You should look it up.
5)
”Custodians of the Future” is on track for a mid-October release. I’ve delayed its release on Amazon and IngramSpark to give time to the aforementioned review organizations to complete their reviews of MSD. It’s important to release CotF with as much clout behind MSD as possible.
But CotF is available for PRE-ORDER right now on other ebook vendors through this link:
https://books2read.com/CotF
And those sites will actually start selling the book on 9 October. This book is a quick read, and it would be grand if there could be some reviews already posted by the time the Amazon and Ingram releases happen a couple of weeks later.
Even if you’re not interested at this time, I humbly request that you consider who you know who might be interested. Thanks!

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together. Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian and Project Hail Mary, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Suarez’ Delta-V, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience. Thanks for your support! XHY https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (23 Aug 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 18:39:23 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!
* "Minimum Safe Distance" News
* "Custodians of the Future" News
* Other News
* The standard stuff

============ "Minimum Safe Distance" News ============
1)
Good nyews everyone!
The Wishing Shelf just gave the novel a lovely 5-star review!

Here’s the full text of the review:

The Wishing Shelf Book Awards
23rd August 2023
TITLE: Minimum Safe Distance
AUTHOR: X HoYen
Star Rating: 5
CATCHY QUOTE
‘A stylishly written ‘first contact’ novel with a strong cast of ‘very different’ characters. Highly recommended!’ The Wishing Shelf
REVIEW
I must say, I very much enjoyed this first contact novel from the pen of the rather intriguingly named X Ho Yen. Being a bit of a nerd, I love technology-based books; I recently enjoyed The Martian which is written by a software engineer. I see the author of this novel has a background in aerospace engineering – trust me, you can tell! Complicated, yes; in fact, I had to work hard to keep up in the opening chapters – but I still loved every word of it. X HoYen is not only a talented author, but he also has a lot to say. The result is a thought-provoking, techno-novel that’s so highly unpredictable, it’ll keep you awake at night!
In many ways, although I loved the plot – the ‘SelfMade’ being particularly original – it was the writing style that grabbed me. I just got the feeling that X Ho Yen really wanted his readers to ‘get it’. So, for example, when there’s a character with a difficult to pronounce name, the author’s determined that the reader will pronounce it right: Laurence’s mother, Geneviève Levesque (pronounced the Quebecois way, zhuhn-ev-YEHV lev-AH-eek). This author is not a lazy writer, and I loved that.
So, who’s this novel for? Well, if you in any way enjoyed the film, Independence Day, Resurgence, which is possibly the worst sci-fi film ever made, this novel is NOT for you. But if you enjoy thought-provoking sci-fi, i.e. you’re a Star Trek fan and not Star Wars, then you’ll find this book a blast. And if you enjoy books written by authors who go the extra mile to get it right, then you’ll find this novel utterly engrossing.
All in all, it’s a bit of a gem.
A ‘Wishing Shelf’ Book Review
www.thewsa.co.uk

2)
More good news!
Findawayvoices.com has finally worked out its problems with my imprint’s tax designation, and
the MSD AUDIOBOOK IS FINALLY RELEASED.
Here are the current retailer links (more are in progress):
BARNES & NOBLE/NOOK - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1142191955?ean=2940159632388
APPLE - https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/minimum-safe-distance/id1703370926
GOOGLE - https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/X_HoYen_Minimum_Safe_Distance?id=AQAAAEBibWstGM
SPOTIFY - https://open.spotify.com/show/2bSYeNhldnn6vYwntczaSX
KOBO - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/minimum-safe-distance-1
CHIRP - https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/minimum-safe-distance-by-x-hoyen
LIBRO - https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9780976615835
Of course, I’ll add all links to the MSD entry on my web site’s “Books” page.
RJF, my autistic narrator for the MSD audiobook, also narrated her own books:
Darphopia: The Godless Land https://a.co/d/40YnXkn
Darphopia: The Second God War https://a.co/d/atbXfFT
What a year it’s been getting this audiobook created and published!

============ "Custodians of the Future" News ============
“Custodians of the Future” is poised for release. I learned from the MSD interior file and from online sources how to create a nice interior layout with ‘drop caps’. And I added custom virus graphics used for section breaks and custom ‘molecule’ graphics around the page numbers. The paperback proof copies look grand. Also learned how to properly create the e-book .epub file from that interior layout file.
The final box to check is receipt of the copyright certification. I submitted the copyright registration a couple of weeks ago, and the estimated processing delay was 1.2 months at that time.
You may recall, MSD’s copyright certification was the only thing that broke through Amazon’s still inexplicable e-book-only hold on MSD’s release. I’m hoping for another October release, aiming for my annual book release target. We’ll see about that for the next one. For ‘Attendants of the Future’ I’m feeling a whole different vibe. It could take longer.

============ Other News ============
I’m moving forward with a whole new approach to promo work. SM is extremely difficult for me.
I’ve got it in my head to release periodic videos set in what I’m calling my “Innerverse”. These will be X. Ho Yen’s equivalent of vlog posts, except they won’t come out very often since they’ll involve video production work.
The title of this ongoing series of promo vids will be “Space Autistic Author”, sort of along the lines of “Space Ghost”, I guess. There will be an “adults’ table” warning in the text below each video, followed by this (work in progress) intro:

Greetings, programs!
You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind.
Okay, mostly mind. My mind.
Actually, it's *entirely* my mind.
You are about to enter X. Ho Yen, Author's *INNERVERSE*.
It may look like spaceships, dangerous swirly things, AIs, aliens, and sciencey challenges in outer space, but this is not a depiction of some far flung future. It is, in fact, only a depiction of X. Ho Yen, Author's interior life framed that way, as Space Autistic Author!
This is accomplished using copyright-free artworks, usually with explicit permission. Pixabay.com is a major source. See the credits for how to find and support the individual artists. Space Autistic Author is as much about SHARED PROMO with friendly creatives as it is about offering you, dear reader, a glimpse into the mind and heart of this guy who writes such different books.
Beware: there's no guarantee my Innerverse will be as pleasant as you want it to be. If you have the guts, let's find out, shall we?

These will be little more than glorified slide-show comic strips, with voice+word bubbles (no moving lips, that’s too much trouble) and added movement/transitions/effects via whatever I can scratch out of Adobe Premiere Elements and my other graphics tools. Sort of like the Ken Burns Effect, but a little amped up. I’m a “garage production” and must own it.
Like other ‘stage’ productions such as Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, The Muppets, there will be ‘regulars’ and a ‘guest star’. The ‘regulars’ will mostly be depicting aspects of my whacky mind or ways in which the outside world intrudes upon it as I ride my ‘authorship’ (looks a lot like a spaceship) called the “Endoprise” through my Innerverse. ‘Guest stars’ will be other creatives, to the extent I can get them to do brief spots in these short episodes, and/or who knows who else? Like Han Solo, I’m making this up as I go. Or was that Indiana Jones?
I have some volunteers to do voice work. Thanks! But it’s always good to have a deep bench, so if any of you would like to volunteer to do some voice recordings for this series, let me know. No acting is required, no impressions, no ad-libbing, just ‘do what you can with the provided script’. We’re not cinema professionals. Garage production. I’m hoping to establish a fun, quick visual style, but the content is more important than the look. The script’s the thing. Big challenge for me! But with this Space Autistic Author/Innerverse mask on, I might do better than I do in SM.
Each episode will feature maximum re-use of “sets”, built from permission-granted, copyright-free graphics obtained from some rather talented digital artists I’ve found on pixabay.com. It will be an ongoing process to find more of those for shared promo purposes.
Wish me luck! And I’m open to as much help as anyone would like to offer!

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career/hobby thing come together. Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian and Project Hail Mary, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience. Thanks for your support! XHY https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (10 Aug 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 20:26:23 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!
This is just a quick update to share with you the glorious new book cover I've purchased from Ukrainian design studio, MiblArt.com.
Check it out!
See, there's Stockholm at the bottom, with New Year's Eve fireworks in the distance, phenotype-universal silhouettes of the ensemble cast with a 'virus' theme around them, and the planet, because sci fi. :) Very pretty!
Why these themes? You'll have to find out the old-fashioned way. :)

The proof print from Amazon confirms that the interior looks splendid, although their print of the cover doesn't quite capture the vibrancy of that green. A proof print from IngramSpark/LightningSpark is in work. We'll see if their print houses do a better job than Amazon's. They did with the MSD covers.

Side note: after asking Findawayvoices.com to cancel my account (because of the audiobook not being published debacle), they begged me to let them take another crack at the tax form problem. I told them they're in a race against me finding another option, but they seem to be trying.

That's all for this brief update!
send me a note!
X-)

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in my books page (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/books) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career/hobby thing come together. Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian and Project Hail Mary, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience. Thanks for your support! XHY https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (1 Aug 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 15:47:52 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!
* "Minimum Safe Distance" News
* "Custodians of the Future" News
* Other News
* The standard stuff

============ "Minimum Safe Distance" News ============
1)
Our lovely book cover for "Minimum Safe Distance" was a Finalist in The Wishing Shelf Awards 2023, Adult Book Cover category. You can see it in the list here:
https://www.thewsa.co.uk/finalists2023/#Category_10
It was a 3-'person' team effort: Ukrainian design studio MiblArt.com for the final design, Casey Weeks (woodsoflore.com) for the commissioned source art, and I specified the original concept/layout and did some tweaks to the source art, and of course provided guidance to MiblArt.
I've sent notifications and my congratulations to MiblArt and Casey. PLEASE CONSIDER doing the same publicly (not a private message -- this is promotion, my friends). Casey can be found @woodsoflore on instagram. MiblArt can be found on instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/miblart/
This is the first traction I've had among all the contest submissions I've made for MSD, many of which won't be determined until 2024. I'm hoping for more, of course. :)
2)
Findawayvoices.com's accounting department is still (allegedly) looking at why their system won't accept my EIN. (Employee Identification Number, a tax thing I had to get as a self-publishing imprint -- see previous newsletters for more about that fiasco) This delay has cost me more than half a year of time on the audiobook release. :(

============ "Custodians of the Future" News ============
1)
A month ago I activated MiblArt.com to make a professional book cover for CotF. I'm pleased to announce that they've done it again. Using my extensive notes, and with only one design iteration, they've created a beautiful cover for CotF that captures the key elements of the story. It's far more professional looking and enticing than my amateurish notional cover designs. You're gonna love it! I'll share it with subscribers in the near future.

Next I need to finalize the book interior layouts. I've already set up the paperback interior, although I might add a "blank line/spacer" graphic. And then there's the ebook, which has some formatting challenges. For MSD I hired MiblArt to do that for me, so this is new territory for me.
Note that there will be no hardcover version of CotF. For MSD, being my debut novel, yes, I had to. But it's not particularly value-added for me to develop and manage new hardcover versions going forward.

2)
Since you all were so supportive of MSD, I may set up CotF with a PREORDER period. But a preorder phase that generates no preorders, or few (less than, say, two dozen), would actually make matters worse. Therefore, consider this a POLL to discover how many subscribers have read the description of CotF and like the idea of it enough to commit to a preorder.

A successful preorder phase would be as valuable for promotion purposes as a book getting a bunch of reviews. (Reviews are much more valuable than sales at this stage, even if they aren't 5-star. Only my immediate/"nukuler" family should not post reviews.) Do please let me know what you think about this preorder idea.

============ Other News ============
1)
I recently joined ALLi (the Alliance of Independent Authors). Their services have already been helpful. It’s another subscription, but whatcha gonna do?

2)
I also recently used chatGPT for the first time. I gave it information about me and MSD from my web site and asked it to create ad copy for the book. I had to make a few minor alterations, but honestly, it did a better job than I would have. It has the entire commercial world to draw upon for experience, so it knows ad copy better than I do/ever will.
Please consider sharing your opinion on chatGPT's ad copy. Visit the MSD page and compare the original back cover ad copy to the lengthier chatGPT-based ad copy at the bottom (there's a quick-jump link at the top of the page):
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/msd
I'd love to hear what you think of it.

