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Monday, January 2, 2012

Paperbacks, Ebooks, Young Adults, and Bee Poetry

The Jive Hive is Young Adult science fiction and would be suitable for some adult readers as well. I met a fellow on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) who said he preferred to read young adult books and was interested when my book comes out. I think he'd prefer a print edition so that would be somewhat later than the ebook. Definitely adults who prefer a simpler SF read would be another market for this book.


I think it's very good advice for writers to read a LOT, particularly in their genre. As the three novellas I'm working on now are horror, I've ordered The Other by Thomas Tyron, which was recommended to me. I downloaded an ebook called The Undead: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution. The author of the latter was recommended, too. These are in addition to Highway to Hell.

I'm getting a lot of interesting ideas about how to go about crafting a good horror story. There's a collection of very short stories called Weird Tales or something like that, which have a twist at the ending and I could learn something from them: I've downloaded that for just a couple of dollars from amazon.

The Jive Hive could have been horror but is not. It's a very straightforward science fiction story written at a young adult level, and I didn't intend the story to go in the direction it did but the characters began to write themselves. I'm not sure whether it's character driven or plot driven. There aren't really any new plots, as Shakespeare would have told us. But the plot is exciting enough, I think, and the characters suitable to the plot.

The protagonist in the Jive Hive is a fourteen-year-old boy and his friend is just a few years older than he -- the adults in the story are mostly sympathetic, but more minor, characters. Thus I'd think it would be more appealing especially to boys in that age range, but girls as well enjoy SF and would I'm sure enjoy it. When I was twelve I was reading adult SF like Heinlein, Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. There weren't a lot of young adult books available then as I recall.

Lots of choice now for readers, and the ebook market in particular is bigger than anyone would have predicted even a year ago.

The Jive Hive will be coming out in ebook before paperback format. As the cover is designed and the final editing done in March 2012, and the book trailer is made available, there'll be excitement building in this author for sure.

Later this week I'll write about a little known fact of bees. Watch for it! And remember the baking soda.

The Bee

  by: Andrew Downing



 

The music of the busy bee
Is drowsy, and it comforts me;
But, ah! 'tis quite another thing,
When that same bee concludes to sting!



4 comments:

  1. Don't forget...the Twilight books were for young adults. Look what happened with them!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Twilight books are a phenomenon that I would be hard put to match, Sue, and this book is not a series. But it's possible, of course, that the Jive Hive could spark some interest in a sequel. I doubt it, though.

    Vampire stories are very popular. They creep me out, honestly, Sue, and I probably wouldn't write a vampire story. But my next anthology consists of three horror novellas and so it appears I might have found my genre in fantasy/horror/SF and perhaps a following?

    Thanks for taking the time to comment.

    http://www.twilightseries.ca/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ahh, Heinlein! I've read everything by him, included a propaganda novel written during WW
    II. He's the Master, all right.

    Look what happened with Harry Potter, too. A fantasy young adult book series amassed zillions of dollars in print and film.

    I tend to agree with you about vampires. When I read Stephen King's "Salem's Lot", I hated him for making me believe in them.

    I'm looking forward to your book being available!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for posting, Judi. Yes, Robert went a little nuts at the end but he was a master of SF, for sure. I liked "Job," one of his more recent books, though. I loved "The Stand" by King but the book called "It" was a little too scary. I haven't felt the same way about clowns since. I guess that's the mark of a good novel, to impact the reader emotionally.

    If one of my characters ever reminds someone of someone they knew, except for a real person I may have unconsciously portrayed, I think that would indicate I've achieved success in my characterization. Like so and so reminds me of my Aunt Tilly kind of thing.

    Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

    ReplyDelete

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