Return of the Ancients

[Aer'ki]

i'm visiting this forum thread every day looking for an update on rota ... just fyi, so you know that the thread's not actually dead, just quiet ... end of aug is too many hours away

can you please elaborate on this - "As for Rota, I'm resisting the urge to force it getting done and making sure the story flows correctly."?

i haven't tried 'star force' yet (prob will at later date), but why did you chose to start that when you had lots of fans of rota waiting for new epps? $? you could try selling future rota epps

Simple answer...you can't force creativity.

Long answer...I have portions of the general storyline for the series worked out, but when I write an episode I have to connect points F to G, and G to H, etc. I do a lot of the detail work right then, and if I'm not in the best mindset and I try to knock off a chapter by the end of the day, the storytelling suffers. I can fix some of it during editing, but I learned a long time ago not to force it and work on a flexible schedule. Just like today, I woke up with the story running through my head and finished it off with several new kinks that I hadn't planned on.
As for why writing Star Force? I wrote a novel called "Apex" and tried to get it published and failed miserably. No agent or publisher would take a look at it. I discovered Amazon's indie publishing program, but didn't want to risk my novel on it so I reimagined an old idea I had as an experiment, which was Star Force. The amazon program is legit, I found out, and I'm growing a reader base there with decent sales...besides which I like writing episodes over novels. I can get them published faster and keep with the TV series motif.
As for making money off of ROTA...without permission from MGM, that is a no go. Made a few inquires about getting that a while back and got no response...big shock there.

I for one would be willing to pay for ROTA, but please don't sacrifice quality on either ROTA of Star Force for the sake of delivering them a few weeks early, they are both fabulous reads to date.

Thank you. I wondered how people would respond to Star Force, given that it's an original work and ROTA has 2 tv series worth of visuals to work off of. I'm having to build up a new universe with Star Force and was a little worried that the beginning might be seen as dull. I'm getting sales(which I want) but very little feedback, so comments like yours are much appreciated.

[Aer'ki]

Oh yeah...Ch1 is up.

[Burns]

Yea

[oXyTeC]

its like finally getting a peak after a long midseason break of a show
or christmas morning as a kid

[IWKYZerocool]

oh yeah your back!!!

[Dodgified]

wooo! more ROTA!
and this talk of star force made me google and i downloaded the free sample from amazon and read it and i want to read more so i'm going to have to like beg my mum to buy me them all.....

[ussrelativity]

Just read Chapter 4....... Very proper development. I am looking forward to the fifth chapter very much.


EDIT--- Just read Chapter 5.

[IWKYZerocool]

read chapter 5 thank you for not killing him off, won't say who as spoiler for people who haven't read chapter 5, hope new episode out soon but I know your busy with other stories aswell.

[Atif09]

really enjoyed this episode

cant wait for the next one

[Aer'ki]

I have a favor to ask. For those of you who have read at least the 1st episode of Star Force, would you mind dropping a review on Amazon? My reader base is slowly growing, but not as fast as I had hoped. I just passed 1000 sales(spread over 9 episodes) but the episode 1 sales are holding steady at about 1 per day rather than increasing in scope.

I've been writing Star Force for 6 months now, and have been studying the sales trends and the biggest jump came when I finally got a positive review comparing the series to "starship troopers." Not exactly the highest praise, but then again I've never read the book, only watched the movie, so maybe there's more significance there than I know.

Sales have also gone down when I've gotten some negative reviews complaining about the price. So far episode 1 has gotten 3 US reviews and 3 UK reviews (the UK reviews have been better) along with a handful spread over other episodes, which means even one bad review can have an impact.

Some of the comments you've made here about the series I consider high praise, and was wondering if you'd repost those or write another on Amazon. I'm not asking for rubber stamped 5 stars and "this is the greatest thing ever" sort of BS, just some honest feedback for potential readers to sift through when they consider buying. I think it's fair to say that my writing style is one that has to be read to understand, and a brief synopsis can't do it justice. At least that's the impression I've gotten from you guys reading ROTA for the first time.

If you want to leave a review for each episode, that's great. But if you want to leave one for the entire series you can do that on episode 1, because that's where people will go first. I think even a handful of honest reviews will help drown out the naysayers, given how few have been posted to date.

Anyway, thanks for reading regardless. Your response to ROTA is the primary reason I gave a go at Star Force. Sometime in September there'll be a freebie download available for episode 1, so if you have a kindle you can pick it up at zero cost and give it a read through. I'll try and remember to post here when that weekend comes for those of you who don't already have it.

[Aer'ki]

Sept 1st and 2nd episode 1 will be available for free download on kindle.

Oh, and added a couple more entries to the wiki.

[IWKYZerocool]

Aer'ki are you going to be updating the wiki with the different support ships that stevenson has now (don't worry if you can't as i know your busy with the other story).

Personal note i will be buying your books when i get paid and i will leave a review on amazon.

[Aer'ki]

Aer'ki are you going to be updating the wiki with the different support ships that stevenson has now (don't worry if you can't as i know your busy with the other story).

Personal note i will be buying your books when i get paid and i will leave a review on amazon.

As much as I like getting paid, grab the first episode this saturday or sunday since it'll be up for free. Amazon has minimum pricing levels, but allows their exclusive authors a few days here and there to promote with freebies, which really helps with visibility the way the Amazon website works.

As for putting up support ship designs...I'd like to, but my art skills are lacking and I don't have an engineering program to draw schematics with. Now that you ask, I may try to come up with some crude conceptuals. If I do I'll post here to let you know.

[jmullins]

Do you have a link to the correct one? NVM, I think I found it.
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Force-Inc...rds=star+force

[IWKYZerocool]

I don't mind if you leave the pics for now but the description of the support ships would be nice (size, specifications etc)
Just a quick question i do not have a kindle can i still buy this and read it another way