3)
My thoughts on chatGPT? It was exactly what I expected from what I've read about it. It's not smart at all, just sophisticated. Its first error was to assume MSD is about "alien invasion" simply because "alien" appeared in the description, despite the rest of the description making it clear that humanity was the real threat to these visiting aliens rather than vice versa. It does not understand what it's reading or writing, not even close. It draws upon a vast database and then it statistically riffs off of the requests you give it (which it's also interpreting statistically, not actually understanding them). So, because there are sooo many other "alien invasion" (thinly veiled fear of Other) stories out there, statistically mine must also be about that, right?
Now, I told it that it had gotten that wrong, and it proceeded to try again. I iterated with it several times on some other details, but quickly reached an asymptote. I could tell it simply would never understand my detailed corrections.
Some day these things will get even more sophisticated, but as I've said before, my belief is that google, MS, etc. are strongly motivated to *not* create sentient AIs. Once they cross that line, personhood rights come into play, the public's fears and biases, one way or the other, come into play, the AI's own goals come into play, and they'd lose control over their expensive R&D work.
In CotF I make a prediction about which industry will be the first to create sentient AIs. I think you'll find my prediction believable. ;)

4)
Doing that drove me to scrub the rest of my web site. Mostly I reworked my About/default page to be more focused on allowing potential readers to find out if they are my 'target reader'. So please consider sharing your thoughts on the updated About page, too. I also incorporated a google translate option to allow users for whom English is not their first language to translate the page into something closer to their language of origin. There are other minor improvements.

5)
Later this year I will have an announcement about another small achievement, getting a piece of flash fiction into an anthology. The details are still "NOBUDY CUMZ IN HERE - SEKRIT". (Kudos to anyone who recognizes that...)

6)
Recently on fb I re-shared this item from my "Ditties" page. I wrote it a year ago. It's still relevant, and I'd like to share it again here, because I sometimes need this reminder.

https://xhoyenauthor.com/positive-thinking-in-the-apocalypse

X. Ho Yen writes hopepunk, not grimdark, not dystopian, and not utopian. Here's a great intro to hopepunk, if you're not familiar with the term:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220113-the-sci-fi-genre-offering-radical-hope-for-living-better

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com. You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career/hobby thing come together. Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian and Project Hail Mary, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Card’s Speaker for the Dead, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience. Thanks for your support! XHY https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (11 July 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 16:57:29 +0000

X.HoYen's Author Newsletter (11 July 2023)
Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!

* "Minimum Safe Distance" audiobook status
* "Custodians of the Future" production status
* Updated official headshot
* The standard stuff

============ MSD audiobook status ============
You're gonna love this.
At findawayvoices.com, after receiving the email saying "Congratulations, Minimum Safe Distance will be sent to distributors shortly!", my "Payment & Tax Profile" section showed all green checkmarks:

Four days ago, I finally broke *their* "don't contact us after publishing, just check your sales links page" rule, telling them that four months is an excessive amount of time to hear nothing at all from anyone, and asking if they've received feedback from vendors explaining why there's been zero activity on this audiobook.
Today I received their response. They say my tax form was in error and I should've received notification from suchnsuch @spotify.com about the error. I never did. And I periodically check spam.
I've just made the changes they apparently needed, so maybe this audiobook project will actually go out to distributors shortly.
Grrr!

============ CotF production status ============
Twenty out of the 31 agent queries I've sent out are rejects or timeouts. Rather than waiting until August for the final timeouts, I'm making the decision to proceed with self-publishing "Custodians of the Future".
This time I did not hire a professional editor. It seems like I got away with it, with help from readers and automated editing systems (MS Word Editor and Grammarly). I learned a lot from MSD's editor, Sarah Cypher.
I'm spinning up MiblArt.com, the Ukrainian studio I used for MSD's cover, and I think I've got the paperback interior layout done myself. I've decided that CotF will not be in hardcover form, and the paperback will be smaller and with 11pt font instead of 12pt, to minimize the book price. My royalty per book is still less than a dollar and I'm probably never going to break even, money-wise, unless I find my audience and they post reviews. Finding my audience is possibly the biggest challenge in all this. Creating the ebook file will be another interesting challenge.

Here we go!
============ Updated official headshot ============

Much as it pains me to be photographed and have my photos on the web, it's part of the authoring thing.

The other day I had a photo shoot at Henok.T Photography. Henok's a fascinating, multi-talented person from Eritrea.
https://XHoYenAuthor.com has now been updated with a proper professional standard head shot, on the About page and in the Media Kit. It's an interesting composition (look at the background).
During the shoot, several times I said to Henok, "I am smiling." :)
Here's that shot (the indoor one) and a couple of others from the shoot.

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com.
You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career/hobby thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (21 May 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 21 May 2023 17:39:46 +0000

X.HoYen's Author Newsletter (21 May 2023)
Greetings Dear Subscribers,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!

* "Minimum Safe Distance" audiobook status
* "Custodians of the Future" production status
* Social Media catchup
* The standard stuff

============ MSD audiobook status ============
I still have no news on the MSD audiobook release. Findawayvoices says it "could take up to a month or longer", and explains that there could be strategic or tactical marketing factors at play, like the various distributors want more or fewer releases of certain types during certain time frames, based on their marketing actuarial data, and so forth.
It's par for the course that my completion of the audiobook was just in time for Women’s History Month but marketing forces are getting in the way.

============ CotF production status ============
It took me 11 years to get MSD to the point where it was ready for release. It took 4 months to bring "Custodians of the Future" to that point. Groundwork laid! I'm proud of CotF. It's the stylistic opposite of MSD, which demonstrates that I'm not a one trick pony. And there are over a hundred homage nods in CotF that might ring a bell for readers familiar with Star Trek, The Blues Brothers, Alien/Aliens, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, etc.
I've sent queries to 32 literary agents. They're the ones who know what they can sell to the publishing houses. We'll see how it goes. I'll know in June, July, or August for most of them, but a couple might take into September, and one into November to decide. I'm not sure I want to wait that long, since it takes time to develop cover art, register copyright, and so forth in preparation for self-publishing, and it would be nice to publish this Fall again. One novel a year would be a nice pace for building a catalog.

============ Social Media catchup ============
1) Cameo offer

On facebook I recently asked if anyone wanted a “cameo appearance” in a future work. Facebook messaging is problematic, and there were no dedicated takers. Here’s a re-post of that notification, in case anyone’s interested:
Would you like a playful caricature of yourself to be written into one of my upcoming "of the future" non-series theme novels with a touch of whimsy? It would be a secondary or tertiary character, appearing briefly, but in an amusing way/situation. A cameo.
Your real name would not be used, of course. But I will be making a note of your participation somewhere, somehow. It won't remain a secret outside the book, although your real identity will be kept confidential to whatever extent you wish it to be and is appropriate legally.
We would work together on exactly what your "cameo" will look (read) like and how best to execute it. It might involve a known nickname, but perhaps not. It might involve a key phrase that's "very you". Elements of your physicality, past, present, or future, could be involved, if you like, or not. You without your real name involves creative flexibility.
Your caricature will be used something like...
-- Florence Henderson's "guest starring" appearance in the opening sequence of that one episode of "Police Squad", where her body is dumped out of a moving car in the episode teaser
-- Brad Pitt's over-the-top operative in "The Lost City"
-- Matt Damon's uncredited appearance as an actor portraying Loki in the sappy, self-serving play that Loki puts on for Asgardians in "Thor: Ragnarok"
-- Bill Murray playing himself in "Zombieland" not too smartly pretending to be a zombie when armed non-zombies are around
-- Kevin Bacon's cutthroat New Yorker in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles"
-- Stan Lee's many MCU cameos ("I am so getting fired.")

You get the idea. Want to be immortalized in a novel with your own amusing cameo? If so, please hit REPLY here and reach out.
Send email if interested. We'll iterate until we're mutually happy with a plan.

2) Mastodon?
Do we have any Mastodon users? (https://www.wired.com/story/the-man-behind-mastodon-eugen-rochko-built-it-for-this-moment/)
(Stephen Fry is on Mastodon. https://mastodonapp.uk/@stephenfry)
If so, I'd love to hear about your experience on it thus far, servers you've tried, etc. The basic idea is very much in line with human nature -- shunning and social exile have always been how our species regulates bad behavior. It's not how twitter and fb are built, they're autocracies with a profit motive to let anyone say anything. But it is how Mastodon is built, as a non-centralized network of servers which can /ignore not just users but other servers. Yes, it means the extreme ends remain isolated, but that's what happens when you're extreme. I like the idea of it.

3) some SM catchup
I thought maybe this one time I'd share a few of my posts here, in case you're not on fb or aren't following @XHoYenAuthor.
MSD now has 3 five-star ratings on Amazon, two with writeups. Thanks! Please add more honest reviews. Sales are nice, but at this stage of my career, honest reviews are platinum force-multipliers.
These never get old...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=efiW2K8gASM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mOyE_l80D4Y
A bit of history: https://www.facebook.com/XHoYenAuthor/posts/pfbid02xJexZn6avBtZSAQLoVqfZacNdNdFrVzKnAjED3VQUbfv6ym1DCZCNjsc1qZvVSeyl
My post about recent A.I. reactions: https://www.facebook.com/XHoYenAuthor/posts/pfbid0s3XH3WdLeLAFthVoRB36Ybdt5w3G8zpZkGCvXyZz3nPZXy9rZxpyHM5gfCnEfkERl

The Nordin Agency's 'About' page starts like this:
"Authors are the last magicians. A couple of black dashes on a white paper – and suddenly a fantastic scene is created. For what is it if not magic when you get to think the thoughts of another person. When you experience new worlds, eras and feelings. Alchemy? Perhaps. Talent? Most probably. Hard work? Without doubt."

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com.
You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (1 Mar 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 17:35:35 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter,
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!

* MSD Audiobook
* Work-in-progress
* autistic author things
* Current reading follow-up
* The standard stuff

============ MSD Audiobook ============
Just in time for Women’s History Month, “RJF” and I have completed our narration-editing iterations on the audiobook version of “Minimum Safe Distance”.
RJF, also an autistic, probably “more autistic” than me, is multilingual and multidialectal. She was born in England but spent most of her life in Mississauga, just outside Toronto, which I did not know when I selected her for the job. By a fun coincidence, in MSD a couple of key things happen in Etobicoke, right next to Mississauga, and other key things happen in Toronto.
RJF has been accommodating and helpful, and she brought something to MSD’s dialogue I hadn’t even planned on requesting. She actually did performance voices, in a variety of accents. Sure, that might be standard for standard, dialogue-heavy novels, but MSD is intentionally different, and she didn’t have to do that. She just did it on her own, and it not only works, it helps!
RJF’s Findawayvoices profile: https://my.findawayvoices.com/narrator/rjfnarration?reviewer=61249
The audiobook is being released today, through many distributors. It just comes down to how fast the online systems finish their quality reviews and pick it up.
RELEASE PRICE (through 31 March ‘23): USD3.99
RETAIL PRICE (after that): USD4.99

============ Work-in-progress ============
Work progresses on “Custodians of the Future.” I’m past 36k words in the draft manuscript, and the rest of the novel has crystallized in my notes. When my notes crystallize like this, I can crank out multiple thousands of words in a week. I’m having fun with CotF, and I hope you do, too. It has made me laugh. There are also numerous pop culture references, although me being old they tend to be old references… :) I’m hoping someone out there will eventually compile a list of these “easter eggs.”
On facebook I recently asked if anyone wanted a “cameo appearance” in a future work. Facebook messaging is problematic, and there were no takers. Here’s a re-post of that notification, in case anyone’s interested:
Would you like a playful caricature of yourself to be written into one of my upcoming "of the future" non-series theme novels with a touch of whimsy? It would be a secondary or tertiary character, appearing briefly, but in an amusing way/situation. A cameo.
Your real name would not be used, of course. But I will be making a note of your participation somewhere, somehow. It won't remain a secret outside the book, although your real identity will be kept confidential to whatever extent you wish it to be and is appropriate legally.
We would work together on exactly what your "cameo" will look (read) like and how best to execute it. It might involve a known nickname, but perhaps not. It might involve a key phrase that's "very you". Elements of your physicality, past, present, or future, could be involved, if you like, or not. You without your real name involves creative flexibility.
Your caricature will be used something like...
-- Florence Henderson's "guest starring" appearance in the opening sequence of that one episode of "Police Squad", where her body is dumped out of a moving car in the episode teaser
-- Brad Pitt's over-the-top operative in "The Lost City"
-- Matt Damon's uncredited appearance as an actor portraying Loki in the sappy, self-serving play that Loki puts on for Asgardians in "Thor: Ragnarok"
-- Bill Murray playing himself in "Zombieland" not too smartly pretending to be a zombie when armed non-zombies are around
-- Kevin Bacon's cutthroat New Yorker in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles"
-- Stan Lee's many MCU cameos ("I am so getting fired.")
You get the idea. Want to be immortalized in a novel with your own amusing cameo? If so, please hit REPLY here and reach out. No guarantees, of course. For all I know you're "hard to work with." 🙂 But we can try!

