On Friday I had the great pleasure to be asked back to GamesAtWork.biz to talk about the relevance of writing a sci-fi book and how it fitted with both games and software development processes. In order to get my thoughts in order I decided to write a post on Linkedin’s Pulse blogging platform. I have tended to avoid posting other places as I though a central place, here, made more sense. It would seem that it is worth doing both, all, everything though. The fact it was a different platform made me think in a slightly different way. The full post is below, just in case you don’t get around to reading it on Linkedin.
A few more additions to promotional opportunities have happened since too.
I created a Call Of Duty Black Ops iii emblem (not quite as good as the car decals but the tool set is a little less rich I think)

Also there is now an evolving Icon that you can apply from Zymge.com to your Twitter avatar There are lots of other types of overlay stickers that this service can do for you too. Well worth a look.

Here is the Linkedin Pulse post.
I have not written directly on Linkedin before. However now seems a good time. As a long time blogger and contributor to all sorts of other forms I thought I would share here some of what led to me turning my hand from building virtual worlds and making sense of new technology for people, to creating a science fiction novel, and now working on the sequel. The book is linked from Reconfigurebook.co.uk

As a creator of a single person company in the emerging technology space it is quite tricky to get the right sort of work that both pays, is fulfilling and increases the skill base that I have gained over the past 26 years in the industry.

Creating code and architecting systems allows me to use a full stack of skills. In the world today it is much easier to punch above your weight. I recommend everyone, who is a techie, to just have a go making something end to end. I have done that a number of times, but usually for other people. I have never had a product of my own as such. I have worked with and helped a number of startups, those are long term investments in time and emotional effort. They seldom have yet yielded a product I could point to and say there… that’s what I built.

I had a short TV career, by short I mean 3 years of 39 episodes of weekly TV. That is something I was very proud of but the TV companies do not keep that sort of stuff up on the web. Even though the slots on tech were still relevant today they are really tied up in licensing and not just sitting on Youtube. Again no product.

My 20 years at IBM did see a number of project that were flagship ones in the development of the web, but the end results are now no longer there. The virtual world work, which I still continue today is constantly shifting. The old build in Second Life are now just memories. A few stills and movies remain. There is nothing to share as such. Reputation is fleeting after all.

So I was left thinking I need to build something. I needed to create something end to end as a challenge. I was contemplating various games to make, I started on a few but they did not grab me. I know when I am stoked, and with those I was not.

Sat on Holiday I read the Martian. I loved the scientific depth and a sense of genuine substrate to the emotional layer and adventure on top. A few days later I had an image in my head, related to virtual worlds and gaming. An image of a character being rotated in space. A thing we often have to do in virtual worlds. I imagined what it would be like to do that for real. Again another thing people often talk about when they have used a virtual reality system for a while. If only we could manipulate the real world like this. I then thought of the Internet of Things, and how we instrument the world. I then consider how we could use that to reconfigure the world. Boom I had a title Reconfigure.

As I noodled the idea I realised I wanted to get real tech that I knew into the story. I wanted to go full g33k in the set up. Taking real virtual world tech and code and then extrapolating it. I also wanted my main character to make the same mistakes we all make. That was where the idea of the starting point came. She, (and it just happened She became a She instinctively) makes a misplaced Tweet. Types in the wrong window. It is a thing we have all done. I think that makes a good hook. Instead of just hassle though she makes contact with someone or something.

Having got that basis I came home and sketched a story board. I had key types of things I wanted to happen. I had these initial images in my head but had to find the peril, the adventure. I had to find things that were difficult to solve in clever ways.

This is where is became a lot like coding a system. I had problems and sticking points in the storyboard. I had an architecture. I had to work out the code (in this case, words) to pass the tests that allowed this to work and flow.

It became an obsession for a couple of weeks flat out writing. It felt like binge-watching a boxed set. I did not always know what was going to happen, or if I did I didn’t know the details until I started. It was invention, just like a patent. I felt duty bound to make sure it stood up to some degree of reasoning and logic despite getting into the fictional elements.

