The God Equation and Other Stories by Michael A.R. Co

The God Equation and Other Stories (Kindle Edition)
by Michael A.R. Co

Mathematics and religion duel in an award-winning tale about the true nature of faith and free will. ("The God Equation")

Two soldiers share the unsavory task of killing someone worse than Hilter... over 500 years ago. ("Waiting for Victory")

A popular childhood belief can have sinister results, when a rapist gets the short end of a bargain. ("The Off Season")

A mysterious website allows users to see the whole world in an uncomfortably honest way. ("In the Eyes of Many")

A beautiful faerie finds herself trapped in a tropical paradise, and there's only one way out: a young man and his shovel. ("The Sweet Stranger")

These thought-provoking stories, collected together for the first time, offer a taste of Filipino-style science fiction and fantasy that transcend cultural boundaries and expectations.

My husband writes science fiction and fantasy stories. Not often, but in the past few years he's managed to come up with amazing stuff. "The God Equation," which shared first prize at the first Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards, was actually his first published short story.

I've been encouraging him to put a compilation up on the Kindle for a while, and now it's here! You can get the entire thing for just $0.99 ($2.99 if you're using a Philippine credit card/billing address on Amazon). Whether you're into sci-fi or just want to support Pinoy authors, this'll be a great read.

Year-end Ebook Store Report Card

Apparently not all ebook stores are equal. At least as far as my ebook experiment is concerned.

When I decided to publish Fairy Tale Fail digitally via the Amazon Kindle Store in April 2010, it wasn't because I did my research and found it to be the best platform. I didn't care, and just wanted the book to be available to as many people as possible, and Amazon made it relatively easy for me to set everything up.

I was told that through Smashwords I could sell the book in more formats and gain entry into ebook stores that were competing with Amazon. So a few weeks later I put up FTF on Smashwords, also easy, and reformatted my manuscript so it would qualify for Premium Status and be accepted into the digital stores of Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, and the just-announced Apple iBookstore.

Now it's nearing the end of the year, and looking over the sales reports, I see an obvious leader: Amazon. Then again I never did doubt its reach, but looking at the comparison now I see that for me as an indie author Amazon has done the best job of getting my book, and name, out to their public.

Sony's second-place finish is surprising -- I don't know anyone who owns a Sony Reader or buys books from its store, so when I started out I pretty much ignored them in my marketing plan (sorry about that). I'm glad and thankful that Reader owners would take a chance on a title and author they barely know.

On the other hand, Barnes & Noble and Apple iBookstore -- what's up? I thought they would be Amazon's closest competitors, not just in e-readers but book sales as well. Maybe Nook owners aren't into chick lit written by a Filipino indie author, or the ones who might be bought their epub from Smashwords instead. Maybe iPad owners would rather download apps. Or they're reading their ebooks on the Kindle app, like some of my friends, which means Amazon needn't worry about having the best device, as long as they can evolve and be compatible with whatever device their buyers want to use.

What have I learned from this?

#1 - Releasing Fairy Tale Fail digitally was a great decision, and I really should release another one in the next few months.

#2 - Amazon rocks as a distribution channel.

#3 - Since it's not that much effort anyway, I should continue to release my next ebooks on other stores too.

First round of thanks for No Strings Attached readers

No Strings Attached has been out for a week, and here's my first round of shoutouts to the people who've been so generous with their time (and money).

Thank you, Chachic, Tina, Lee, Layla, Hazel N, Tin, M and popandcrackle!

And to address a few things that I read/heard in the first week:

From Chachic's review: "The focus isn’t the build up of the love story but rather the complications involved in their relationship."

Very true, although not what I intended. Let me just share -- when I got back into a romance groove, I decided to write three love stories based on the three different love interests I felt I could write about. (My Imaginary Ex, Fairy Tale Fail, and Love Your Frenemies represent all that.) No Strings Attached was a fun thing I tried based on a friend's suggested concept, but it happened to get noticed first.

From Tina's review: "I liked how Carla seemed like a very real person, and her friends offer enough contrast to her for the readers to see the different sides of the story without telling it to them in a long monologue of sorts from the heroine."

Thank you. I did base her on a real person, who would likely never do what Carla did. Oh well, fiction. :)

No Strings Attached

From the back cover:

Carla is a whiz at her job: she’s efficient, reliable, and a total genius when it comes to putting something together at the last minute. The snag is she’s single and turning the big three-oh in a few months. Her girl best friend (yes, she’s married just like the other girls in Carla’s barkada) keeps trying to set her up with stable banker-types, while her guy best friend (single – the other single one) encourages her to play the field – no strings attached.

