I am convinced that my self-publishing adventure is the best way for me to find readers. Convinced. Yes, I am.

Every time I go through the logic, I come to the same conclusion. It is my best option.

However, delusion dies hard, so for the Kauai Writer’s Conference last week, I had signed up to pitch an agent, a senior person at a major house. I have done this many times before.

But this one did not go well. The agent was utterly unprepared to see me. When I appeared for my 15-minute session, she frantically fingered a stack of manuscripts mumbling, “Bill Adams, Bill Adams. I don’t have a Bill Adams.”

“I didn’t send a manuscript,” I said.” I’m here for a pitch, not a critique.”

“Oh, a pitch! Right, right. Go ahead then.”

She sat back with crossed arms and waited to see a dance.

I pitched well-rehearsed sincerity, from memory, no notes, a compelling story of how it takes an alien to show us what human nature is like, and how my story conveys that theme in a commercially-attractive thriller format. Glass eyes stared at nothing. Sensing non-interaction, I stopped. Roused by the silence, she said these things.

1. Dogs must see the world so differently from us.
2. I don’t take sci-fi (this despite her published blurb in the conference brochure and online)
3. Keep on doing what you’re doing
4. I’m so glad we got done a little early because I really have to use the bathroom.

 

I paid $50 for this meeting.

Agents live in an impenetrable bubble-world of their own design. Communication is not possible. The best you could hope for is something like “parallel play,” in which statements and responses seem to be related. Why did I subject myself to this abuse? She should pay me $50 to have access to my work. Oh, right. Supply and demand. Capitalism.

On reflection, I thought that if I wanted to again look for a commercial agent, I should go back online to publishers’ marketplace and play the statistical game, because being heard one-on-one is essentially random. So I went to a conference session on “What Agents Want” and who should be on that panel but the unprepared, bladder-challenged agent I had pitched.

In response to a question, both agents on the panel agreed that they get about 40 manuscripts a day, every day of the year. A quick calculation told me that’s 15,000 a year for each. This torrent is filtered by one to three interns who want to be in the book business, the agents said. Nevertheless, they added encouragingly, one or two writers a year are discovered in the slush pile.

I calculated. That’s a selection ratio of thirteen ten-thousandths of one percent. Without fear that she would recognize me, I raised my hand and asked Ms. Bladder, “What do you tell your intern, the one who filters the slush pile? How do you describe to that person what you’re looking for?”

She answered as if it were a question about personnel: How do you hire a good intern? She described the intern’s qualifications and interests and how, when “it’s a good fit, we work well together and the intern comes to know what I like.”

It was a non-answer-answer. The bubble had not been penetrated.

I considered. The slush pile is a very low-probability crap shoot. The conference face-to-face is an alien “first contact” story. That leaves self-publishing. I concluded for the hundredth time that I am on the correct path.

Now that I’m home, I am furiously working to create two Amazon advertising “campaigns” for the holiday season. I would rather be writing, but the calendar is ticking, as it were.  While I slog through lists of keywords I repeat to myself: This is the correct path. This is the correct path.

My uncertainty is your gain.  This week I will launch a fantastic sale on Alien Body, the first book in the Phane series, and on all three books in the Newcomers series. Get ’em while they’re hot.

Visit www.psifibooks.com for great titles by William X. Adams you can purchase at your favorite retailer.

In Alien Body (sci-fi, 80,000 words), Physician Dave Booker is shocked to discover an alien living in his summer cabin. Phane, the alien, is an anthropologist from another star system. His shuttlecraft has crashed, and he must regain it before the mothership gives him up for dead. But Dave is dumbfounded by the alien’s appearance, a large, green tennis ball with two eyes on tentacles above his head. What would it be like to have a body like that? Does one’s body determine how we think about the world, as the visitor claims?

Dave’s ambitious boss captures Phane but he escapes. In a wild chase, Phane flees determined pursuers including the military, but it’s not easy for a talking green tennis ball to hide. Dave realizes that Phane has much to teach humanity, but can he find his alien friend first and help him?

Alien Body is the first in the Phane series.