============ autistic author things ============
After attending Mile Hi Con late last October, my first time on the other side of the table, I found myself totally overwhelmed by the idea of attending more conventions. We had settled into a once-a-year routine with conventions, just as guests. But being on the other side of the table is different. I couldn’t even think about buying tickets for other conventions, even as a guest. As a result, we missed our opportunity to get tickets for Denver Pop Culture Con this year. I had planned on attending a few other conventions, including big ones like NASFiCon in Winnepeg, but my autistic overexposure nerve is still raw to this day.
It’s possible that having a “pleasing” experience on the other side of the table might have a different effect, but I won’t know that until it happens. I actually doubt it, since I think this nerve rawness comes from “being seen by strangers”, which involves running my “social emulator software” constantly, and that’s exhausting.
Seeing that a couple of my local fellow indie authors would be attending the COSine convention in CO Springs in late January, I decided to attend (as a walk-up guest). That experience depressed me. There’s this thing that happens at small conventions — everyone who already knows each other goes out of their way to reinforce that they already know each other, and for autistic introverts that creates a wall and just makes it that much more disheartening. As an author, it’s on me to get “exposure,” but it’s so hard even without this specific kind of “small community wall.”
We cancelled our plans to attend NASFiCon in Winnipeg. I’m not up for it. But we still plan on attending World Con in Glasgow next summer. Hopefully by then I’ll have CotF released and will be over this retreat impulse. Having two very different books to talk about should make all of this stuff easier.

============ Current reading follow-up ============
I’m happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed “Delta-V” by Daniel Suarez.
It starts off making you think it’s yet another white-American-male-centric story, but it’s only that because that’s the chosen POV, probably for traditional sales/marketing purposes. Yes, that’s cringy, but it is what it is for now with traditionally published works. Not long after the main POV character’s establishing stuff, the cast becomes a very international ensemble, and there is no cultural superiority implied.
“Delta-V” is a meticulously researched story about how the ultrawealthy might pull off a leapfrogging past slower space industry development (namely asteroid mining) that’s mired in the bureaucracy of money because of laws related to ownership interests and taxation. Special people are recruited for a mission, and much of the story takes place in outer space.
More importantly, it serves as an outstanding example of how crewed asteroid mining is vastly superior to robotics, at least for the initial period where everything operational is novel and so many unexpected issues come up in situ.
I recommend it!
============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com.
You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (16 Jan 2023)

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 16:56:57 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter,

* HNY & HCRD 2023
* Work-in-progress
* SFWA
* On the SelfMades of MSD
* Current reading
* The standard stuff

============ HNY & HCRD 2023 ============
I wish you ee gudde Rutsch an d'neit Joer, which in Luxembourg means “a good slide into the new year”. I’ll be using that phrase in Custodians of the Future, which features Luxembourgians! (it’s actually Luxembourgers, but some members of Janitor Squad 18819-FUJ suffer from mumpsimus!)
Also, Happy Civil Rights Day. Cherish it while it lasts.
How are you? Any news? Send me a note!

============ Work-in-progress ============
Work progresses on CotF. I’m past 22k words in the first draft. When I was writing Minimum Safe Distance, it took me years to crawl my way through minefields of self-doubt and basic crafting. For CotF it only took a couple of months after I returned to it after self-publishing MSD in Oct ‘22 — I had some experience to draw upon, and this time I was armed with a mine detector. I’m moving forward, and having fun with it. :)
It’s an interesting process. In the writing world there’s this myth that you either write by the seat of your pants (a ‘pantser’) or you carefully plot everything out before writing (a ‘plotter’). Standard either-or thinking, I’m sorry to say. But I believe every writer is a bit of both, it just comes down to how much of the plotting process has already been internalized, to what extent a writer trusts him/herself to fix problems after the draft is written, and to what extent your story is formulaic.
I was very much a plotter before, but now I’m able to do that trust thing. What I’ve learned is that the “how to be a writer” resources out on the interwebs are heavily geared toward formulaic writing. But I’ve seen that genre fiction simply does not have to follow stereotypical formula. It’s called a novel for a reason. I imagine this is somewhat akin to what musicians talk about with Jazz. Yes, as you can see, I still have haughty ambitions to something more. But I’m unable to think in terms of quilting tropes together the way so many other writers can, so I can’t compete with them anyway, and don’t wish to. I guess we’ll see how it goes!
I also used to actively erase my internal whiteboard whenever new ideas sprang to mind unrelated to my active project. I saw new ideas as distraction. But I’m no longer doing that. Now I just need to gain the discipline to record them for possible use later. :)
CotF will be very different from MSD. I’m working hard to get back in touch with my sense of humor. Yes, it’s sarcastic and sardonic, but there’s an audience for that, even in pop realms — 1997’s “Daria” and 2013’s “Rick and Morty” are fine examples. I’m sure there are many more.

============ SFWA ============
The launch of Minimum Safe Distance resulted in over a Ben Franklin in royalties within two months, and someone out there gave it 5 Stars (without a review). I can only hope that was an honest 5 Stars, but I’ll take it! Thank you all again!
Reaching that modest threshold allowed me to become a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), the group that does the Nebula Awards. It does many other things for authors, and opened membership to self-published authors only a few years ago.
Apparently, there are many indie writers out there who do the wrong things and don’t make a hundred bucks in royalties. Poor quality, unedited, formulaic writing, poor quality book covers, weak audience outreach, and lazy deployment seem to be common among indie writers, otherwise a Ben Franklin would not be SFWA’s membership threshold, I assume. (I’ve seen bad self-published stuff myself.) And maybe they don’t have such a great gang of ultrasupporters, either.
Last night I attended my first SFWA event via Zoom. It’s like a support group! It helped me continue the day’s research and socialize a bit with fellow authors. It also gave me an opportunity to help a fellow author with some Planetary Science — he’s working on something related to terraforming Mars and needed an introduction to planetary equilibrium temperature calculation and the topic of continuous atmospheric loss.

============ On the SelfMades of MSD ============
One of the several daring moves I made with MSD was to have the establishing chapters for the SelfMades be daunting in the way the SelfMades would be daunting. Their thoughts are long and complex, and it’s intentional that the reader experiences that directly. But it’s only in the establishing chapters, which also do a lot of the worldbuilding. One can’t impose too much of a burden on the reader, of course.
I don’t know if many readers will notice it, but the only chapter in the book that’s written in first person is one of the SelfMade chapters. This was very intentional, and I actually hope that most readers won’t notice.
As you learn what the SelfMades are, it would be all too easy to dismiss them as “just another AI,” but they are NOT AIs. It would be all too easy to think of them as diminished people, real minds squeezed into machines and thereby reduced to less-than-sentience. But they are not diminished at all, they are enhanced. Those easy assumptions are born of other bad assumptions, like the now completely obsolete notion that “the human brain is fundamentally special and the pinnacle of evolution.”
So I wrote that early SelfMade chapter in the first person in order to make it much easier for the reader to see the SelfMade as people, and much harder to dismiss them as “soulless calculating machines.” There’s a lot of personal reflection in those chapters, even some humor. This is fundamental to the story. MSD is all about stretching one’s idea of personhood while examining our inherited limitations. MSD turns upside down that old “humans are special/the pinnacle of evolution/made-in-god’s-image” conceit.
Work continues on the MSD audiobook. We’re into chapter 21. Some of these daring choices will make the audiobook challenging for some listeners, but that’s the way it is. :)

============ Current reading ============
Last year I tried a sci-fi book that I thought might interest me, but I had to give up on it. Tropes and contrivances are obstacles for me. This one stopped me cold when the writer contrived into existence a sentient race that by nature stupidly throws itself at gunfire like videogame Space Invaders, just to have videogamey combat in the story.
A few days ago I started reading another, “Delta-V” by Daniel Suarez. Right off the bat I have a great feeling about this one.

============ The standard stuff ============
Here’s a printable, one-page ad for MSD if anyone has a nice bulletin board/ad column nearby.

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com.
You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (02 Nov 2022)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 02:53:12 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter,

A COSMIC scale THANK YOU to all of you ULTRASUPPORTERS for participating in the release of "Minimum Safe Distance". Thanks for getting your own, special copy(ies) of this unique novel, for giving them as gifts, and for passing the word to your network/street/workplace!
(here’s a printable, one-page ad if anyone has a nice bulletin board nearby)
Nine days after release there were 88 sales of MSD! That’s pretty amazing, especially considering that more than half were hardcover editions. I hope you enjoy and grok it. Honest reviews are welcome. They say it took 200 pages before “Dune” started to pay off. With MSD it’s only around 30 or 40, tops. :)
For me, this was the culmination of many years of work and growth, and it's supremely gratifying to have seen more sales than could have come from friends+family+subscribers, and so quickly.
And believe me, I know how long the wait must have seemed to you. For me, this started in 2005.
The narrator I’ve hired has completed the first five chapters. We’re on track for an audiobook in 2023. It’ll be forever before I break even on all the investment that’s gone into establishing this whole process, but at least it was far less expensive than if I’d relied on hybrid publishers (concierge assisted self-pub, no print editions, no audiobook). And most of it was one-time, startup expenses.

I'm past 13k words on my next project, "Custodians of the Future", and building momentum. Onward to the the next book!

All purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store here (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com here.
You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
Thanks for sticking with me! I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining to watch this author second career thing slowly come together.

Please do share my page with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (21 Oct 2022) --MSD FULLY RELEASED!

X. Ho Yen — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 11:07:12 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter.

MSD is finally fully released!
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store
Five days after the 17 Oct target release date, 9+ days after I pressed the “publish” button, 8 days after they accepted the soft cover edition, 6 days after they started distributing the IngramSpark hard cover edition, 4+ days after I submitted my copyright certificate, Amazon finally agreed that I’m the author and publisher and approved and released the MSD eBook.

At this stage of the release, there’s no point in trying to optimize visibility to the Amazon interest/exposure algorithm. Please feel free to support the cause in any way you like, whenever you like.

And remember that it’s gift-giving season. :)
You can give Kindle eBooks as gifts: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260

As previously noted, all your current purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store here (https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store) or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com here. The eBook will be at promo price (USD 2.99) through October, reverting to normal USD 4.99 afterward. Pass the word!
And I’ll try to set up another eBook promotion through one of those reader mailing list sites, maybe in early December, if possible.