That was the really fun part. I was, and I am, really happy with the story. So much so I just started on the sequel. It seems to be flowing in the same way though I have learned from my experience on the first book about hen to stop and check. Just like code, sometimes you find a better algorithm and just have to break the code again to fix it.

Doing this myself I had to learn about the formatting and setting for e-readers and specifically Kindle. I also created a sort of beta reader programme for some friends and family to help iron out the typos and bugs. It is impossible to see it all yourself when you are so close to it. That was a humbling experience in itself.

The vagaries of the US tax system, despite being Uk based and a few other little quirks all took a little time. The cover design and using the right format and size all took a while. I am not a designer, but I wanted to give it a go. I tried a couple of covers and got comments about them before settling on this one.

However a the end of October 2015 I published the e-book.

I was expecting, like most first time authors, a massive blip as friends, family, former colleagues and anyone who pays attention on social media or virtual worlds to say “Hey! epredator had written a book, I will take a look at that!” This is a mother humbling experience. There are some very close friends who have done that for me. However I realised that I needed to go wider. My friends and family blip at launch was not going to be big enough to tip the book into the charts.

I was then faced with the almost full time job of advertising and promoting the book. I am still working out the best routes. Amazon is an obvious place to advertise but I also have Facebook, dabbled with Twitter, and some Google Adwords in place.

The advice always seems to be do lots of other things. One of the first things was to brave CreateSpace and typesetting to create the paperback. A physical product still seems to make people think you have done something real. So I did that, and it went live a few days ago.

I always done lots of twists and turns on ideas so these are some of the things I have done in the past few weeks.

• Join Author central on amazon.com and .co.uk
• Create videos – I did a show and tell rather like this post and an advert using my son in a style that fitted with an element of the story (all very meta)
• Create a Forza6 car design – Yes building a lambo with Reconfigure and the book cover all over it let me drop images all over the place and add another promo video around brands hatch. Quite unusual I think?
• Tweet.. A lot ( I am still hoping the saturation with prompt a few more friends to help 🙂 )
• Facebook page – I set up the specific page for Reconfigure before going live and then made that available putting a few extras on there
• Flickr – lots of images, books arriving, weird images of me holding the book etc
• Free prize draw on Amazon.com – Offering a copy of the book in a prize draw run by Amazon to get Twitter followers
• Podcast – Tonight I am talking on Gamesatwork.biz after a kind invitation
• Pay a twitter promoter – I used Bookbear, but there are loads. I may be cheaper than ad clicks
• Change my job title here to Sci-Fi Author at Feeding Edge Ltd.
• Added the logo to my twitter avatar
• Built a second life box to with a link
• Pinged my old eightbar group on in Second Life
• Wrote this post 🙂
• Update 8th November – I also just did the podcast interview on gamesatwork.biz

There are probably more, and there will be more of course. Now much of the chatter I create relates to things in the new book. It’s called Cont3xt at the moment. It follows on and meshes with the timeline of Reconfigure. It is very exciting again. I am back on binge-watching my own series.

I have realised that the aspirational nature of writing, wanting people to enjoy your work and your product is more humbling and scary than exciting. If people don’t buy the book, it’s not because it is not good. They wouldn’t know. With only a few reviews at the moment and not really enough sample size to judge it by I just have to leave it there to be its own thing now.

If every follower and like that I had bought the £1.99/$2.99 e-book today, right now it would hit the top 100. I can see the variance that even a single sale makes to the rank. I don’t have an agent or publisher pushing it. However, I have created what I set out to do and learned a lot in the process about things I was not expecting to learn. That can only be a good thing.

I care about Roisin Kincade, my lead character. Right at the moment she is in quite a difficult place. So I need to keep writing to rescue her. I have the storyboard/architecture and I have some experience in code/writing and testing/editing plus I know how to publish and try to market it. So I best get on with it.

