This weekend I returned to Geek Gab to talk mecha with my old partners in thought crime Daddy Warpig and Dorrinal.
Contrasting with and complementing my appearance on David Stewart’s stream, which encompassed the whole mecha genre, Saturday’s Geek Gab episode featured a deep dive into my own Combat Frame XSeed series. Whether you’re a veteran XSeed reader or you’ve been waiting for a jumping on point, you won’t want to miss this episode.
Watch it here.
One lesson CY 40 Second Coming reinforced–and which we touched on during the stream and expanded on in the post-show–is the rapid emergence of neo-patronage as the future of art. They say once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, and three times is proof. If that’s true, the fact that my three crowdfunded books are also my three most profitable books says something about the crowdfunding model.
That’s not to say Amazon isn’t still dominant by a wide margin. It’s just that making the big bucks there means either churning out paint-by-numbers fare for the whale market or setting yourself up as a lifestyle brand. I’m really not into Heinlein-derived mech stories, and I have no business giving life advice. Since I’m not about to write Headless Highlander Abs chick porn, either, I need to find a third way. Based on the data I’ve amassed over the last year, a blog-driven microecelebrity plus patronage approach looks like the way to go. We’ll see.
In the meantime, check out my third thrilling XSeed novel, CY 40 Second Coming!
At this point I'm curious why you go with IndyGoGO over kickstarter since the former has proven itself to be no more moral than the later?
Indiegogo is better for artists. Plus they didn't deplatform the Kermit Gosnell movie.
IGG also had a creator successfully beat it when a deplatforming was attempted. KS hasn't, yet. Known vs. unknown here.
Brian
Very interesting observation.it seems to vindicate Nassim Nacholas Taleb's insights into localism as applied to art.
Future content creation will be fracta. Someone will find something to sponsor via microtransactions and direct patronage.
xavier
I was very disappointed to get home from a soccer tournament only to find that I missed your Geek Gab livestream! I’m a huge Geek Gab fan anyway and I was hoping you would be on with them soon.
Hopefully next time.
I know DW and Dorrinal appreciate your listenership. There's always the replay 🙂
Just read the best part of the book, and was reminded about what you said on Geek Gab about the BaMs, where you have the burden of design lifted off of you, but then have the burden added of showing the BaMs off to full effect.
Seeing mine in action, I can say you're 2 for 2 on:
a) Integrating the mech well enough that it is completely natural to exist in the story.
b) Integrating the specific features I felt were important.
c) Crafting excellent fight scenes that show the mech's capabilities off, in order to accomplish something that no other mech could accomplish.
And I would be willing to bet cold, hard cash that you've done that for for all eight BaMs.
Congratulations.
Furthermore, I /still/ hold that Systems Overterrestrial Coalition must be destroyed.
…but now that I know that things end on a decent note, I will have an easier time reading the prior books to get to the end.
Thank you for your valuable feedback. I'm delighted you're pleased with the outcome.
Do I understand correctly that you read book 3 first?
No. I generally will look at the end of books to see what happens. But it's plot spoilering of my own accord, so I choose how much of it to do.
More important than plot, though, is mood. Is there confidence and hope, or is it more like despair and desperation? And I vastly prefer having a hopeful note to end on, even in the middle of a bad situation, with the characters knowing it's bad. They still have hope that there's a good way forward.