Welcome to Harmony.In this thread, I want to try and lay out the fundamentals of my new science fiction book, Lobe. This book features 28 original paintings that give glimpses into the chapters. The book covers topics of shared conciousness, spirituality, and a broken world recovering 182 Standard Years after Doom Day. Our story follows three perspectives switching between the chapters, which allows us a look into the type of nightmare we find ourself in. Whether it be the advanced laboratories at Muramasa Station or the floating cities of the A.C.C., the world is dark and before change itself. Feel free to ask any questions. I will be here if you need M.E..Dive into L.O.B.E.!lobe3807 .com
>>24832245Lobe is a science fiction novel categorized as dystopian, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk. Its for mature audiences and is all about the idea of self with a story attached to it to keep you engaged.
>>24832257Here are some more of the paintings.
>>24832259The second book is currently in production, but Lobe itself is finalized.
>>24832262If gotten praise from people who bought it, but selling a book is another beast in and of itself. I would be interested in any tips or methods a first-time author can use to sell a finished product. Its on display at a local B&N
>>24832266Forgot painting
>>24832276Ill be checking in while the thread lives for discussion. So, please, let me hear it
>>24832245>lobe3807 .comI appreciate that your website looks like the earliest forms of websites I ever saw, with UR-Designs and "under construction" parts, really brings me back to the 2000's anon.
>>24832282I designed the website fully myself using a piece of shit website designer. The limitation of web development skill made me get the bare minimum up with plans to improve it being pushed off for life's happenings. Here's the map I created too (albeit unfinished copy I had saved on my phone)
>>24832321And here's the second book's map I just got finished with. The second half takes place a decade after the first
>>24832245>lobe3807 .comThe premise looks cool, but feels like it geeks out hard on just the idea of it, without showing the writing or the character driven story. Will you give us a sample prose paragraph?
>>24834447Sure thing. Here's the first page of the first chapter:> Once again, he found himself fading away.Cantel tried to relax his mind as the reflection of himself fell into L.O.B.E.’s simulated abyss. Fragmented matrices of crystalline lattice were blurring the lines between self and imitation. The images of the outside world were fading into black and being replaced by uniform mirages. These jagged lines reminded him of broken glass on a rainy road at night, reflecting the lights around him, but these lines had more purpose than broken glass. These rips in the darkness glowed, even though there was no light to be seen besides them. This warm-colored glow increased gradually while he fell further away. His eyes would catch a pattern or a shape in these passing lines before it quickly rose above him. He wondered then if, instead of descending, he was ascending, and if these shapes were rising faster than he was. Soon enough, though, these streaks through the dark surrounding him became more frequent, straighter, and thicker than before. The light that they emitted was blinding, so he shielded his eyes.No matter how many times Cantel entered the simulation, the transitional period between the real world and this generated one made him melancholic. L.O.B.E. and the visions it allowed him to see were nothing short of extraordinary. However, he found himself no longer feeling the awe that he once did, waking into the perspective of another. His eyes were their eyes, and his hands were their hands. He had no control over their movements or actions, only over where he was looking. Their views overlapped, like a sheet of paper placed in water; they blended yet remained separate. This simulation was one he often liked to test the M.A.S.T.E.R. computer with. He was viewing himself, or at least a simulated future version of himself. He knew the back of his hands and the height at which eyes walked through the world. He remembered this place too, even if it looked slightly different from what he knew in the real world. He was in his body, in his lab’s main entrance, walking up the stairs he walked every morning. He had repeated this simulation many times before, so the movement up the stairs did not disturb his senses.
>>24835829Bump
>>24835829The book switches between 3 perspectives for each chapter, one after the other. The first and third perspectives are in 3rd person, while the second is in 1st person. This choice was made to allow better insight into an otherwise unlovable character. The chapters repeat these perspectives for all 27 chapters.