Remember, honest reviews are welcome, as long as you’re not in the “close friend or family” category, which is against policy and could cause me trouble.

After Mile Hi Con (today!) I’ll be happy to get out of publisher mode and back to writer mode (when I’m not in day job aerospace analyst mode).

Thanks for sticking with me during this long process!

Standard stuff
Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (20 Oct 2022)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 12:50:28 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter.

20 Oct 2022 (last one was sent 16 Oct 2022 -- back issues are on the web site in the Newsletters section)
Mitigation Strategy for MSD’s Amazon Release
Amazon has acknowledged receipt of my copyright certificate, but it’s been 2 days and they said they’d get back to me within 5 days. The $2.99 promo price won’t last forever, but I’ll see about extending it beyond the originally planned 24 Oct date.

I think the best move for MSD’s Amazon release is to just let everyone “off the leash”, so to speak.

If you were planning on buying MSD in print form, either for yourself or as a gift(s), definitely don’t wait for me to give you a time to do that. HOWEVER, through IngramSpark’s retail front end I’m able to offer the hard cover at a significantly lower price than Amazon’s full retail listing. (no difference in price for the soft cover) The best thing for MSD’s chances to get noticed by Amazon’s exposure algorithm is for all sales to go through Amazon, but I can’t ask anyone to pay that full retail price for the hard cover. And if you’ve already done so and feel any sense of being cheated, let me know and I’ll send you the $9 difference. I don’t want any unhappy subscribers!

The eBook may never become available on Amazon, but it might the moment I send this newsletter. I can’t ask you to delay any longer. You have other eBook purchasing options.

As previously noted, all your current purchase options can be found in the X.HoYen Author Store here or at GrandUnificationMonastery.com here.

I’ll let you know when the Amazon eBook situation is resolved, one way or the other. It would still be great if anyone with motivated sci-fi-reader contacts (those likely to make a purchase) could find it in your heart to point them to the MSD Amazon page. But as a reminder, every page visit that does NOT lead to a sale actually works against us in this effort to get the help of Amazon’s exposure algorithm.
Thanks for sticking with me during this long (and frustrating) process!

Standard stuff
Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (16 Oct 2022) - bad news

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:36:33 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter.

16 Oct 2022 (last one was sent 10 Oct 2022 -- back issues are on the web site in the Newsletters section)
As promised, I do not inundate you with newsletters. But in this Fall’s run-up to MSD’s release, entries will be somewhat more frequent.
Bad News
As Rimmer (from "Red Dwarf") said in "Terrorform",

"not the answer I was looking for, but could be worse"

Amazon has inexplicably rejected the eBook format of MSD despite accepting the soft cover created on KDP *and* the hard cover created at IngramSpark. They claim it's been previously published, which is not the case.
I've iterated with them every day over the last five days, but keep getting the same rejection form letter insisting that I provide signed rights reversion declarations from the "previous publisher". But there is no previous publisher. They ask the impossible, and reject everything I send them. And they won't tell me where they think it was previously published.
I have only one avenue left to explore, which is obtaining the official copyright registration certificate. I provided them with the registration number (it's a closed/completed copyright registration), which they can use to see the registration at the copyright office web site, but apparently that wasn't enough. I'm hoping beyond hope that the official copyright cert will resolve this.
If my providing the official copyright certificate does not resolve this, then MSD's eBook format will be rejected by Amazon permanently. I have 5 more days to somehow provide them with the non-existent documents they want or otherwise penetrate the bureaucracy.
But there's ZERO chance of receiving that before tomorrow, because the copyright office is not open on the weekends.
Therefore, MSD will not release on the originally planned 17 Oct date. It's a Buttle-Tuttle-esque Halloween nightmare.
If Amazon does end up permanently rejecting publication of the eBook format for this insane, mythical "reason", there's zero chance of getting an interest-exposure snowball rolling. While a number of you are poised to buy paper copies, the rest of the world will not. It's all about the eBook, and Amazon has >90% of the market. So if this worst case scenario does happen, I will stop asking you to wait in order to get your orders on Amazon (to trigger the algorithm, in the original plan). Instead, if this happens, we'll declare release and everyone who has kindly waited won't have to wait any more and can use the purchase links already available in XHoYenAuthor.com/store or in GrandUnificationMonastery.com. I'll just have to pursue additional, more costly promo strategies if it comes to that.
But that perma-rejection hasn't happened yet, so I'm still begging you to wait.
Please stand by. I'll let you know what I know when I know it.

Thanks for sticking with me during this long (and frustrating) process!

Standard stuff
Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (10 Oct 2022)

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 22:28:50 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter,
10 Oct 2022 (last one was sent 08 Sep 2022 -- back issues are on the web site in the Newsletters section)
As promised, I do not inundate you with newsletters. :) But in this Fall’s run-up to MSD’s release, entries will be somewhat more frequent.

I hope everyone is as well (and good) as can be expected! Send me a note (xhoyen@gmail.com)! Or if you find it easier/more convenient, come to https://www.facebook.com/XHoYenAuthor for your interfacing. They recently changed 'pages' and I don't know how you can "follow" my author page (there used to be a button).

I will be at Mile Hi Con’s Author’s Co-Op Table, 21 Oct, 1:45 - 5:30. Wish me luck!
The MSD Release Plan
Technically, "Minimum Safe Distance" has already released, just not on Amazon. Amazon is by far the biggest distribution channel, and it behooves me to optimize the Amazon release. READ ON!
IF YOU'RE AN AMAZON OBJECTOR and definitely will NOT purchase through Amazon, skip to the objector section below.
For those who wish to buy and/or support with Amazon purchases (see how that's plural? :) next week, here's the deal.
The goal is to get Amazon's exposure algorithm to show it to their sci fi readership through "You might also like" type recommendations.
That *might* happen if Amazon detects book page visits that turn into purchases. Any book page visits that do NOT turn into purchases will count *against* us in the algorithm, so please only recommend MSD on Amazon to reader friends who are likely to help a new indie author because of your recommendation. :) Anyone who is not already game to buy a promo-priced USD 2.99 eBook or a promo-priced USD 14.99 soft cover edition should be pointed to the non-Amazon purchase links at https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store.
NOTE that you CAN buy Amazon eBooks as gifts! And holiday season is coming! What a coincidence! https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652260
BIG BUT: If the Amazon algorithm detects that there's a single spike on release day, it will recognize that as a "friends and family" spike and will ignore it.
So next week when MSD goes live on Amazon, I'll be requesting that you awesome ultrasupporters please make all your purchases as follows:
-- birthdays in Jan-Mar: make purchases on 17 Oct
-- birthdays in Apr-Jun: make purchases on 18 Oct
-- birthdays in Jul-Sep: make purchases on 19 Oct
-- birthdays in Oct-Dec: make purchases on 20 Oct
Please use your handy-dandy cell phone's reminder system. :) Of course, if you miss your target date just do it when you can!
If all else fails, all possible purchase links will always be available on these pages:
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store
https://GrandUnificationMonastery.com
but next week (17 Oct) I'll only send out the Amazon link(s) because next week is all about triggering that Amazon exposure algorithm.

======================================================
FOR AMAZON OBJECTORS ONLY:
Those who want to buy MSD and/or support the cause but definitely won't buy through Amazon can still help RIGHT NOW by
1) purchasing the USD 2.99 eBook through other vendors (Apple Books, B&N/Nook, Google Play, Kobo, etc.),
2) ordering soft or hard covers IngramSpark print editions (not exactly cheap, but I'm at the mercy of their printing/handling/shipping costs),
3) reposting the link info on your SM channels, by word of mouth, etc. to fellow sci fi readers.
Just visit https://XHoYenAuthor.com/store and find the eBook WIDE DISTRO Link or the print purchase link.
Such purchases (see how that's plural? :) RIGHT NOW will allow me to note the number of purchases on MSD's Amazon page on release day, giving reluctant customers the knowledge that they won't be the first one to buy an unknown book from an unknown author. Big psychological boost.
====== end of Amazon Objectors section ==================

Please consider passing the word. Blame me -- say I browbeat you, say I guilted you. Both are true!
REMEMBER: PLEASE DON'T POST A REVIEW OF MY BOOK IF WE'RE CLOSE FRIENDS OR FAMILY! That's against policy, plus close friends and family are more likely to post negative reviews, so... :)

Follow-up on your 2022 Loyalty Gift

In the last newsletter I gave you lovely ultrasupporters my early release short story, Preet's Monsta. I'm happy to say it was quite well received!

Thanks for sticking with me during this long process!

Next Book

Somehow I have 10k words written on my next project, something with whimsy called "Custodians of the Future." I'm having fun working on it!

Standard stuff
Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience. Thanks for your support! XHY https://XHoYenAuthor.com If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box. I think maybe the web site’s newsletter signup function also provided a means of unsubscribing.

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (08 Sep 2022)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 22:59:34 +0000

Another quick follow-up (sorry!). It was pointed out that I left it ambiguous as to how best to help me in terms of when and where to order the book. Short answer: please wait until 17 Oct.
If you really want to help me, I need your eBook and Soft Cover orders to happen on Amazon starting on 17 Oct and running through that week, maybe two weeks if you forget. Promo pricing will be available 17-24 Oct, so there’s incentive to focus your helpful efforts during that release week.
The Amazon desirement is because I’m relying heavily on Amazon’s “also bought” exposure algorithm to show my book to other interested customers, and Amazon’s algorithm is strongly tied to seeing orders and sales within a tight time frame. If I can direct as many sales as possible to Amazon that first week, there’s a chance MSD will rise in priority in the algorithm and the “also bought” exposure that rise generates will find more of my audience and drive more sales and reviews, all of which snowballs.
Until now, I never thought it would even be available until 17 Oct, so my plan all along was to simply ramp up to 17 Oct and then say “Okay, now’s the time, my evil horde! Fire the arbalests and trebuchets! Have fun stawmin’ da castle! Buy my book, and then buy it again as a holiday gift! Then do it again!”
Then it turned out that I had to get certain eBook pipelines up and running in pre-order mode in order to set up a promotion. Thus the confusion. I apologize! I’m learning!
So, even if you plan on purchasing a hard cover on IngramSpark (available 17 Oct), I’m hoping you’ll consider making a gift purchase for someone on Amazon from 17-24 Oct.
** If, however, you absolutely refuse to purchase from Amazon (and I totally get that and can respect that) then feel free to use any of the wide distro options. Just understand that right now, the eBook is not yet available on Google Play (they’re still ‘reviewing my account’ for this first release) nor on several other wide distributors, only at B&N/Nook, Rakuten kobo, Apple Books, and a number of other smaller distributors, many of which serve non-U.S. markets, via this link https://books2read.com/minimumsafedistance. Just understand that even those pre-orders are currently at the baseline price and won’t drop to promo pricing until 17-24 Oct anyway.
Thanks!
———————————-
Super quick follow-up to yesterday's newsletter:

1) On the topic of who should NOT post reviews on Amazon, here's the source: Amazon terms of service: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeId%3DG3UA5WC5S5UUKB5G
My request to NOT post reviews on Amazon applies to those who would be flagged as having a "close personal relationship" with me. Judge for yourself. :)

2) For several reasons I've decided to go ahead and post the final "cover reveal" gif. See https://XHoYenAuthor.com/next-book
I hope you like it!

:)
Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter.
Or should I say, "Author's Log, Supplemental...", since it's Star Trek Day?
Happy Star Trek Day. 🖖 "Strange New Worlds" and "Lower Decks" are worthy entries.
08 Sep 2022 (last one was sent 04 Aug 2022 -- back issues are on the web site in the Newsletters section)
As promised, I do not inundate you with newsletters. :) But in this Fall’s run-up to MSD’s release, entries will be somewhat more frequent.