Then, through no set up or extraordinary circumstance, Carla meets Dante. Hot, smug, sexy Dante. Definitely not a banker-type and seemingly too good to be true. So there’s got to be a catch. There is. He’s five years younger. Is the universe telling Carla to finally let loose and enjoy a fling with a younger man? Or is there a lot more to this awkward situation that she bargained for?

My second novel with Summit Books is out now. Hope you're all in a book-buying mood. :)

This was the work that I had originally talked about in this blog, but under a different working title. I'm happy with the title change, though, and appreciate that there's a lot of feedback and care behind getting these books out.

Some shoutouts:

Editor Ines and Publisher Aueeie: It's hard work, what you do. But I'm so glad you make the effort. I hope it's fun rather than frustrating on most days. :)
Abi Goy at Studio Dialogo: Excellent cover!
Husband Michael A.R. Co for the help with the not-girly stuff.
Certain friends (they should know who they are) for suggesting the concept.
Chris for answering my odd questions.

Thank you for the support and encouragement. :)

I will never get tired of these posts I guess

November has beaten October as Fairy Tale Fail's best month ever. Amazon also launched (finally) a way to give Kindle books as gifts, even to people who have never opened a Kindle account, so this might even get better. (I hope!) If anything it's taught me that momentum is a big part of the ebook success thing -- a big promo push in the beginning helps, but also constant buildup.

That said, Amazon is a mostly American audience, and I'm never really sure how they'll react to a very obviously Pinoy story (though it's in English). This review by Holly of Book Harbinger came out recently and gave me an idea.

I also found out that FTF's older sibling My Imaginary Ex is still selling, more than a year after its release. Recent reviews by online communities and book bloggers have been significantly helpful.

Speaking of helpful online communities, a Goodreads page has been created for No Strings Attached. (Thanks, Chachic!)

Paper again, and word counts

FTF paperback update: Batch 1 is all out, but I'm expecting batch 2 to arrive in a few weeks. Sorry about the delay -- apparently I'm bad at figuring out supply and demand. (Good thing I'm not an economist!) Please be OK with being batch 2. :)

The books got some exposure on the interwebs this week by being featured on Chachic's Book Nook. It's always exciting, especially now that I've come out and started interacting with people who post stuff about the book. The reviews also give me something to think about, so here are a few thoughts to toss back out:

From Chachic's review of Fairy Tale Fail: "If only the paperback was as cheap as the e-book edition, I’d buy lots of copies and give them as Christmas gifts to my girlfriends. Unfortunately, the paperback is more expensive at P350."

I appreciate the thought, and I do wish the printing was cheaper. :( I got a great deal from CreateSpace, but it still can't beat the cost of distributing an ebook.

From her review of My Imaginary Ex: "I just have to say that I’m enjoying reading local chick lit. I just have a minor complaint – they’re all so thin! Small paperbacks less than 150 pages long. I’d be glad to read something meatier if the authors come up with something like that."

I had to learn to write with a word limit that would still make good business sense to my publisher. But to their credit, my next title's manuscript was 8,000 words over -- but they're still taking a chance on it. (Love them!)

BTW I just found out that that book now shares a title with an upcoming Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman movie. (Story's different, as far as I can tell. Unless they too meet on a beach in Batangas.)

FTF Kindle report card

This graph represents Fairy Tale Fail's sales figures on the Amazon Kindle Store in its first six months. It's not at all at the level of quitting my day job, but for an indie publishing experiment you can probably see why I'm excited. I don't know what accounts for the spike, but my theories:

- Changing the price from $1.89 to $0.99
- Tina at One More Page's review
- Joining Goodreads and the Goodreads Filipino group
- Amazon reviews from Laura and Vicki Tyley
- Amazon UK's Kindle Store opening in August (but based on figures, this isn't significantly the cause)
- Releasing a more expensive paperback ($7.99) drove people to purchase the ebook
- Amazon's recommendations algorithm

Maybe it's a combination of all of the above, only Amazon really knows, but this makes me want to release that next book project now. There just might be a market for it after all!

BTW - for FTF's early adopters who purchased at $1.89, you will be getting the next ebook project free from me. Working on it now. :)