The book, it’s blurb and links to where to get a copy are all on Reconfigurebook.co.uk

Having been somewhat preoccupied with, you know what, the past few weeks I had not had a chance to comment and share the current wave of demos relating to Google’s Magic Leap. This video was published, ‘shot through magic leap technology’ a few weeks ago.

It has some interesting features to take note of. The little character is under the table. However he is also behind the leg of the table. The real world object clips him and obscures him as the camera pans across. He is floating around and bobbing a little, but the registration with the physical in a hand held karma shot is very impressive.
Also intersting, and more obvious in the solar system shot, is the use of focus. The objects are not always in focus just as a real camera would need to adjust as it got closer. Many AR experiences and blended reality experiences do not have that. They may have lighting and a presence relative to a physical space but they are like 3d stickers.
It is a lot more convincing and real than the large Whale jumping one that was doing the rounds. That looked like an aspirational PR video of what we could expect one day.
I am really looking forward to the next few months/years as these devices become accessible. It is way more exciting than just pure VR (though I love that too!)
It enables us to start instrumenting the world visually as much as we are under the covers with the Internet of Things.

Have you bought the ebook yet? If not … cough… why not ? 🙂 Even without a kindle you can read it on any device. Go on you know you want too 🙂
I decided once the ebook was published for Reconfigure it would be interesting to explore the print on demand options from CreateSpace. It was some more formatting work to do and also create more than just a cover page. It needed a back page and the blurb associated with it. It also needed a more physical form of typesetting. ebooks are really HTML and reformat themselves. Physical books have to consider the gutter spacing when the pages are bound so you can read all the words.
The first proof arrived today.

It was very exciting to see the thing in actual print. I had selected the 6x9inch format as that was the recommended one. However now I look at it it looks a little large, more like a text book than a novel. So I am just working out how to reformat it down to 5×8 a normal paperback size. I also removed all the page numbers, which was something I thought it asked me to do. I realise it was asking that you remove page numbers on the preamble pages. ebooks don’t have any footers for page numbers as the device generates those based on the users font size choice.
Now I have page numbers, I tightened the spacing from the double spaced to 1.5 and I am now resubmitting it all. It means buying another proof copy, but the other book is handy for promo shots being a little bigger 🙂 It is possible to do an awful lot with the support tools that are provided. Each PDF upload is checked that it fits in the correct area and formats correctly. You still have to visually check each page just in case of course. The physical instantiation being the final decision on what goes live. The cover art needs to be in a suitable high resolution (mine already was). It even shows the mouse pointer arrow that is a tiny detail mid cube that is hard to see on the digital covers as they are at the moment.
So onwards and upwards. Of course the print version will be relatively expensive as it is a print on demand. I do not have the economies of scale to produce cheaper versions (yet). I will probably do the Kindle matchbook scheme where physical get a digital version too. It seems very fair to me. I can’t do that until the book is physically live though.

I just hit publish on the Amazon Kindle site, I was expecting it to take a few days but it seems Reconfigure, my first novel is live and available for purchase right now.

The UK link is here, but it will direct you to the relevant territory as it is available globally.
It feels a somewhat odd experience to have let Roisin Kincade out into the wild along with all the wonderful tech and adventures she has had.
I hope, if you choose to buy the book, that you enjoy it. It has been a wonderful experience to create it.

Reconfigure!

I just visited Ray-Ban’s virtual glasses modelling site. There have been a lot of ‘stick things on your face on a webcam’ applications but I was impressed with how quick, simple and accurate this one was. My regular glasses are Ray-Bans so I found the model number and tried my actual pair on virtually to see the difference.
The registration of my face even in bad lighting was incredibly quick, and yes I need a haircut!

What was impressive is that the glasses appear to have lighting and a reflection in the lens, The still does not do that justice, but it really adds something over the the cartoon stickers of other AR web cam applications. The arms of the glasses also go around the side of your head.
Here is the ‘real’ pair for comparison.

This is just a webcam on a webpage. Imagine the degree of world changing views we can create on portable holo style headsets.