I hope everyone is as well (and good) as can be expected! Send me a note (xhoyen@gmail.com)! (This means you, Rachel...and Spc Mark...)

Update on MSD Setup
After much wrangling and much associated hand-wringing, all the various book cover and interior layout files for Minimum Safe Distance are finally done! I'm so relieved! KDP, IngramSpark, and Draft2Digital threw some errors, requiring me to iterate with MiblArt.com on several fixes, all of which took weeks.
Ukraine is nine hours ahead, and the time zone difference seemed to work against us. They would send me updates at the end of their work day, which is first thing in the morning for me. I would send a reply almost immediately, but they wouldn't get to it until the start of their next work day, at 11pm my time. And so it went. I did some graphics work, myself, too, like building a variation that fits the format desired by findawayvoices for audio books. All those years of screwing around with graphics weren't wasted!
With all that done, I've been able to set up Amazon, IngramSpark, and Draft2Digital books and they're ready for me to press the "Publish" button. (see the secret note later on in this log...)
Amazon will make eBook (US and international) and Soft Cover (US & UK only) formats available. IngramSpark will make Soft & Hard Cover formats available internationally. Google Play will make the eBook available internationally. And Draft2Digital will make the eBook available to other channels that Amazon eschews:
Barnes & Noble, Rakuten kobo, Apple Books, tolino, vivlio, OverDrive, bibliotheca, Baker & Taylor, hoopla, and BorrowBox
My special guest reader testimonial arrived in late August, and it's now used in the front matter and on the hard cover's dust jacket front flap text, but it arrived too late to get onto the ad postcards I'll be handing out at conventions when I can get an Author's Row table (no news yet from Mile Hi Con, but I'll be attending either way, Oct 21-23. That reminds me -- I need to take my files to a local printer, like Alphagraphics, and buy some print copies for in-person sales.).
That special guest reader testimonial is the one from Brad H., PhD (see the MSD page).

The standing banner and postcards arrived from posterninja and they look wonderful. (see pic of the banner below, which also went out with the email -- I'm quite happy with it!)

Your Loyalty Gift
As promised, today I'm giving you, my lovely, hardy subscribers, a special early release short story, Preet's Monsta, which takes place after the events of Minimum Safe Distance. There's room to tell more stories in that world, but I only want to do that if the ideas are good, not just to write more in the same world.

This is your download link to the Preet's Monsta PDF file. This open link will only be active for a few days, so download it straight away! (And I won't mind if you share the link with friends and/or family who are interested in globally-minded, wide-personhood, realism-based social sci fi/nanopunk/hopepunk.)

Thanks for sticking with me during this long process!

And for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, the second part of the MSD cover reveal GIF is now up. See it at https://XHoYenAuthor.com/next-book
I'm peeling away the obscuration in two steps, and the full reveal will be set against a supremely famous backdrop (not my ugly mug, don't worry).

Next Book
Somehow I have >6k words written on my next project, something with whimsy called "Custodians of the Future." I'm eager to get back to it after this debut release startup transient is behind me!

I'll still need your help to generate MSD orders and holiday season gift orders, and to generally get the word out. The fact is, seeing sales generates sales. I hope we get some good reviews, too, to counter the inevitable bad ones.
BUT DO NOT POST A REVIEW OF MY BOOK IF WE'RE FRIENDS OR FAMILY! That's against policy because unscrupulous people would arrange to stack their reviews with positive ones. And Amazon will know (Skynet Big Data collection, and all that) and might send me to a penal colony.

SECRET NOTE FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (not)
The eBook will shortly become available for pre-order on those Wide Distro sites (B&N, Apple, etc.) via this Universal Translator Link (it will become populated soon).
BUT, the price will be dropped to a promo price from 17-24 October, which is also when all formats and distributors will become available.
So tell any jerkwad Orion syndicate slaver types you know about the near-term availability at regular price, but tell people you like about the promo pricing 17-24 Oct!

One other note: Grand Unification Monastery now also has a web site.

Standard stuff
Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box. I think maybe the web site’s newsletter signup function also provided a means of unsubscribing.

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (27 Aug 2022)

X. Ho Yen — Sat, 27 Aug 2022 20:43:20 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter,
27 Aug 2022 (last one was sent 04 Aug 2022)
As promised, I do not inundate you with newsletters. :) But in this Fall’s run-up to MSD’s 17 OCTOBER release, entries will be somewhat more frequent.
I hope everyone is well! Send me a note (xhoyen@gmail.com)!
BUT FIRST, EMERGENCY -- HELP NEEDED
DOES ANYONE KNOW OF A TRUSTWORTHY APARTMENT RENTAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, CA?
One of your fellow subscribers just got a 60 day eviction notice because the owner of the property is selling it. If you know of a good rental opportunity in that area, please send me an email, AND THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!
SELF-PUB FIRE HOSE

Drinking from a fire hose is always, ahem, a blast.
There's *so much* involved in self-publishing. (if you have the stomach for it, skim the bullet list I included at the end of this newsletter -- some of you are well familiar with it, right Jordan?)
The good news, however, is that my publishing expenditures are much lower (several $k) than if I'd given in to the dark side temptation and paid one of those hybrid publishers ($10k for one, $30k for the other!), plus I have full ownership and control.
When I'll break even is a big unknown.
MSD RUN-UP TO RELEASE
17 OCTOBER is my target release date for MSD, but I will let YOU, my ultrasupporters, know EARLY/ASAP when it's available as a FREE EBOOK promotion. Even free promo ebook downloads will help me from a sales ranking standpoint, so if you can't afford to spend money on it or just don't want to, you'll have an almost effort-free way to provide support! I still hope for holiday gift purchases, too, but I'm happy to accept help with ranking, of course. Free ebook "sales" count as sales, and sales beget sales. :)
I'll be going wide with the ebook distro (i.e. not just Amazon), so non-Amazon customers and international customers should be covered.
The soft cover printed book version will be available on Amazon and possibly also IngramSpark. The hard cover will be available on IngramSpark. (Not Amazon, because Amazon doesn't support dust jackets, only textbook/children's book style colored laminate covers. For my hard cover version I want a nice, textured cover with a dust jacket over it. :) I'll be buying printed copies for sale at in-person events, so I can arrange for autographed copies, but they'll be expensive with shipping.
But Miblart is currently working on the layout files, so I can't even buy a test copy yet. I've been waiting for one particular testimonial, too.

YOUR PRE-RELEASE SUBSCRIBER TREAT

On 8 SEP I'll be giving you an early-release short story ("Preet's Monsta") set after the events of MSD. When I chose 8 Sep for this gifting date I didn't know 8 Sep is "Star Trek Day" but I don't mind that at all. :) Maybe I'll make Star Trek Day an annual subscriber special gift day, at least until "The Expanse" or "Project Hail Mary" get their own day.

AUDIOBOOK MINOR SETBACK
The narrator will cost a lot of money (around $2k), but I feel that having an audiobook version will help with exposure in the long-term.
Unfortunately, my narrator has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome *and* has a surgery scheduled next week. The former will extend and complicate the recovery from the latter. She sprung this on me after I approved her as my chosen narrator yesterday, but I'm having a hard time holding it against her. As a result, the audiobook rendition won't be available for at least six months (and this is, of course, assuming her narrated rendition is a quality work that would be good for my exposure and not a one-star debacle).

LOCAL CONVENTIONS LATER THIS YEAR
I still haven't heard back from Mile Hi Con regarding my Author's Row table application. And Rocky Mountain Con's web site is not yet updated. But I'm set up for in-person purchases, and have purchased a nice, large banner to put behind such a table and postcards to put on the table. All of this waiting has been driving me up the wall. I'm so itching to have all this up and running so I can see what the printed versions look like and have a small inventory for these kinds of events, not to mention so I can get on with writing my next thing.

MY NEXT PROJECT

...is tentatively titled CUSTODIANS OF THE FUTURE. On New Year's Eve 2099, can a hapless janitor squad save Stockholm from itself? Can Luxembourgers, Buddhist monks, and the dreaded Canadian Space Agency stop them?

The vision is that there will be several of these "of the future" books in a non-series series (i.e. set essentially in the same world, but not a series per se), and I'm trying hard to include some whimsy in this material.

When the time comes, I'll still need your help to generate orders and holiday season gift orders, and to generally get the word out. The fact is, seeing sales generates sales. I hope we get some good reviews, too, to counter the inevitable bad ones, HOWEVER those of you whom Skynet would identify as my family or my close friends should NOT add online reviews. That's rightly seen as fakery and can cause problems for me.
Thanks for sticking with me on this long journey.
Self-publishing activities (after the writing/revising/editing/revising/revising again of the novel itself, of course)
learn the need for and the how-to of all of the below (BIG bullet)
get a doing-business-as with the state (my publisher/imprint dba is "Grand Unification Monastery"; I used that name and logo back in 2005 with my non-fiction book and I just like it, so I kept it)

get an EIN (Employer ID Number) with the IRS (replaces my SSN for biz purposes)

get a business credit union account
obtain ISBNs (each book version, including audio, requires its own ISBN, although ebook doesn't require one)

get a sales tax license with the locality (city, in my case)
establish publisher accounts with distributors:
KDP (for ebook and soft cover; I had one already from my non-fiction book from 2005, but had to revise it)
Apple itunesconnect (for ebook)

IngramSpark (for hard cover)

Google Play (for ebook)

DraftToDigital (for wide ebook distro)
Findawayvoices (for audiobook production and wide distro)
research narrators
request and iterate on auditions
etc. (ongoing)

buy a proper book cover (Miblart.com; in this case using source art I commissioned from a proper artist years ago)

prepare for in-person sales at conventions
sign up for an Authors Row table at local conventions

create and set up a Venmo business account
obtain and set up at least one QR code

create and set up a SquareApp business account
buy a "portable terminal" device that can handle multiple methods of payment (dip [chip], swipe [old mag strip], tap [Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other NFC methods])

somehow format the book to satisfy ebook and interior layout requirements of the above distributors (hired Miblart.com to do this; they're currently working on it; I was waiting for late-breaking testimonials before kicking this off, because iterations cost more; maybe I'll buy and use Vellum software in the future so I can do this myself, but then I'd have to learn all those formatting requirements)
register the copyright with the Library of Congress

learn how to promote/market (ongoing...)
write good blurb
back cover copy
collect testimonials
press kit (just learned that I probably need this...)

offer reader magnet to try to bring in new newsletter subscribers

create book cover reveal graphics (that I can do. done!)

figure out pricing
figure out promo pricing and timing

learn how to use Goodreads.com for promotion

buy promo services (freebooksy, bargainbooksy, bookbub, ENT, robinreads, etc.) for release week promo sequence
obtain Universal Sales URL from Draft2Digital (only AFTER the sales links at all the various vendors go live, unfortunately)

Who knows what I've forgotten to include on this bullet list?

Standard newsletter stuff
Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box. I think maybe the web site’s newsletter signup function also provided a means of unsubscribing.

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (04 Aug 2022)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 18:50:13 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter. Greetings Dear Supporters of Indie Art.