Ebook – Smash    ISBN-  978-1-7322274-9-1

Ebook –  Kindle:  ISBN-  978-1-7338927-0-4    www.amazon.com/dp/B07VWKRH75
Paper – KDP:       ISBN-  978-1-7338927-2-8    www.amazon.com/dp/1733892729

Five Stars! Readers Favorite.com

I was hooked from the beginning and invested in the story. …simply too amazing to forget. Brilliantly engaging and entertaining. — ReadersFavorite.com reviewer

Featured book on AmericanBookFest.com

Reader Review:

Phane’s presentation as a little green man, shaped like a tennis ball when resting and a pretty close cousin to Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorians when awake, is one of the most likable aliens I’ve ever encountered. In many ways his humanity exceeds our own species. I hope this book finds a wide audience because in addition to the deep thoughts underlying it, it’s a ripping good yarn! – Stephen Russell, “Himalayas of Literature Course Creator at BookOblivion.com”

Booklife Review

The plot takes a simple concept and slowly branches it out into an epic tale. It’s lovingly paced with sensible twists that truly make readers thin The tone is delightfully thoughtful, light, and playful–even when things get dark. It makes the entire novel very readable and hard to put down. While the core concept is quite simple, the truly original risks the story takes are unexpected and enterprising… the overall character development is stellar. Each character has a distinct voice and perspective, and they are uncompromisingly themselves as they interact with the rest of their universe. — Critic’s Report, The BookLife Prize.

***

Don’t miss the Newcomers series:

 Reluctant Android (Sci-fi, 80,000 words). Andy Bolton, a software engineer in Seattle, is horrified to discover he’s a robot. His boss, Lucy, wants to capture him and take him apart for study. On the run, Andy finds his creator and learns he is neither human nor straightforward machine. He reluctantly accepts that he is something in between, a sentient AI device. He needs to explain this to his nemesis, Lucy, but can a person ever believe in a machine with empathy?

 

Amazon Kindle:  978-1-7322274-1-5 (Mobi) bit.ly/RA-kindle

Amazon Paper:    978-1-7322274-2-2 (Paperback) bit.ly/RA-paperback

Smashwords Ebook:   978-1-7322274-0-8 (Epub) bit.ly/RA-smash  

Writers Digest Honorable Mention: Best Sci-Fi Self-Published Books of 2018!

…a fast-paced morality tale, one that blends bleeding-edge science with deep philosophical questions for a high-throttle page-turner. — WD Judge, 5th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards.

Indie BRAG Medallion Award, 2019

The author deftly creates an android that we can care about and it teaches us some wonderful lessons about compassion and leads us to thinking of the future we will one day face. For those Sci Fi lovers and those interested in AI, I highly recommend this book. — Judge, 2019 Indie BRAG Awards.

Alien Talk (sci-fi, 80,000 words): As millions of people become mute in a spreading pandemic, android Robin Taylor discovers that language is an intelligent virus that infected early humans and ultimately enabled modern civilization. Now the virus is enraged by the false language of talking technologies. But Robin is a talking gadget herself. Anyone she communicates with is stricken mute. Can she warn humans and stop the plague?

 

 

Amazon Paperback: 978-1-7322274-5-3 (Paper) bit.ly/AT-Paper

Kindle: 978-1-7322274-4-6  (Mobi) bit.ly/AT-Kindle  bit.ly/IT-Kindle

Smashwords Ebook: 978-1-7322274-3-9 (Epub)  bit.ly/AT-Smash

Five Stars

…a gripping thriller that sucked me in from page one and kept me reading until I finished it. … a page turner that sparks thoughts and ideas. And Noam Chomsky, too!  Highly recommended. – Online Reader

American Fiction Awards: Finalist!

Award Finalist in the Science Fiction: General category, The 2019 American Fiction Awards

Intelligent Things (sci-fi, 80,000 words): Engineer Jennifer Valentine releases advanced AI assistants online to revolutionize the internet of things. But her softbots, called NODs, go rogue, and she must save the national power grid from disaster. With her consciousness uploaded online, she searches for the leader of the NODs and finds much more than she expected. Back in her lab, she must decide: erase the entire NOD world to protect the human world?

 

Four Stars! Readers Favorite.com

The characters are realistic and show valid concern for life and sentience on multiple levels. All in all, this is a great sci-fi thriller that brings the future straight to today. A must for fans of the genre! –Reviewer

Holy prophet Chalmers, excellent!  — Prof. David Chalmers, New York University

…all three stand-alone novels in the Newcomers Series ground the potentially overwhelming mind-body question in an entertaining story about Robin and Andy, two androids—don’t use that term to them! – Online Reader

  Ebook – Kindle: ISBN-13: 978-1-7322274-7-7 (Mobi) bit.ly/IT-Kindle
Amazon Paperback: ISBN-13: 978-1-7322274-8-4 (Paper) bit.ly/IT-Paper
Ebook – Smashwords ISBN: 978-1-7322274-6-0 (Epub) bit.ly/AT-Smash