Ask the Author! (Please!)

[Damis Seres Rodriguez]

Hello Jude! First of all i want to say, that as a doctor, the mere idea of a book about clones turns me into a child on christmas eve. That being said. What do you think that is more likely to happen first, a scenario the likes of your book where humans take a hold of genetic ingenierie to create a supply of servants (not to say slaves), or another where something too similar (and at the same time completely different) like artificial intelligence takes place for the same purpose.
Granted, probably neither is going to happen within our life spawn. Alas, entertaining to think about

[Frannie Annie]

Hi Jude
I love Project Tau. Is thee going to be a sequel?

Hi Deepa!
There is indeed a sequel! It's called Homecoming and it's available on Amazon. It was BOTD a few days back as well, so you should be able to find it Hopefully, there will also be some Volunteer Reviews at some point, which means I'm currently in a state of low-grade terror waiting for the verdicts

ffd

Hello! I'm in the process of reading Project Tau and very much enjoying it so far. I was wondering how you came up with the covers for your books? Unlike many other book series, I don't think I could tell that both Project Tau and Homecoming were part of the same series just by looking at the cover. Was this a conscious decision? Also, did you put much consideration into the choice of color for the covers (since one is primarily green and the other blue/purple)?

Thanks for being so friendly and answering all of our questions!

Hi NatRose!

You're very welcome! Thank you for asking them Feel free to ask as many questions about the books, characters, sequels...anything you like

I get my covers from 99designs. Basically, this means that instead of commissioning one artist, I set up and run a cover design contest with a certain amount of prize money. I also have to create a brief for designers about the kind of cover I'm looking for, which tells them the style (via sliders), describe what I want, and what I don't want. And yes, one of the questions I have to answer is that of the main color; Project Tau was green, black and white, and Homecoming was yellow, black and designer's choice

I always wanted Project Tau to be green and black; green seems to be the color always associated with vats and science, at least in my mind, and the original cover (less said, the better!) was also green, and I wanted to keep that. For Homecoming, I wanted something that was a different color, as it's a completely different story, the writing style is a little different (despite the publication dates, there were actually 12-13 years between writing Project Tau and Homecoming) and I wanted to be able to easily differentiate Books 1 and 2.

While there are no paperback versions (actually, there are, but they're not available through normal channels ) I admit I was also thinking of how they might look on a shelf

I also have to provide descriptions of what I want and I give designers at least 2-3 options. These usually end up a little way off the final designs (for example, the cover for Project Tau originally called for scientists to be present around the cloning vat, or a design with Tau and Kata in their room, or a training scene. Every single designer went for the vat option )

For Homecoming, the designers were given the choice of either the opening scenes from Sedna with Tau and Kata battered, alone and desperate just after escaping GenTech, or a scene featuring the two of them on the planet Atthiras, where a large chunk of the book takes place. This time, I got a wide variety of designs for both themes.

That said, in the end there were two finalists. One did an amazing, hi-tech cover that didn't really match either brief, but which was awesome enough to win through to the finals. If I could have chosen them both, I definitely would have; I had to throw it open to a vote in the end . In the end, I went for the blue cover because I felt the design was more helpful to the reader (you might not know it's the sequel to Project Tau, but you know it's two people on an alien world and the setting is sci-fi), and also because the actor on that one looked far more like Kata Tau, I'm not so sure about...

Was it difficult getting the funds to publish the book while also getting covers and exposure? I've wanted to write my own books for a long time and just checked out the prices for both the services here and 99designs. I don't have a lot of money right now so those prices seem daunting to me

[Frannie Annie]

Hello Jude! First of all i want to say, that as a doctor, the mere idea of a book about clones turns me into a child on christmas eve. That being said. What do you think that is more likely to happen first, a scenario the likes of your book where humans take a hold of genetic ingenierie to create a supply of servants (not to say slaves), or another where something too similar (and at the same time completely different) like artificial intelligence takes place for the same purpose.
Granted, probably neither is going to happen within our life spawn. Alas, entertaining to think about

I'm praying we get robots. Those can be programmed to follow instructions and work tirelessly, while clones are organic with biology similar to ours. Since they would technically be able to feel pain and get tired like we do, I think the ethics would get messy pretty quickly. Also, robots are simpler it sounds funny when I write it but cloning an entire human with a working brain would be much harder.

[Damis Seres Rodriguez]

I'm praying we get robots. Those can be programmed to follow instructions and work tirelessly, while clones are organic with biology similar to ours. Since they would technically be able to feel pain and get tired like we do, I think the ethics would get messy pretty quickly. Also, robots are simpler it sounds funny when I write it but cloning an entire human with a working brain would be much harder.

You are right, it would be way easier to achieve with our current technology and with way less ethical implications. However I see potential there to get messy just as easily to be honest, the idea of having perfect human-like beings willing to do your every will sounds like a risk for losing all actual human-human interaction, and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest

[mariana90]

Hi Jude!

