Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion

I'm vaguely considering going back to my first book and revising it, adding in-line illustrations, removing the footnotes, maybe even revising the story a bit based on what I've learned of the science since I wrote it. I know this is a definite no-no in conventional publishing, but what's the feeling in the indie world? Would it harm sales, annoy earlier purchasers, etc? I envisage some kind of coupon scheme so previous purchasers get a discount on the new version, like with software. Thoughts?

how long its been in print? when i rewrote and released chain reaction it was 4 years from orig publication date, then another 5 for a new cover. but it all depends. though the original 2005 edition sold well, i hated it and took it out of print. the new version (2009) isnt doing well. some folks say its a shot in the foot. maybe its market dynamics. but i did it to be more true to my vision. other folks dont see it that way. but its a gamble one takes

I'm considering, and actually working on, a second edition of my first book, which I released in December 2013. It hasn't sold well, and some of the reviews pointed out easily-fixed problems, so I'm doing a complete revision of the early chapters, adding new scenes, and shortening others. The story will remain intact, with some smoothing over of the occasional bit of prose that could use a little tightening or clarification, and it'll have a much better cover. I'd like to know how people would view this type of thing as well. So few people have read it, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't upset anybody, but the fact that it's a second edition would be obvious.

I just heard that the first edition of "The Hobbit," was different. Bilbo met Gollum who was pleasant natured and chatted with him. The second edition was redrafted to fit in with the "Lord of the Rings."

With ebooks, I see this all the time. With Amazon, at least, you can request a push that will update the book for those who have purchased it. Repurchasing will not give the new edition. I found this out when I went back and corrected some errors on my first book.
I have no experience with massive changes myself, but every so often an unfamiliar book will appear on my kindle because the author changed both the title and cover.

That makes sense Anthony. That scene felt like it was parachuted into the book. It's amazing how many of "the rules" Tolkien broke, but still made immensely important stories.

I'm still unsure whether to go this route. There's a technical issue that I now find I got wrong. It doesn't affect the story, but some of the (some would say long, boring) descriptions would need to be altered. if I fix them in my present book (third in the series) there'd be an inconsistency. To retcon or not to retcon, that is the question.

In my opinion, the reason for the revision matters. If the revision is to correct something important to the story, that may be a good reason to re-release the book. If it is to fix a substantial number of little glitches, that may also be a compelling reason. If there are a small number of relatively insignificant issues, then it may be harder to justify a new release.

To me, there is a time to stop fiddling with it. It is a piece captured at a specific moment in time. I would leave it alone unless I felt that the changes noticeably improved the book.

I suppose it comes back to my motivation for writing in the first place. I am trying to present a picture of how space could be settled, and it bugs me if I know it's not up with the latest science. But readers probably don't know or care.

Richard wrote: "I suppose it comes back to my motivation for writing in the first place. I am trying to present a picture of how space could be settled, and it bugs me if I know it's not up with the latest science..."

Unfortunately, readers of the Science Fiction genre do care, and they'll point out your mistakes. If it requires just a minor rewrite of a few paragraphs without affecting the story itself, I would update the same way I do when I find typos. Just upload a new file and don't worry about it.

Richard, I'd think the kind of audience you're after would be the one most likely to care.

1) reviews pointed out easily-fixed problems,

2)but some of the (some would say long, boring) descriptions

3) I am trying to present a picture of how space could be settled

Unfortunately 1 and 2 definitely will tick off readers no matter how good the information is.

As for the descriptions if you want to keep them fix the writing so it isn't dull and boring.

If people have a good impression of a book they will go back to it, if they think it was just a quick effort they might be less likely to refer to it.

If the science changes and it means your conclusions are not as valid, I don't think you have a choice since it is so easy to fix it. When you had to rely on a publishing house to do all the work of publishing people were forced to live with what they had originally printed or pay to have it fixed if it wasn't a best seller.

Thanks folks. I'm probably going to go back and rework it. The issue is an emerging consensus that the dust on the Moon and Mars (and probably on asteroids too) is more hazardous than previously thought. My characters need to be more careful about going out in suits and then nipping inside. I haven't worked it through in my mind yet.

To be honest, only one reviewer said my descriptions were boring. I was just being snarky.

Watch out for the tip of the iceberg.

What's wrong with the dust?

That's right, Rob. Wetting yourself was part of the design intent. I read an excellent book by David Harland
on the Appolo 12 landing, which in many ways was more significant than 11 - first pinpoint landing, first to spend a decent amount of geology time. I have featured it in my latest novella, having a character go back and give a presentation at the site. is the sequel to the one I submitted to your anthology idea.

I'm totally alongside the idea that one shouldn't adapt ones work to the vagaries of reviews. I've had excellent reviews from people who do get the idea, and that's enough. With a relatively small number of reviews, one negative one has a big impact on the overall average though, which is dispiriting.

There are two science studies that have come to light in the last few weeks. One, on Martian soil, suggests it contains toxins (perchlorates) that would be dangerous if they got into the habitat on people's clothes. The other is a study using mice, where they exposed them to a moon-dust atmosphere and autopsied them. The paper was beyond my grade level but it looks like there were signs of silicosis or something similar, like miners get.

The Apollo 12 book made it clear that dust was annoying and got into equipment, so in my story I had them wear coveralls and leave them outside the lock as they went in. Some tweeps are saying that's not enough, but I'm not sure what that's based on.

The proposed solution is an airlock that opens into the back of your suit. You climb in that way, detach it, and the suit never comes inside the habitat. There is a NASA program to develop that, which is currently coming to the end of its funding. I'm reluctant to add that feature, it mucks up the design of every boat that lands on the surface. But I feel I ought to talk more about precautions, coveralls and so on.