>>24832266Build an author platform (blog, website, threads/X presence). Write 3 books at a time, then you can sell them as a package. (You can do numbers other than 3, but 3 is kind of the "golden number" which is why a lot of series are trilogies rather than 4,5,6 books)Also do ARCs, particularly offer them to social media influences in your genre. You seem to already have a website. If you can, get a domain name without numbers (lobe.com or something similar). Maybe the 3807 is a specific reference to something and that's why it's there? Or you just couldn't buy lobe.com. Even if it's for an artistic purpose, it makes it look kind of unprofessional. I would recommend making your website be your author name instead of a specific series, because then you can go on to do other books and still have everything in one place (as opposed to making a brand new website for each IP...) Also, mailing list. Get a mailing list. Post to your mailing list every 2 weeks at minimum. (Not spammy stuff - include interesting facts, like cool stuff you found out during research or worldbuilding tidbits, or small stuff that your readers might have missed). You want to do at least a **relevant** email every fortnight, because otherwise readers might be interested in you and sign up, but then forget who you are. Regular, relevant (key word) emails help to stop that. Your art has a very distinctive style. If you lean into that aspect, it will help make your work more iconic. A lot of indie authors just throw a prompt into AI and use whatever it spits out, so your unique art helps to differentiate yourself and makes you look more "artistic"/chic. Especially the image in OP. That's very good. Do art like that. It makes it more, I guess, artisan-y. Not really sure what the precise word I'm looking for is here, but I'm sure you get my point. I would recommend also having a very unique and distinct author voice, for example, in the way that Robin McKinley has a unique and distinct voice (stream-of-consciousness, run-on sentence style). I'm not saying copy her writing style and use it... but you should have your own, very distinct writing voice. (This means don't use AI to write your prose for you. I'm not saying you are or anything, I've barely looked at the prose you gave. But it seems to me like your series/identity would benefit from having the USP of being different and contrarian, and LLMs tend to grind away unique writing voices like sandpaper.)Tldr: don't market or sell your first book. You need to write like 3 books, THEN market. Statistically speaking your first book is NOT going to sell well regardless of how much money you throw at it. Build a platform, write 3 books, make a marketing plan, market THEN publish your books. You've already published one, which isn't the meta strategy, but you can do this for your later ones.Obviously this is just the advice I'd give you. This is your work and your baby. It's up to you. Hope it helps though.
As your for website. I've built my own website and I also was a professional graphic designer, so I'll offer my two cents, but take it with a grain of salt. It's just my advice. You know yourself best.Portfolio ("paintings of lobe" section) has a very stretched title image (see pic). Maybe that's what you're going for...? But it makes the image look low-res and pixelated. It looks really, really stretched on an ultra-wide monitor. I'm guessing the art you've posted is commissioned, since it's credited to someone else...? I assumed it was yours at first. lol. I love the flickering test on the opening page for the introduction section, and the title "LOBE" flashing. That looks good. If I were you, I would change the header. Instead of having all the buttons (Home, Buy, Art, Wiki, etc...) stacked on top of each other, I would do it as a horizontal bar with the buttons going along. LIke it how it is for most websites. Instead of having art be the background, have it be pure black or a solid colour. Maybe not black. I wouldn't put "buy now" in the header. It's the first thing people are going to see, and their first impression. Don't let their first impression be you asking for money. Keep it at the bottom of the introduction: hook them with the story, THEN ask them to buy. The red dot going to a "404 error page" with the art you've used there is very cool. Maybe it's supposed to be something else, and that actually is a 404 error. lol. I haven't read your book so idk if this is a callback/reference. But it looks deliberate and it looks cool. Anyway, you seem to have a cohesive art direction, and the website itself tells a story and is quite immersive. That's good. More than can be said for a lot of indie books out there.
>>24836172>>24836157Also, you're not on Goodreads. I'd recommend putting your book on Goodreads. If you really, really want quick customers, put in KU (Kindle Unlimited). It's not very lucrative, but it gives readers the chance to read it for free while paying you (not a lot) so it can get it in the hands of new readers.
>>24836157>>24836172>>24836178Thank you for the feedback. I agree with most everything you've said. Im actually impressed cause you found a little hidden Easter egg i added to the website I thought no one would find. I know the website needs work. I just cant justify it. The "3807" is "LOBE" in number form, see? Flip it upside down and rotate it. I kinda use that theme a lot, but I understand how it doesn't look the best so im conflicted. I agree that an author website would work, but Lobe is my very first book, and with a full time job and babies now I dont know if I wanna be an author outside of Lobe. I have a second book in the works, but the story will essentially fully wrap up by the end of the second book. If I were to do a trilogy, that puts your advice at around 3 years before I would get to that point, with no vision on what the third book could be. The paintings aren't commissioned. I also made all of them. I used a pen name to distance myself from my work as an author, but I have put my paintings online elsewhere before so it would help grow my personal portfolio as an artist if the book sold well. Ill definitely do the goodreads thing. Didnt think of that. I didn't use any AI but had grammerly do a final proof read where I selectively used their suggestions in order to preserve the author voice. All readers so far said mt author voice was great. All in all though, I implore you to buy it. You seem impressed enough to dive into it and offer me such good feedback on the process. I recommend the paperback off Amazon. 28.99$, unfortunately. A lot for a paperback cause of needing color print for the paintings. Id love to read your review once you've read it.