Congratulations on crossing the fence!! How does it feel to have a finished book on your hands??

I have yet to pick up your book, but reading the forum's reactions, I am looking forward to doing so.

P.S. Here you go!

[SurroundedByBooks]

I enjoyed Project Tau, and I’m excited to read Homecoming.

I’m curious if writing the first book changed the way you approached the second book. Anything in particular you felt you learnt from finishing Project Tau?

[Kaia_Faye]

Hey Jude,
I'm excited to read the sequel! The cloning was such a unique topic to focus on in the broad genre of sci-fi. I have three questions (sorry if that's a lot!): Why did you choose to go the self-publishing route and how was that experience for you? Is science fiction your favorite genre to read as well as write? Also, who designed the cover? It's awesome. Thanks for answering our questions!

[Jude Austin]

Hello Jude! First of all i want to say, that as a doctor, the mere idea of a book about clones turns me into a child on christmas eve. That being said. What do you think that is more likely to happen first, a scenario the likes of your book where humans take a hold of genetic ingenierie to create a supply of servants (not to say slaves), or another where something too similar (and at the same time completely different) like artificial intelligence takes place for the same purpose.
Granted, probably neither is going to happen within our life spawn. Alas, entertaining to think about

Hi Damis!

A doctor...boy, I could really have used you when I was writing Homecoming, particularly one of the characters

That's a really interesting question. I would have to go with the AI thing, purely because it's cheaper and more practical. Projects are so expensive to create and train that there are very few in existence in the books, and that's assuming nothing goes wrong with them

Even in the book universe, I honestly don't see the decision running along the lines of, "Okay, robots and AI are anathema to our societies, so we'll breed a slave race!" I envision the conversation as:

GenTech: We've cloned animals, organs and bone marrow. Let's try and do a person, just to see if we can! We'll codename it, Project: Clone! (this is how clones became known as Projects in the book. That, and calling them clones makes too many people feel uneasy about what they're doing to them. "Project" is such a nice, impartial word )

(Many, many years, failed attempts and billions of dollars later)

GenTech: Success! Erm. Well. Sort of. (I imagine early clones as being very flawed; living, but not much going on between the ears, which is why Tau and his predecessor Sigma were so valuable; they were the very first clones capable of speech and rational thought. Specs were sent to all labs following Sigma's creation, though, which is why nobody seems surprised that Kata can talk).

(Long pause. Crickets)

GenTech: So. Uh. What do we do with this clone?

Random Research Lab: Hey, if you've got a mentally useless but physically healthy human hanging around that has no ID, no citizenship and no one to miss him, can we have him? We want to give him a disease and see if we can develop a cure. Of course, we'll pay you.

(Gigantic light bulb)

GenTech: Ye-es. Yes, I think that will work out very nicely...

Was it difficult getting the funds to publish the book while also getting covers and exposure? I've wanted to write my own books for a long time and just checked out the prices for both the services here and 99designs. I don't have a lot of money right now so those prices seem daunting to me

In a word, yes The prices for both are very fair, and you can play around with the costing a bit with 99designs and their custom options. Project Tau was the cheapest option, because at the time I had very little money to spend; I just wanted shot of the terrible $9.99 cover I'd purchased before You will generate a lot of buzz, and you will generate sales, but one campaign isn't going to make you super-famous overnight. Sadly

Me? In the end, I got lucky. There was some long drawn-out legalities that I won't bore everyone with, but I was left some shares in my grandfather's company, and when the company closed down, I got a pretty nice payout In between reinvesting most of that money, I decided to push the boat out in terms of advertising

One vital note, though: publishing a book doesn't cost anything. If anyone tells you "Oh, we'll publish it if you pay us X amount up front," then run! Where you will definitely lose out (where all authors, especially indies, lose out) is in Kindle Unlimited. It's a great deal for the readers, but for the authors, it sucks big time We do make money, but it takes a long time to get it, it's super-complicated, and it's a pittance compared to what we get from people who buy the book direct

Exposure-wise, there's not a whole lot you can do; if you want to market your book, you need to pay. Something you might want to look into, though, are contests; Book Pipeline does a very good contest for unpublished MSs, and another one for published MSs with a view to adapting them to movies or streaming TV series. (I'm submitting Project Tau to that last one, just as soon as I finish collating the supplementary materials and outlines for the entire series and every spinoff I have planned. You never know; they might turn down one idea and love another )

Hi Jude!

Congratulations on crossing the fence!! How does it feel to have a finished book on your hands??

I have yet to pick up your book, but reading the forum's reactions, I am looking forward to doing so.

P.S. Here you go!

Hi, Mari--





COOKIES!!!
Ahem. What I mean is, "Thank you. That was very kind of you."