04 Aug 2022 (last one was sent 16 Jul 2022)
As promised, I do not inundate you with newsletters. :) But in this Fall’s run-up to MSD’s release, entries will be somewhat more frequent.
I hope everyone is well! Send me a note (xhoyen@gmail.com)!
Thank you, Sasha, for volunteering to do a gamma read of the manuscript!
Since deciding not to pay thousands of dollars to hybrid publishers, making them the middle man between me and my own book, I’ve been in drinking-from-a-firehose mode learning about self-publishing.
I have a neat little “reader magnet” short story set after the events of MSD which I’ll be making available to you, my dear subscribers. For marketing purposes, I’ll be spreading the word about that to try to get new subscribers before MSD’s planned October release.
My new friends at MiblArt.com based in Lviv, Ukraine, have done a wonderful job with my novel's cover art, starting with background art I commissioned from Casey Weeks (woodsoflore.com). It's just beautiful! I'll be teasing out a 3-part cover reveal leading up to the October release of Minimum Safe Distance, but you’ll get a peek first!
Casey signed over the copyright to that background artwork, and it’s always been my intention to pass along 1% of all net revenue to Casey. That’s my way of supporting indie art. (The only problem is that Casey has been incommunicado lately. I’m still trying.)
I’m currently also auditioning voice talent for the audiobook version. There will be ebook, softcover, hardcover, and audiobook versions. My intention is to go “wide”, or at least wider than KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), since KDP hardcovers are children’s book style hardcovers, sans dust jackets. I want my hardcover version to have a dust jacket!
I have two other readers with science credentials reading the gamma manuscript as well. If they like it, I’ll be asking for testimonials and maybe a “Foreword”. Testimonials with creds are good! We’ll see how that goes.
I'm hoping to have an “Author’s Row” table at this October's Mile Hi Con (milehicon.org), October 21-23. I've applied. We'll see if they have a table for me. Lorraine and I designed a nice graphic for a >2m tall banner we hope to put up behind the table (and, as she pointed out on facebook, no one stormed out of the room during the process!). I'd also like to have a table at Rocky Mountain Con in November, but they don't appear to be ready for applicants yet.
I’ve learned that for a debut novel, pre-orders are not so helpful. You need a big following to leverage pre-orders. Brand new buyers are not likely to pre-order.
When the time comes, I'll still need your help to generate orders and holiday season gift orders, and to generally get the word out. The fact is, seeing sales generates sales. I hope we get some good reviews, too, to counter the inevitable bad ones.
The cost of a book is so low compared to just about any leisure activity, like going out to eat or whatnot. It’s the price of a sixpack or two. Please keep that in mind. :) Thanks for sticking with me during this long process.
Standard stuff

Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed Weir’s The Martian, Older’s Infomocracy, Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Mandel’s Station Eleven, or Corey’s The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box. I think maybe the web site’s newsletter signup function also provided a means of unsubscribing.

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (16 Jul 2022) - (volunteer requested)

X. Ho Yen — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 17:41:46 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter. Greetings Dear Supporters of Indie Art.

16 Jul 2022 (last one was sent 06 Mar 2022)
As promised, I do not inundate you with newsletters. :)
Since killing my Twitter account, I’ve set up a facebook account. It has allowed me to reconnect with old friends and acquaintances, but may potentially help me promote my writings. XHoYen Author on Facebook
I hope everyone is well! Send me a note (xhoyen@gmail.com)!
I finally got over the gamma level quality hurdle and revised the hell out of MSD again. It’s not only significantly easier to read, but the human elements are properly fleshed out and woven throughout. In earlier versions I was too minimalist about that, requiring too much of the reader. It’s still challenging, though, full of realism-based sciencey goodness and deep thoughts, but art should be challenging!
This year I’ve learned a lot about self-publishing, most importantly that I will not be using a hybrid publisher. I’ll spare you the details, but this means I will be properly self-publishing under my long-time imprint GRAND UNIFICATION MONASTERY, which is my registered company name and publishing imprint. Way back in 2005 I self-published a non-fiction book under the Grand Unification Monastery imprint. Some day I’ll reactivate that book, as it’s still on Createspace/KDP available for print-on-demand. Back then e-books weren’t so much of a thing yet, but when I reactivate this one I’ll also make an e-book version of it.
But this “final” revision of MSD has only been read by one other person. Before I call it official and begin actually self-publishing I would like to give you, dear subscriber, an opportunity to give it one final read before publication, to give a “yea or nay” on the “spit and polish” of it. A volunteer for this final read-through would NOT be volunteering to do an editorial pass, just an “is it good enough to publish?” read.
As evidence of its improved readability, it took my other final reader 2 days to read the book (admittedly she’s on leave from work). I would like this final yea/nay read by a volunteer to be completed by the end of this month. I’m holding up actual production for this independent check. Can you do this?
If this call for volunteers yields no takers by this Wednesday, 20 July, I’ll go to the facebook masses and see what comes up. Will you force me to go to the facebook masses?
When the time comes, I'll still need your help to generate pre-orders and gifting pre-orders, and getting the word out. The fact is, seeing sales generates sales.
The cost of a book is so low compared to just about any leisure activity, like going out to eat or whatnot. Please keep that in mind. :) Thanks for sticking with me during this long process.
This year I’ve read Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven”, Jeff Lyons’ “Rapid Story Development”, J.Michael Straczynski’s “Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer”, and am currently reading “Look Who’s Back” by Timur Vermes. What about you? Any recommendations?
I’m looking forward to resuming work on my new ideas. I need to get MSD off my plate and out of my mind so I’m not tempted to keep fiddling with it.
Standard stuff

Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian, Infomocracy, Neal Stephenson’s works, or The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box. I think maybe the web site’s newsletter signup function also provided a means of unsubscribing.

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (06 Mar 2022)

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 21:04:55 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter.

06 Mar 2022 (last one was sent 19 Aug 2021)
As promised, I do not inundate you with newsletters. :)
I hope everyone is well! Send me a note (xhoyen@gmail.com)!
Here’s some news worthy of an update on my long journey from writer to author.
The pandemic has been a big distraction, startup transient for my new day job was much more involved than expected (over months), and now the invasion of a sovereign nation by a nuclear armed mafia state continues that distraction even as the pandemic shows signs of easing. I’m gaining practice at writing despite distraction (including my many self-made distractions). My goal continues to be to write valuable stuff, not mere fluff.
In ramping up to self-publishing, I decided to submit MSD to a particular entity that calls itself a hybrid publisher. The reality is it’s a vanity-press-by-any-other-name, because it’s not invested in the sales success of books it publishes, although it does have a motivation to publish decent books to build and maintain its own reputation. It makes its money entirely from the submitting author, but its business model involves an editorial step. (pure vanity presses just print whatever you pay them to print) In order to save money on that editorial process, and for their own reputation, they are motivated to select manuscripts that are already polished and look good, i.e. require minimum effort on their part.
They contacted me and expressed an interest in doing business with me. So that means that at least this particular hybrid publisher’s editors see MSD as editorially mature and worthy of their reputation. Good to know!
In other news, I’ve just updated MSD again, the first real update in years. For the last several re-reads I’ve been quite happy with it, but this time I found myself with new perspective on the final quarter of the book. It needed to continue the human element found mostly in the first half.
I found a perfectly organic thread to weave into that final quarter, and I’m very, very happy with how it turned out. It not only kept the human element going, it buttoned up a few little story things and, with a life of its own, brought something new to the climactic situation that I’m quite proud of.

I intend to try one more round of trad pub querying before punting. I still believe the trad pub world will not be interested, but things change. Who knows?

This last re-read reminded me of how the themes of MSD remain extremely relevant.
When the time comes, I'll still need your help sending word out to generate pre-orders, even with self-publishing. The fact is, seeing sales generates sales. Thanks for sticking with me during this long process.
Did anyone visit that Bulwer-Lytton Award web site I posted last time? The intentionally bad writing on display there is a lot of fun.
Before coming back to MSD I had started work on another idea for a novel. I’ve had a lot of ideas, but haven’t found myself believing in them enough to develop them. This one is different. I think I can make something good out of it. If that happens, I’ll let you know.
Web Site Update

There’s a new reader testimonial at the bottom of XHoYenAuthor.com/msd. Dan C.-Attorney will now also appear in the Acknowledgements section of the book when it’s published.
I also finally killed my Twitter account. I’m simply not capable of pretending to have personal relationships with strangers in order to build an audience. That’s what Publishers want, of course, but I can’t do it. I’ll find another way to build an audience.
Standard stuff

Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian, Infomocracy, Neal Stephenson’s works, or The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com

If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box.

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (19 Aug 2021)

X. Ho Yen — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 16:58:12 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter.

19 Aug 2021 (last one was sent 2 May 2021)

Important Update

My life circumstances have changed in a way that affords me more time to think and write. This is a great relief and a huge milestone in my effort to get MSD published. Here's why.

My last round of a few dozen more queries has not borne fruit. The reality is, the traditional publishing world really does want easy romps. It amounts to playing a lottery to send out dozens of queries year after year hoping that by sheer luck lightning will strike for a smart, thought-provoking work like MSD.

So I expect to self-publish, and that means I simply must have a catalog of products, not just the one novel and some short stories and flash fiction.

And building a catalog requires time, time which previous day jobs were not affording me.

When the time comes, I'll still need your help sending word out to generate pre-orders, even with self-publishing. The fact is, seeing sales generates sales. Thanks for sticking with me during this long process.

Here's to big life changes.

Fun Stuff

For fun, I think you'll enjoy these 2021 Bulwer-Lytton Award winners for intentionally bad writing ("compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels"):

https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2021

Recently Read

I recently read Andy Weir's latest novel, "Project Hail Mary" and can unequivocally recommend it!

Web Site Update

I decided to go ahead and add my Cafepress product links mentioned in the last newsletter to my xhoyenauthor site. It's hard to see a down side.

Standard stuff

Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian, Infomocracy, or The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box.

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter, 2 May 2021

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 02 May 2021 15:51:57 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter.

2 May 2021 (last one was sent 21 Mar 2021)

Personal Growth

I've removed all that header stuff on the MSD web page. I realize now it was unprofessional, and probably self-defeating. (If any of you thought so, too, and didn't tell me, shame on you! :)

Also, recently I had a revelation about how to add more 'hook' to MSD without spoilers or messing with the carefully chosen chronology. So a new leading portion of the Prologue has been added. I'm very happy about it, and my team agrees. Yay! (Interesting how it can take so many years and revisions to get a novel into a final state. "Writing is revising" so the saying goes.)

So I've begun querying agents again. Confidence is an interesting thing. I still don't think the industry wants to try to sell a novel like MSD, but this change puts my confidence level over the "try anyway" threshold. :) Maybe that's the rollercoaster I'll be riding from now on.

Also, I've submitted my short story, "The Cog Bunker", to the TLDV (The Last Dangerous Visions) unpublished author contest. That would be quite a cap feather. Recently I wrote another short story, "A Steaming First First Contact", this one with a comedic bent, and have submitted it to a number of other contests.

We'll see how all this goes, but I'm enjoying the short story format and feel like I've improved greatly in that realm. Building a shelf full of worthy short stories and especially winning or shortlisting in a contest would help with the MSD querying process, too, aside from just the fun and gratification of it. It sure would be neat to have a short story published outside of a contest, too. I just want to write! This self-reinvention stuff is quite a challenge.

I've also decided to go ahead and add previous newsletters to that section on the web site. Why not?

An Opportunity just for Newsletter Subscribers

If any of you with gmail accounts would like to read the first several chapters of MSD rev.d, let me know and I'll grant your gmail address access privileges to a shortened file on my ringo.garrett Google Drive. Available formats would be PDF, EPUB, or MOBI, so let me know which format you'd use. I will only deploy to gmail addresses, because otherwise I'm opening up my GDrive to an "anyone with a link can access this file" situation. I'll disable privileges on 16 May 2021, so this is a limited time opportunity. I hope you enjoy what you see and find yourself wanting more. :)

Recently Read

I recently read "Productivity Is For Robots: How To (re)Connect, Get Creative, And Stay Human In The New World" by Corey McComb. It reminded me of the non-fiction book I wrote in 2005, "Metathinking: Judge for Yourself", which I had deployed via Cafepress.com and which miraculously sold one copy despite my total lack of marketing.

