The Neuro-Letter #1

Somewhere along the way to completing Heart and the Art of First Contact, I decided that I wanted to become a self-published author. Or, at the very least, promise myself that the first editions of my planned novels would be self-published. Anything goes after that, really.

You might ask: but why, Mr. Scrive? After all, self-publishing is hard. Especially when you’ve had little to no public or social media presence for the better part of the last decade. No one knows you. Even if your writing is decent, getting your brand out to the world is a challenge of its own. You might not make much money.

Yes, I suppose all of those things are true.

But even so, writing to make money was never the main point. I started to write because I felt a story. And I keep writing because I’ve come to care deeply about my characters. Even the ones who are assholes. You see, hidden within my texts are a few concepts and lessons that I never planned, but rather discovered naturally, like a falling flower petal coming to rest on the surface of spring water. The journey for me as an author has been the experience of a lifetime.

I am proud of the universe I’ve created in Heart and the Art of First Contact. I have cried over the history I’ve drafted for Shadow and the Apocrypha of First Contact. I’ve spent long nights working at the alien mathematics implied by both novels, wondering how I could tie it into Breath and the Guise of First Contact without losing my readership. A black cube contained within a transparent sphere. If that imagery is what I think it is, then I could never look at my fiction the same way again. If I’m wrong, at least I’ll have one hell of a story to tell.

My novels will be self-published in order to establish V. F. Scrive as a character in the real-world with the same entrepreneurial spirit as the aliens of these novels, while remaining distinctly human. A man with a laptop, a modest budget, and likely many mistakes along the way. Plus I can’t stand the thought of flooding the market for books with an over-engineered marketing campaign for my series. That tastes strange to me like cherry-flavored medicine. And as for all others—literary agents, publishers, et cetera—they can decide for themselves whether or not they want to engage with me after my first editions come out. This series will say what it needs to say.

Book 1 of the CON of First Contact series, Heart and the Art of First Contact, will be available for purchase on Amazon on December 21, 2023. It’s time to rope dance with an uncertain future.

See you again soon.