Daphne
I had already thrown in the towel on the Daphne series. After running a Facebook Ad for the first book in the series (Novis Terminal), and only selling two books, plus a residual Nav Computer, I turned off the Ad. I received a lot of clicks, but I attributed the two Novis Terminal books to the Ad and decided that it would never pay off. Then today, another Nav Computer book sale showed up and I went “hmmm.”
The Nav Computer books are probably not due to the previous 99-cent sale. Not two of them, anyway. I’m thinking that someone clicked through the Ad and didn’t like the first book, so they looked at the others in the series and picked that one. Maybe. It could also be the ranking, though that’s not spectacular right now (it’s at 2,589 in SciFi adventure).
One of the attractions of that book was the fact that I had enhanced the blurb. I enlarged it and included a description that went beyond the first plot twist. Let’s face it, before the first plot twist, the story is about Daphne and a sales guy arguing over an expensive navigation computer. The real story gets started when they get caught up with a rogue colony of people that have a planet-killing bomb. Oh, and of course, they need an advanced nav computer so they can use it to guide a ship to deliver their bomb to a location as close to the target planet as possible, so it won’t get shot down by planetary defenses.
Today I scrutinized each blurb for the remaining Daphne books and did the same thing as I did for Nav Computer. I added paragraphs more to them to give a better sense of the story. The blurbs on the books page of this blog have been updated with the new ones if you’d like to check them out (click here).
I just turned the Facebook Ad back on and reset my statistics in my tracking spreadsheet. I think I’ll add more Advertisements for each book (at least one each). I’m not sure what the read-through will look like. If it makes a small profit, then I’ll eventually add more books (that’ll increase the profitability of those who read through the whole set). If it’s still a losing proposition, then I’ll shut the Ads off and move on. At least I tried everything I could think of.
I’m still convinced there’s an audience out there. I just read through a few scenes from Dangerous Cargo and I still like that book. I braced myself for a major cringe factor, but it flows pretty nicely. I also like the character Roberta. She’s funny. Here’s an excerpt of a conversation Daphne had with her:
They sat silently for a couple of minutes. Roberta took a sip of her tea and set her glass back on the table. “In my youth, I was a cargo runner. A lot like you.”
“How did you know I transport cargo?”
Roberta tapped her head. “You’re not Alliance. Definitely not military. Nobody comes here for vacation. The only people that come out this far are cargo haulers and other shady characters.” Roberta smiled. “I doubt you’re into anything shady. I know the type. I have a nose for it.”
Daphne felt a calm wash over her. Like she was talking to an older aunt. “I used to work in a cube farm.”
Roberta chuckled. “I bet that was fun. Can’t say that I was ever cut out for that kind of work.”
“My boss and I had a disagreement.”
“You mean like some sort of hanky-panky?”
“No, nothing like that. He was just an arrogant jerk and expected me to work myself to the bone.” Daphne sighed. “Him and his stupid sales pitch. I hope his entire department was cut.” Daphne sipped her tea. “But, I’m not bitter.”
Roberta laughed. “Yeah. OK.”
Daphne was on a roll. “I spent a lot of time reading about small entrepreneurs. The magazine articles made the work seem like a dream.”
Roberta rolled her glass back and forth between her hands. “Yeah. My experience is that real life doesn’t quite live up to the standards described in flowery magazine articles.”
Daphne continued. “I had this business plan worked out on paper. It was rock solid.”
Roberta continued to smile at her. “And then you took your first commission.”
“I think my trouble started before that. It began when I bought my fixer-upper.”
Roberta winced. “Oooh. Honey. What did you buy?”
“Don’t get me wrong. It’s a nice ship, and it came with this free robot. I don’t even think the sales guy knew the robot was part of the deal. I found him disabled and stuffed into a locker in the captain’s quarters.”
Roberta turned and looked at RUSTY. “He doesn’t look too bad. Those things are upgradeable, you know.”
“Yeah. I want to get him a processor that goes faster than a hand calculator. Just have too many things on my list to fix at the moment.”
“Well, if you ask me, I think you should have saved your money on the rifle and suit. Spend it on something that you really needed.”
“Yeah. The rifle was free. I swiped it from a pirate.”
“Really? Which one?”
“Which pirate?”
“Yeah. I’ve had a few run-ins. I might have heard of the guy, or gal.”
“Captain Keetes.”
“Oh yeah. I’ve had a few run-ins with that doofus. Never could swipe any of his hardware, though. You must have been close to his horde.”
“Yeah. That’s a story for another day.”
Roberta was a character that I visualized in my head and just went with the flow. She was a good contrast to Daphne and turned out better than I expected. I have fifteen other story ideas for this series and Roberta is planned as a major character for at least one of them. I thought about adding her as a regular, maybe another crew member of Daphne’s ship, but she’s older and more experienced than Daphne and I’m pretty certain that Roberta would end up taking over as the protagonist. I also don’t see a lot of conflict between these two although a partnership would work well.
More thoughts
Things are crazy because the Daphne Blazefire series was supposed to be a quick, short story that I was going to publish while I was working on the new series (which is now called Escape from the Abyss). I was struggling to make the first story work and ended up setting it aside (I ended up rewriting it, calling it The Demons). Looking back, I don’t think I had the skills to pull it off back then. There are a lot of characters and the plot is much deeper.
In contrast, the Daphne stories were supposed to be simple, so I could get some practice writing books. That’s why there are only two main characters in the first two stories. Once I got into The Nav Computer, I started introducing regulars that show up in different books. There are a few that were in the first book (like Perry) that show up from time to time. Overall, though, the story contains only two characters. That, unfortunately, makes the story a bit too simple. The reason why stories like Firefly or Stargate work is because they have four to nine main characters that have conflicting personalities. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. With Daphne and RUSTY, I only have those two that are at each other’s throats (and they do have their arguments).
So that brings me to the idea of adding characters (assuming I want to extend this series). I could do something like Firefly did when Malcolm Reynolds hires Kaylee as an engineer. In order to segue into a new crew, I should introduce a new ship. Maybe an upgrade from her current ship. Something too big for her and RUSTY to handle by themselves. That leaves an opening for an engineer. If I were to follow the character jobs of the Firefly series, I could also hire a pilot (Daphne would be the captain). But there’s always the possibility that she could hire Roberta or form a partnership in this new venture. Those two would be the gunslingers as well as the business owners.
Another restriction I imposed on these books was the size. I kept them small (40k-60k words). That reduces the complexity of the story since it has to be wrapped up pretty quickly. If I introduce more characters and made sure they were actively involved in the plot, then the size of the book will increase. Not a problem, but it’ll take me longer to produce a book. That was the appeal of writing such small stories, I was able to do them in two months’ time.
Well, let’s see what happens…