Interesting you're putting a forensic scientist on the Moon. That's really going to focus your readers' attention on the science. My books focus a lot on the engineering. We've chosen a tough branch of lichercher, have we not?

PS, Rob. Did you know? Those urine-soaked diapers are still on the Moon? They left them behind before they took off. There's a scientist in Florida who'd really like to study them, see if any lifeforms survived.

depends on the overhaul. if its extremely extensive (changes page count) might as well get a new isbn. but if its minor i dont think folks will notice unless you do something drastic like change from first to third

It appears that one of the differences between Earth's mineral dust and moon/mars dust is the coarseness and reactive qualities of the micro surfaces. Unless you are constantly chipping/crushing rocks the mineral dust you are breathing on Earth is much smoother, weathered and less reactive by Earth's atmosphere.

Which brings to mind what are people on Earth doing with their clothing after they are around freshly chipped/crushed rock dust all day long.

That sounds great Rob. It's packing day for me today as I'm going on a longish trip. I'll take a look at those once I'm on the road. 'Caverns' is the second in a series, and the first is set in Earth orbit rather than on the Moon, so I'm not sure how that would work. Worth thinking about, though, for sure.

Richard wrote: "...only one reviewer said my descriptions were boring."

Fact: there are a significant number of readers without the attention span to read descriptions longer than a sentence (unless it's sex scenes of course...he he, buncha pervs).

Many people complain about that (including me on some read throughs) when reading LotR. I noted a long section of description in Solaris recently that kind of threw cold water on the pacing of that novel, too.

However, I'd never discredit those books because of it. They're both 5-star classics, IMO.

So it'll always be a balancing act on your part. Do you find all that necessary to the story and what you're trying to achieve? If so, then F-'em.

But it's always worth a second look.

Richard wrote: "The proposed solution is an airlock that opens into the back of your suit...I'm reluctant to add that feature, it mucks up the design of every boat that lands on the surface."

Couldn't you just add air locks with a rinse cycle?

;P

On the dust thing: Don't get totally absorbed in big tech thinking by neglecting the small tech revolution.

I'm talking about metamaterials and nanomaterials. There are already products in existence for hydrophobic spray on nanomaterials like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZrjX...

So there's no reason to assume that similar materials and coatings couldn't be created specifically to repel dust.

Spacesuits coated in these kinds of materials would never collect the dust in the first place. And as a precaution, airlocks could be equipped with high pressure air hoses and strong ventilation systems. (Cheap lo-tech things that require no massive ship redesigns.)

Step inside the airlock and as it cycles through, turn on the vents, and hose the suits off with air. You'd be left spotlessly clean.

Job done.

Here's a paper on exactly what you're talking about:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/080...

In it, it says:

"Extraterrestrial dust. Nanoparticles exist widely in extraterrestrial space. Examples of dust collected from space, from the moon, and on Mars are shown in figure 10. The extraterrestrial dust poses major environmental problems for astronauts as well as for equipment [73]. Lunar dust is very fine grained compared to typical terrestrial dust (some of the larger grains being shown in Figure 10 c), with more than 50% of particles found to be in the micron range or smaller [74]. The lunar dust contains a considerable amount of magnetic nanoparticles [75], clinging to electrostatically charged surfaces [74] such as the astronauts’ space suits (Figure 10 b), rendering it nearly impossible to remove. On Mars, dust accumulating on the solar panels of the exploration robots has limited the power available to them for locomotion, sensing, and communication [76]. Aiming to mitigate the environmental effects of extraterrestrial dust on humans and machines, various research projects are directed towards the fabrication of filters or thin film coatings that repel dust [76]."

As I recall, the problem of Moon dust was pretty well described in Ben Bova's Moonrise. I was somewhat bored by the story, but it did give a great recount of the technological details.

I got people in the dust and also excavation work under the surface. I will figure that under the surface would require the same precautions as Earth, after work is done the dust is gone.

For the Moon's surface I will use a small airlock, after the pressure comes up, a very powerful vacuuming tube is used to clean the suit, then use a high power blower to blow off anything left, then filter the air to catch the rest of the dust. Store the suits in a locker outside the of the airlock.

Perchlorates on Mars
That's more of a problem but I was putting everything under a dome or in a cavern covered by a large dome or clear roof. In there the "dirt" can be cleaned up, remove anything hazardous.

The dirt as it is can be mined for the energy it contains. Perchlorates are good for making rocket fuel, a good fuel for fuel cells, rich in oxygen that could be harvested.

Article says you could rinse the suits off but I am not sure how clean you could get in a low g shower. Would the water even go down the drain or would you have to spray the heck out of it, then pull it out of the air by lowering the pressure with the suit still on canned air, vacuum drying?

Yes, it's a real problem, and I'm not sure nano-coatings are going to be enough. I'm not setting anything on Mars, and my book set on the Moon had a solution I'm reasonably happy with. It's the asteroids that are exercising me now. I'm guessing there's as much dust there as on the Moon, and similar composition (the Moon got that way by having asteroids and comets hit it), so I should do something. I don't like the suit-in-the-wall approach, so I'll stick with coveralls. In my first book they were hopping into a boat and jetting off from the surface, so there is work to be done there.

For information, I did a second edition, with new illustrations, some minor edits, and a concession to the problem of dust. It's up now on all platforms, and previous readers can e-mail me at dpenn (at) acm (dot) org for a free ebook, MOBI / EPUB or PDF.