My theory is that the single copy of MJ4Y that sold was to the CIA, on the theory that they buy and read every book out there, just in case it reveals actionable intel. (Amusing idea: someone self-publishes a harmless, perhaps even empty book with a preposterously provocative title and charges a ridiculous amount of money for it, just to test this theory. lol)

I used Cafepress as a printing service and personally handed out the printed book to younger folks I thought could/would benefit from what I'd learned up to that point in my journey through trauma and PTSD, in a "so you don't have to reinvent the wheel" way.

But the latter half of MJ4Y was pretty abstract (i.e. difficult). McComb's book is definitely more accessible, and I can recommend it to anyone for whom its title resonates. Unlike "self help" books filled with unsubstantiated platitudes or mere vocabulary replacement, McComb's book draws upon the lessons of modern psychology and from his experience of transforming himself out of productivity addiction using those lessons. "I am not a robot: check here []."

On that note, I still have a couple of t-shirt/mouse pad/miscellany stores on Cafepress featuring my own designs from long ago which I think you'll agree remain relevant. Just in case anyone's interested, here are the links:

https://www.cafepress.com/vatbrain (a graphic inspired by the classic "brain in a vat" thought experiment, with the words "Our Similarities Outweigh Our Differences")

https://www.cafepress.com/riab (a graphic depicting growth through certainty and into uncertainty, with the words "Reassessment is Adult Behavior")

Should I add these links to my author page? Maybe it's more of a general "creative products" page. What do you think?

Standard stuff

Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian, Infomocracy, or The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support!
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box.

X. Ho Yen’s Author Newsletter, 21 March 2021

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 16:30:15 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter.

21 Mar 2021 (last one was sent 05 Feb 2020)

It's been almost 14 months since my last letter, and quite a 14 months at that. For the record, this is the 14 months which included the onset of the SARS-Covid-19 pandemic, still more high profile police murders of African Americans and subsequent mass protests, and an actual insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol, among other historically important happenings. (Here's a cool story on the psychology of the QAnon apophenia-based phenomenon: A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon)

So, like everyone else I've been preoccupied. Thanks for still being on my mailing list.

As previously mentioned, I've settled into a long-term, slow-burn approach to my writing. I've written a few first chapters and short stories along the way, one of which ("The Cog Bunker") I'm quite proud of. In fact, I will be submitting it to the now infamous "The Last Dangerous Visions" collection on 31 March. The "Dangerous Visions" collections were edited by the late Harlan Ellison, and TLDV is now being handled by his Executor, J. Michael Straczynski of "Babylon 5" fame.

There are so many very good writers out there that it's hard to hold out hope of being selected for inclusion, but there's something I've learned in the aerospace industry which applies. Many things are not in our control, so the best you can do is make your work deserving of success. It won't guarantee success, but at least you did something worthy. I feel like "The Cog Bunker" is my second worthy effort, so it goes into my future-sales collection whether or not it's selected for TLDV.

The main reason I'm in slow-burn mode (aside from still having a day job) is because I've been disabused of my earlier hopes about the traditional publishing world. I've mentioned this in the past, but here are some more details, one last time.

I used to think that publishers were content to publish the simpler, romp-style novels that everyone enjoys and which sell most books but were always on the lookout for the deeper stuff, the stuff with aspirations to be more. It's become clear to me that this is not the case. The publishing world is so inundated with the simpler, romp-style novels, many of which are garbage written by total dilettantes unknowingly in Dunning-Kruger Club (especially during the pandemic!) that they've become entirely geared toward finding the next publishable romp. They simply have no time for novels like mine (which, by the way, does have a building momentum and energy in its action, it's just that it requires investment up front to get the most out of it). Or at the very least finding my way to someone in the traditional publishing world who actually is seeking something different is much harder even than the traditional agent-querying process I pursued for a couple of years. And so I really am forced to self-publish.

Publishers also nowadays expect authors to handle their own promotion. To do that in direct competition with all the other romps and self-published works (good and bad) requires one to be an extroverted social media hound, pretending to have relationships with one's readers in order to develop a fake-connection-based fandom (like what you see celebs doing on Twitter and other SM). I don't approach this newsletter in that way, although it sort of straddles into that realm, especially since I already know so many of you dear subscribers.

I attended a self-promotion seminar which included ethically problematic practices, like posting a "review" of your own book on review sites which charge for their service of making it seem like it's an independent review, or obtaining positive reviews for money. Authors are encouraged to get as many fans and friends to post positive reviews of a book (i.e. to pad reviews) on a site like Amazon, because it's all about generating an initial bandwagon effect of pre-order sales and initial release sales, which has a tendency to snowball. And the gods' honest truth is that I have this newsletter for that latter purpose. But more importantly, the traditional publishing world is like the music world in the pre-streaming era, only interested in the most accessible, jingliest music that's most likely to go platinum. People buy stories based on what other people are saying, and that's just a fundamental truth about human nature.

Self-publishing will require me to have a catalog of products, and so I'm now slowly building that catalog. By the time I retire (several years hence) I hope to have a few more short stories worthy of attention, but it's not likely I'll write another novel before I retire unless a Muse finds me worthy. Self-publishing will also require me to revamp my web site to focus on a catalog of products rather than "Minimum Safe Distance" alone.

As part of this revamp I changed the header section for MSD thusly:
This novel is NOT a status quo, white male American “everyman”, thinly-veiled-fear-of-Other, escapist “romp”, nor was it written during or in response to the Trump+Covid-19 era.
This novel IS globally-minded speculative storytelling that challenges status quo notions of personhood/sentience in a (figuratively) demon-haunted world, without resorting to magic, time travel, casual plot contrivances, or moustache-twirling unredeemable villains.
Help get MSD published, stay informed about progress, stay in touch as I build my second career as an author - sign up for my newsletter (at bottom of page). Thanks!

In other news, the program I'm still working on, Space Launch System, recently reached a wonderful and crucial milestone, the full-duration hot fire test of the Core Stage. You can see it here. I work on the Exploration Upper Stage, but of course this Core Stage milestone is good news for everyone interested in lunar exploration and industry, and beyond.

I recently read a fascinating non-fiction book by Dr. Avi Loeb (Harvard Dept. of Astronomy), and strongly recommend it. "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth". In 2017 an object dubbed Oumuamua sped through our solar system and astronomers spent several weeks collecting data before the object sped back into deep space, slightly changing its trajectory along the way. In the book, Dr. Loeb argues that by Occam's Razor, extraterrestrial origin is a better explanation for the observed characteristics of Oumuamua than any of the other rather exotic explanations put forth by his fellow scientists. It's a scathing commentary on the state of science, if nothing else, but also quite titillating. What really was Oumuamua?!? You live in the era of that important question.

Standard stuff

Please do share my URL with fellow realism-based sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian, Infomocracy, or The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.
I’ve added a Newsletter section to the web site.

Thanks for your support,
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

If you wish to unsubscribe, just reply with "unsubscribe" in the message body and I'll unsubscribe you. I'm not encouraging anyone to unsubscribe, of course, but I don't want anyone feeling trapped or resorting to sending this newsletter to your junk box.

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter, 05 February 2020

X. Ho Yen — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 17:15:00 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter, working to get MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE properly published!

05 Feb 2020 (last one was sent 01 Oct 2019)

You all know the drill. This is the long haul. Right now I'm focused more on what's next after MSD, and on the continuing process of learning how to ignore inevitable, crushing defeat without succumbing to Dunning-Krueger Effect. I'll resume querying agents again soon, after having made a minor modification to MSD's prologue to enhance its hook.

Since my last newsletter I read another contemporary science fiction novel, "Solitude", by Dean M. Cole. It's a page-turning romp from start to finish, but ultimately for me an empty experience. It's exactly the sort of thing agents and publishers want instead of the though-provoking, slow-burn-deep-payback kind of work I prefer to write. So I continue to be dismayed, delayed, and demoralized by the sharing part of creativity, and continue to work on finding a functioning head space for more writing.

In case anyone missed it, the program I'm working on in my day job, the Space Launch System, shipped its first Core Stage recently. I'm working on the Exploration Upper Stage, but did a little work on Core Stage over the last couple of years. Attached are two of my favorite pics from that day (sent to me by a non-contract coworker at Boeing), and here's the SpaceFlightNow story:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/01/08/photos-first-sls-core-stage-departs-factory/
You should know that there's a new international and corporate race back to the Moon, now that we know the Moon has water. It's not about flags and footprints any more, this is the start of real space industry and expansion into The Expanse.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/06/the-race-to-develop-the-moon

The next X.HoYen's Author Newsletter will likely come many months from now.

Standard stuff

Please do share the URL with fellow sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian, Infomocracy, or The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support,
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter, 01 October 2019

X. Ho Yen — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 16:14:00 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter, working to get MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE properly published!

01 Oct 2019 (last one was sent 02 Sep 2019)

Status

I attended the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (rmfw.org) Colorado Gold 2019 writers conference last month, my first writers conference. While it was informative, it was also great to discover that I've already learned a hell of a lot in my own self-education over the years. The panels I found most useful were the ones about marketing, distribution, the publishing process, that sort of thing (the yucky stuff).

I especially enjoyed meeting and making friends with dayjobber spec fic writers like me. It was a real shot in the arm, and possibly the first time I've truly felt like part of a community.

RMFW does an annual short story anthology, and I may have mentioned in a previous newsletter that I submitted a story to the 2020 edition. They'll be making selection announcements this month. Maybe I'll get lucky. There are so many excellent writers out there.

The long querying process for MSD continues. The more I hear from other authors, and from agents and editors, the more I hear that it can take hundreds of agent queries to find interest, which is highly subjective and also a matter of lucky timing.

However things go, I'll need to put multiple products to market. So realistically I need to focus more on continuing to write, both to improve and to offer more to interested readers.

As mentioned in the last newsletter, I did revise my MSD query and am much happier with it. Thanks to those who weighed in!

Other Writings

Recently I had inspiration for my next novel. It hit me in the middle of the night, so I woke up and scribbled it down. Shortly thereafter I found myself plotting and writing. It's a follow-on to MSD but with a different vibe and definitely not "just more of the same for the sake of having more of that world". It took me 7 years to get past my internal editor and begin to write my first novel, and 6 years after that to finish it. This one will go much faster!

Clickbait and the Polarizers
Play "Vacuum Genesis"
Live at Mare Tranquilizus!

"In a maelstrom 22nd century, a NeoRetroGlam eyecandy band, Clickbait and the Polarizers, unknowingly become the stewards of humanity's salvation. If the band's only smart member could put their funk behind them (Gaga Funk, in particular), the band might realize the importance of the device they're using as the new show's centerpiece prop. But a rival band, Yoyogasm, plans to ruin the Polarizers' big show on the Moon by sabotaging the prop. This could be the end of everything, or the start of something wonderful."

Yes, I admit it, the "something wonderful" is a wording reference to "2001: A Space Odyssey". I intend to seed this thing heavily with such homage references/eggs. And while I'll never be funny or clever like they are, I'm hoping to at least draw some inspiration from the likes of Douglas Adams and especially Doug Naylor [of Red Dwarf fame].

On another topic, I recently finished reading Sylvain Neuvel's "Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files)". It was pretty good, I must say, and it was encouraging to see that there's interest in/a market for alternative novel structures. Neuvel's novel is almost entirely dialogue, and it works!

Would any of you like to recommend a good hard sci fi book for me to read? I'm super picky and need help finding good hard sci fi reads. I'm not so interested in straight genre sci fi; you know, galaxy-spanning civilizations and wars with aliens and such. Those kinds of stories tend to be light on the intellectual speculation and personal transformation and heavier on the "military stories simply set in space". The worst of them are thinly-veiled fear-of-foreigners stories, and I've had enough of that. I miss books like Card's "Speaker for the Dead".

Standard stuff

Please do share the URL with fellow sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian, Infomocracy, Sleeping Giants, or is enjoying The Expanse. I'm convinced Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience, because I wrote it for me and *I'm* in that audience.