It feels great! I have paperback copies of Project Tau (and will soon get Homecoming) on my shelf and it's pretty surreal, to be honest

I enjoyed Project Tau, and I’m excited to read Homecoming.

I’m curious if writing the first book changed the way you approached the second book. Anything in particular you felt you learnt from finishing Project Tau?

Hi, SurroundedByBooks (Love the username! ) Thank you so much!

Honestly? I actually wrote Project Tau in my mid-20s, some 12-13 years ago, so I think the general style and (hopefully!) the quality of writing will both be better. I think that, in terms of pacing and world-building, Homecoming takes its time a little more.

I started the original sequel right after finishing Project Tau; it picked up two years after Tau and Kata escaped and had a completely different story, and none of the new characters we meet in Homecoming - Alan and Kurai, for example - were scheduled to be a part of it. I had about 35,000 words done, and I'd kind of stalled, and then real life got in the way In the end, I finally figured out what the problem was: that I really wanted to know what had happened to Tau and Kata during those two years they'd been on the run together.

Originally, I just thought I could write Homecoming and shuffle the other sequel down in the queue a little, but Homecoming changed the game field so much in terms of characters and worlds that I very soon figured out that it wasn't going to be possible. I'll salvage some things from it - I still really like the story - but it'll probably be merged into Book 4. It also gave me a chance to explore the whole Kata-Kalin dichotomy that some readers have commented on in this forum; a lot of it centers around how Kalin/Kata was changed and his desperate attempts to make some kind of peace with himself over everything he's been through and done

What really changed the way I approached the second book was reading the Volunteer Reviews for Project Tau. I don't mean in terms of story, but in terms of avoiding the same errors. Some people commented on the amount of profanity in Project Tau, and while I'm not going to bowdlerize my story by writing a smart-ass college student who says things like, "Oh, bother," I did keep a close eye on it while I was writing Homecoming. Also, the prologue for Project Tau If anyone reading this was made a little uneasy by that, then please rest assured that there's nothing quite so cold-blooded in Homecoming

This forum (particularly the topic about unresolved storylines) is also playing a big part in the development of future books

Hey Jude,
I'm excited to read the sequel! The cloning was such a unique topic to focus on in the broad genre of sci-fi. I have three questions (sorry if that's a lot!): Why did you choose to go the self-publishing route and how was that experience for you? Is science fiction your favorite genre to read as well as write? Also, who designed the cover? It's awesome. Thanks for answering our questions!

Hi, Kaia_Faye!
Thank you so much! I hope you like the sequel as well
Questions are fine! Feed me as many as you like

1. I used to have a literary agent way back when I was about 20, but she wasn't able to make any sales, so we (amiably) parted company after a few years. Funny story, though: the most recent book I'd finished that she was repping was actually Project Tau. I wrote the email saying that I wanted to dissolve our contract - in effect, firing her - only to find that, for some reason, I didn't have a copy of Project Tau on my own PC. So about thirty minutes after writing that email, I had to send her another one saying, "Erm, me again. Listen, I know I just fired you, but I don't have a copy of Tau, so can you please send me yours before you delete it from the system?" Luckily, she saw the funny side and sent it immediately

I don't know quite what made me go down the self-publishing route, to be honest. Just that one day, I was surfing Amazon and thought, well, why not? Out of my five completed novels, I thought Project Tau was the strongest, so that was the one I put up. I'd actually love to go traditional publishing, which would take a lot of the onus off of me in terms of marketing and promotion (and I could sell paperbacks and hardback versions!) but I've been burned in the past, so I'm skeptical.

On a more serious note, it also seems like most reputable agents these days are after LGBT female characters, and would probably be after me to rewrite the Projects series to cater for that. I'm fine with characters like that, both reading and writing, but I have a problem with reducing sexual orientation to nothing more than a gimmick or a selling point. Not being a member of the LGBT community myself, I could be overthinking this, but it seems pretty disrespectful to that community to say, "Hey, I made a gay character just so I can get a lucrative publishing contract! Aren't I wonderfully inclusive? And now I'm sure all you LGBT people are going to buy my book 'cause the MC is gay just like you are! Sales! Royalties! Money! W00t!"

Yeah...no If that's the kind of attitude the professional industry expects me to fall in with right now, then I'll stick to self-publishing, thanks.

This is why, although there are LGBT characters in Project Tau (both minor and major characters, and Dennison's not one of them) they're never identified because their sexual orientations have no bearing on the story as a whole. If I say, "Characters A, B, and C are gay," then I feel obliged to go through every other character and say, "And Characters X, Y and Z are straight."