Whilst I may have been quite focussed on my own Science Fiction vision of the future with my book writing experiment I have not been completely detached from the world. Yesterday some new demos of Microsoft’s impressive looking Hololens came out. I am still not convinced they should really call them holograms, but we can let that slide. This blended reality demo of a game, albeit a blow stuff up one, understanding the environment around it, using the walls as canvases is impressive. I still think I prefer the minecraft examples though.

They are obviously not overly keen on small companies or individuals getting their hands not eh dev kit as its $3k for the kit and only in the US and Canada. Still it’s a start.
We have yet to see the kit from Magic Leap/google.
Of course this got me thinking, my Reconfigure story, the things that happen in the physical world could easily be emulated with a Hololens. It would be great to create a Hololens powered version of my character’s experience. Not a 3d 360 immersive film but a blended reality, this is what it would feel like to be Roisin Kincade. Now that is exciting!

I have just completed a third triage of the manuscript for Reconfigure. I am now at the printing the thing off and reading it out aloud stage. Its a fair old chunk of work. 72,000 words, and with the double line spacing hilton 206 pages of A4. I am still very pleased with it. Whether anyone else will be I shall soon find out I guess.

Every pass I spot minor tweaks. Usually spelling and grammar of course. Starting sentences with So, a lot and Well, too. So those are getting filtered and adjusted. I also created a page and a url reconfigurebook.co.uk which is just a redirect to the page above on the navigation tab. On there is a description of the book, a first pass at the abstract that may, or may not entice people into reading.
I also had a go at a stylised cover, it is pretty much all built from Unity3d, it describes some of the images and ideas in the story, without giving too much away, I hope.
I am reposting the image here, but it all is subject to any changes I fancy doing of course 🙂

***Update this is the new book cover.

So head on over to reconfigurebook.co.uk to see what this science fiction, set today, is all about (ish).

Last Friday I finished writing the story that I had in my head for Reconfigure. I surprised myself at the speed it came out, but when you have to do something, you have to do it! I also learned a lot about how I thread idea together. The story is set now, the tools and tech in it is, for the most part, genuine and real. Constructing it form the initial plan to the first draft has felt just like a software project. Architecture, Internal Design, Code. It now differs in that there is not a “compiler” to help spot any errors. There is of course spell check. This stage is one of reading it, lots it would seem. Checking it makes sense, meets the spec and then adding or taking away from it to create a good user experience. As it has a basis in fact there is real world continuity checking. There is also speculative science fiction continuity that I can double check too.
My biggest surprise was the elements of the story, the little mental pictures and feelings that I discovered on the way. I had the structure, that was fun to conceive but the colouring in has been an interesting mix of conscious thought and of Flow.
When I started to re-read it for the first time I was not totally sure what it was going to sound like in my head. A few times I have written articles and looked at the end result and started again. Same structure just different words. I was hoping that was not the case this time. Of course this is all potentially self deluding, but I like it so far.
Another thing I was not expecting is in building the potential for a follow up, if not a series. The core elements have several threads that seem to be brewing as I re-read the text. I was thinking this would be done and dusted.
I am looking ahead to just getting it out there, probably just on Amazon Kindle store. I don’t think I can justify making actual print copy books though services like LuLu do over print on demand. So I have to think about pricing. There, like the app store, seems to be lots of discussion of people not paying over $0.99 or 99p for a book. Discussions of free, just for the publicity or of making something reassuringly expensive because it has enough words per pence. I don’t know, but I think I will release it and see if I can charge for it. Just enough that maybe my social media friends and colleagues might feel happy to sponsor me by buying a copy.
I have started to consider cover designs, an early one, just an alpha (rather like the text so far) was this last night.

It was using the iPhone app Typorama. I will have to rebuild the image in the right size and shape and may make the cubes in Unity3D instead of the stock image, that being more in keeping with the story.
I started to work on the back cover hook, the abstract. It was interesting trying o find a balance between telling the story and hinting at it. Introducing the central character and allowing her strengths and vulnerabilities to try and surface in a paragraph. I still have work to do on that but may share that in another post.