Thanks for your support,
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter, 02 September 2019

X. Ho Yen — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 16:13:00 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter, working to get MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE properly published!

02 Sep 2019 (last one was sent 11 Aug 2019)

MSD Status

I need your help with something. This is not marketing busywork to "stay engaged" with the (prospective) audience, it's a genuine request for assistance/perspective.

The querying process is a long road. There are many, many agents to try.
But I've begun to get the sense that my query, my description of MSD, gives agents the wrong idea. I worked on it long and hard, and revised it many times. Now I'm thinking maybe it still isn't good enough.

Sci fi still has a reputation to overcome, and hard sci fi even more so. The general assumption is that hard sci fi is written by technical types (like me) who just want to show off their knowledge and skimp on the human elements of the story (UNlike me). I wonder if maybe my original query is failing to overcome such prejudices.

So I've begun to re-think it with that in mind. Would you be interested in weighing in on my proposed re-write? Does it sound better than the one on my web site, more about the human stuff and yet still full of sci fi goodness?

Here's my proposed revision. With the above concern in mind, do please consider letting me know if you think it's better or worse than the original:

In the twenty-second century, autistic Laurence of the Canadian Space Agency, her would-be murderer, Matt, a broken and violent zealot from the former US, and others around the world and in orbit squirm under the weight of relentless forces of nature. Laurence spends her life learning to cope with her autistic brain. Abused Matt goes down a rabbit hole of violence and hate. Then things get difficult.

A cosmological cataclysm will destroy this entire region of the universe. Two high-nanotech “SelfMade” beings have been observing Earth from the Moon on their migration to minimum safe distance. When they learn that the cataclysm will happen much sooner than originally expected, they fight over the moral course of action—try an untested procedure that could save the solar system, or definitely don't because it could trigger a similar cataclysm.

Their battle spills onto Earth, already ravaged by climate change and overpopulation. The SelfMade wrestle and scheme as governments try to destroy them. They weaponize and polarize humanity by technologically enhancing certain humans susceptible to controllable narratives, creating Enhanced Inheriteds. Millions weep as the EIs rampage.

Drawn into the conflict, Laurence and Matt must reach minimum safe distance from human nature itself—their own, and in the form of the EIs. Chased into the wilds, they struggle to decide the fate of the solar system, distill the meaning of sentience, and discover the value of their own lives.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Other Writings

The Australian Writers' Centre put out a challenge on 29 August: write a story that uses EXACTLY 29 words, begins and ends with the SAME word, and includes the names of at least TWO countries in it.

This was my entry:

"Moonlight over Nicaragua propelled their hearts. Moonlight over Mexico sped them along. Then in the land of the free, the home of the brave, they wished again for moonlight."

I'm proud of that one. We'll see if they like it.

On another topic, I recently finished reading Malka Older's "Infomocracy". It was pretty good. Anyone who can make election fraud and political machinations compelling gets kudos from me. But I just want to say - I personally think MSD is at least as good a novel. It's just that MSD is more literary than commercial. I play with structure, time, and point of view a bit, mostly in the first half of the book, in order to get under the reader's skin about what the SelfMade are, and what personhood/sentience means. That makes MSD somewhat challenging. But art should be challenging!

Standard stuff

Please do share the URL with fellow sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian or is enjoying The Expanse. Surely Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience.

Thanks for your support,
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter, 11 August 2019

X. Ho Yen — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 16:11:00 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter, working to get MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE properly published!

11 August 2019 (last one was sent 03 July 2019)

MSD Status

The query rejection phase is tough. My professional editor's words "the manuscript is too strong to receive across the board rejections" make it easier to not take rejections personally but as agent/publisher perception of the market.

I still have ten active queries out there, but I'll start querying my lower-likelihood list of agents anyway. This is a long-term process. The pros say that it can take years for a book to be picked up, and even then it can take years to actually reach bookshelves.

As a reminder, the plan for MSD has always been to self-publish if the market just isn't interested in my Hard Sci-Fi story right now. Ultimately, if everyone out there just wants more Urban Fantasy, or formulaic Genre Sci-Fi or Sci-Fi/Fantasy, then MSD *will* be self-published. And you'll hear about it.

If, on the other hand, MSD does become traditionally published, they tell me that pre-orders are a big part of a book's success. Pre-orders fuel the buzz ads. (Marketing has always felt slimy to me, but this is how it works.) You, dear subscribers, are the vanguard. Thank you!

Other Writings

Just so you know, I wrote a short story that was spun off the MSD world, specifically the Preet character, and submitted it to Rocky Mount Fiction Writers for their 2020 Anthology. I'll know in October if it merited notice. And I'm attending RMFW's Colorado Gold Writers Conference (my first one) in September. If they do NOT accept my story for the anthology, I'll probably share it, probably on my web page, and will let you, dear subscribers, know.

I also wrote a tiny flash fiction piece for submission to the Aussie's Furious Fiction monthly flash fiction context. I intend to keep doing that, to keep the juices flowing and not let MSD marketing occupy me entirely! That monthly contest announces its winners three weeks into each month. If they do NOT call it a winner, I'll probably share it, like the short story mentioned above.

It would be grand if I could get some writing out there for people to see, and maybe add some publishing creds to my name. This writing business is tough for us dayjobbers!

The latest Expanse novel, Tiamat's Wrath, was great, as usual. Those guys are so good. Strongly recommended.

Standard stuff

Please do share the URL with fellow sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian or is enjoying The Expanse. Surely Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience. :) And the more twitter followers and newsletter subscribers (who aren't immediate friends) I can report to possibly interested agents and publishers, i.e. the more possible pre-orders, the greater the chance that MSD will get traditionally published. Self-promotion is often disallowed, e.g. on certain Reddit fora, etc., or at least seems slimy (to me...).

Thanks for your support,
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter, 03 July 2019

X. Ho Yen — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 16:10:00 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter, working to get MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE properly published!

03 July 2019

I've received my first query rejection, but I've also received my first request for more material (first 50p. of the manuscript).

As I mentioned on Twitter, one of my martial arts instructors told me that the best students were the ones who chuckled when it hurt, like I did. I think I'm feeling the same way about this process. The rejection sort of made me chuckle in the same way that being in a joint lock used to. The request for more material, well, that just made me smile.

We'll see how it goes!

I certainly won't bother you with an update every time there's a minor development, but these first two seemed worth mentioning.

Please do share the URL with fellow sci fi fans, especially anyone who enjoyed The Martian or is enjoying The Expanse. Surely Minimum Safe Distance would appeal to the same audience. :) And the more twitter followers and newsletter subscribers (who aren't immediate friends) I can report to possibly interested agents and publishers, the greater the chance that MSD will get traditionally published. Self-promotion is often disallowed, e.g. on certain Reddit fora, etc.

Speaking of The Expanse, I'm a bit over halfway through the latest novel, Tiamat's Wrath. No spoilers, but holy mackeral!

Thanks for your support,
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter, 22 June 2019

X. Ho Yen — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 16:08:00 +0000

Greetings Dear Subscribers to X.HoYen's Author Newsletter, working to get MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE properly published!

22 June 2019
My first ever broadcast is simple: I've just sent out 18 queries to agents seeking representation for MSD. Go big or go home! It'll take weeks to find out if anyone is interested in reading the whole manuscript, and weeks to months after that to find out if those who do think they can sell it.
We'll see how it goes!

Also, I've taken my first baby steps into tweeting. Hopefully you like who/what I'm following (and retweeting) and can find some enjoyment in my recent first, varied tweets.

Finally, I've improved the web page again - the News page no longer compresses my debut news item down into a "Read More" link. And I shifted some things around on the News and Store pages to better emphasize what should be emphasized. Much better now!

Thanks for your support,
XHY
https://XHoYenAuthor.com
https://twitter.com/XHoYenAuthor

X. Ho Yen, Author

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (26 Mar 2026)

Greetings Dear Readers,

=== Status ===

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (05 Feb 2026)

Greetings Dear Readers,

=== Status ===

I have a number of new "My Books"/"Fiction Related" substack posts:

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (18 Jan 2026)

Greetings Dear Readers,

=== Status ===

____Along those lines, I’m transitioning away from gmail____

New content for you that’s not about the Reich

== AotF ==

== Sci/Eng ==

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (04 Jan 2026)

Greetings Dear Readers,

=== Status ===

Florida is using a fraud-hunting tool used by the right to look for voters to remove from the rolls

How Nazis stole assets

White House orders a review of exhibits at Smithsonian museums ahead of nation’s 250th birthday

US removal of panels honoring Black soldiers at WWII cemetery in the Netherlands draws backlash

US plans to ‘run’ Venezuela and tap its oil reserves, Trump says, after operation to oust Maduro

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (02 Dec 2025)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

=== Status ===

== The Genre Association Issue — DEFEAT ==

== Holiday Gift-giving ==

Space Autistic Author

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (02 Nov 2025)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

=== Status ===

”This is not a beach read, nor a comfort read.””For readers who crave science fiction that challenges rather than consoles, that treats intelligence as a moral hazard and beauty as an emergent property of loss…””Ho Yen trusts the reader’s intelligence.”

Authors in Grocery Stores

=== This Week in History ===

Space Autistic Author

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (21 Oct 2025 mini)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

=== Status ===

=== Science News - one source of hope ===

Space Autistic Author

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (5 Oct 2025)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

=== Quick Status ===

=== WIP SAA (a different kind of gift of art) ===

Space Autistic Author

=== Some News Items ===

=== VIPER News (which is much bigger than just VIPER) ===

=== Citizen Science opportunities — save the world! ===

=== Sardonic Masterclass ===

Space Autistic Author

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (5 Sep 2025)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

=== A gift of art to subscribers ===

Another poem, for what it’s worth.

curbend

=== Quick Status ===

=== Engage! (your creativity, in 20 seconds) ===

Space Autistic Author

Over the last couple of years I’ve had very little success getting creatives interested in a guest appearance on SAA.

=== Science News (and a Seth MacFarlane bit) ===

Space Autistic Author

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter (14 Aug 2025)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link!https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== Quick Status ===

Space Autistic Author

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter *MEGA EDITION* (7 Jul 2025)

Greetings Dear Subscribers,

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link!https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

=== CRUCIAL POLL ===

=== Status: AotF ===

=== NEWS: Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse (+poll) ===

There are reviews, and then there are reviews.

= THE EVEN BIGGER NEWS =

=== ‘Like/Subscribe/Share’ (+poll) ===

=== Status: CotF Audiobook ===

=== Poe Poem ===

=== Phone Addiction ===

=== Cosmos Pt 1 w/Intro by Ann Druyan ===

Along those lines, I’m transitioning away from gmail

”This is not a beach read, nor a comfort read.”

”For readers who crave science fiction that challenges rather than consoles, that treats intelligence as a moral hazard and beauty as an emergent property of loss…”

”Ho Yen trusts the reader’s intelligence.”

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link!
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

X. Ho Yen's Author Newsletter MEGA EDITION (7 Jul 2025)

If you like this, or just want to help, please forward/post the link!
https://XHoYenAuthor.com/newsletter

Heide died in glorious battle with a universe harsher than her own.
May her memory move our universe toward hers.

* Book news
* When is my “Meet the Author” event? Real soon!
* Reading Report: Stephanie A. Gillis’ “The Humane Society for Creatures and Cryptids”
* Video production notes on Space Autistic Author, Log 3
* Standard stuff — How to Help

* New book news: Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse
* “Meet the Author” stuff
* Other news
* Standard stuff — How to Help

* New book news: Space Autistic Author’s Puzzling Innerverse
* Upcoming “Meet the Author” appearances
* Other news
* Standard stuff — How to Help

* AAR: World Science Fiction Convention, Glasgow, 2024
* Reading Report
* Standard stuff — How to Help