Basically, my characters and plots are my business, and if I want an MC who's a straight, white male, that's what I'm going to write Self-publishing offers me the greatest amount of freedom in that respect. Maybe I'd sign on with an agent again if he/she agreed to leave the Projects series alone

2. Surprisingly, no. Most sci-fi features AI, robots, giant space battles and alien relations (okay, I do enjoy that last one, but only if it's done well and the aliens are more than just woolly or scaly humans). I think it can give rise to some very lazy writing of the we don't need world-building because it all takes place on a spaceship and everyone knows how the human race lives, right? variety, or the future's gonna suck big-time! Here's how we're going to be slaughtering innocent people in the name of entertainment until one person has the bright idea of trying to stop us! The first version bores me, and the second one irritates me. And bores me. A lot. I wanted to read books that focused on regular people doing fairly regular things I could relate to, in normal, non-dystopian, non-utopian futuristic worlds that were different and yet believable.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any books about worlds like that, so I developed my own worlds with their own cultures and histories in the form of Trandellia and Akkhen (and, to a lesser extent, Atthiras) and started to write them instead And yes, for anyone wondering, there is a reason why we never hear about the "old worlds" such as Earth, Mars etc

That said, one sci-fi series that I absolutely love is Union Station by E.M. Foner, which takes place in the Earth consulate on a space station. As one reviewer put it, the aliens are actually aliens in that series, not humans in different skins

3. The covers were done by two amazing designers at 99designs, both winners of the cover design contests I ran there. Project Tau's cover was designed by buzzart. Originally, I invited him to participate in the contest for Homecoming's cover design as well, but he already had a job from another client, so the winner and designer of Homecoming's cover was DanteMasuri.

[Frannie Annie]

I'm praying we get robots. Those can be programmed to follow instructions and work tirelessly, while clones are organic with biology similar to ours. Since they would technically be able to feel pain and get tired like we do, I think the ethics would get messy pretty quickly. Also, robots are simpler it sounds funny when I write it but cloning an entire human with a working brain would be much harder.

You are right, it would be way easier to achieve with our current technology and with way less ethical implications. However I see potential there to get messy just as easily to be honest, the idea of having perfect human-like beings willing to do your every will sounds like a risk for losing all actual human-human interaction, and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest

That's a really good point. I've seen shows about men giving up on real women and marrying virtual ones, or spending all their time with realistic dolls instead. I bet there are women out there that do that too, but they don't show up on documentaries for some reason.

[Frannie Annie]

Thanks for all the info! I'd quote you but then there would be a super long wall of text before you get to this. I'll admit, I never really thought about what kindle unlimited does to its authors. As an avid reader, I subscribe mainly to review books but will also pick up "free" ones if they look interesting. Sadly, I am a cheapskate and will probably not break out of that mentality until I finish more schooling and get a job with the thing that I majored in.

[Jude Austin]

Thanks for all the info! I'd quote you but then there would be a super long wall of text before you get to this. I'll admit, I never really thought about what kindle unlimited does to its authors. As an avid reader, I subscribe mainly to review books but will also pick up "free" ones if they look interesting. Sadly, I am a cheapskate and will probably not break out of that mentality until I finish more schooling and get a job with the thing that I majored in.

I know; I do tend to waffle And go off on not-quite-random tangents. Sorry about that
You can opt-out of Kindle Unlimited as an author, but if you do, you only get 35% royalties instead of the normal 70%, and you can't use any of Amazon's advertising tools, so it's swings and roundabouts really

[tjportugal]

I used to be a reviewer and editor for OBC before I decided to try things from the other side of the fence.

I'm thinking about doing the same. I've been wanting to publish a book of my own. Maybe one day...

The Project Tau seems very well written. In some aspects, the story (especially Kata) reminded me of the Jason Borne series: a guy whose training backfires against the organisation that trained him. Do you know that series or was it coincidence?

[Jude Austin]

The Project Tau seems very well written. In some aspects, the story (especially Kata) reminded me of the Jason Borne series: a guy whose training backfires against the organisation that trained him. Do you know that series or was it coincidence?

Hi, and thank you!
It's pure coincidence I have heard of the series, but I never read any of the books or saw the movies - only a couple of trailers - so I have no clue what it's all about.

[tjportugal]

The Project Tau seems very well written. In some aspects, the story (especially Kata) reminded me of the Jason Borne series: a guy whose training backfires against the organisation that trained him. Do you know that series or was it coincidence?

Hi, and thank you!
It's pure coincidence I have heard of the series, but I never read any of the books or saw the movies - only a couple of trailers - so I have no clue what it's all about.

I could summarize Jason Borne for you in a familiar way:
The CIA recruited him. The CIA trained him. Now CIA has lost control of him.

[Jude Austin]

I could summarize Jason Borne for you in a familiar way:
The CIA recruited him. The CIA trained him. Now CIA has lost control of him.

With a masterful (and, yes, oddly familiar) summation like that, it must be worth checking out!