Time Blocks

 

“Path Generator error 402. Target not found. Try again?”

Time travel was never meant to be mainstream, but eventually it was. It took a while for scientists and experimenters to standardize everything, making it safe and easy for just about everyone to travel.

The process had been distilled down to blocks. Start with Goal blocks, or rather targets. A certain person and a time. Get a few blocks for a Time Corridor to have an interaction window with the target, then a Cleanup block to wipe out the incursion.

She wasn’t sure what was wrong. Her help bot suggested that a Rescue block wasn’t valid as an end point. “You’re just a Gen 1 bot, you don’t do the non-standard blocks.” was her response. The trial had worked regardless and the actual mission was in que, almost. As soon as she put it in the Path generator it froze with the error message.

The bot might be right anyway, but when she tried to append a Cleanup block to the string it erred again.

“Path Generator error 850. Rescue missions should not need cleanup. Cleanup is already part of the original Time String.”

‘What?’ she thought. ‘He isn’t part of a Time String, he’s being Rescued’. Her bot prompted her again. The Rescue was supposed to be used as a part of another incursion. To rescue another time traveller.

A Kobo Experiment

 As you have hopefully already seen, I have a number of short stories on Kobo.  I am in the process of recording reading/performance for audiobook versions, but haven't quite got there yet.  Today though, I have uploaded another short story, and have done a few things differently.

 Firstly, I have started with a price.  Initially the first dozen stories were free, but some of the Kobo infrastructure doesn't kick in with that model.  It still hasn't kicked in for the now $0.99CN books.  Second, it is the first offering which is in the same series as something already up.  That should be another way to link stories on the same page - vs hoping people click the author name and search that way.

 Right now I'm just filling time till the words are checked against the guidelines (not hateful or pornographic).  A process that can take "up to 3 business days" but for me so far is usually done in 2-3 hours. 

As far as 'sales' go, it depends which dashboard I look at.  It's either 20 or 26 - all of which from the 'free' era.  Minus the fact that I've downloaded all of my own so minus 14 from that.  So far scifi and detective genres seem to be doing the best. 

45 minutes later:  Well, it looks like the story has passed the check, and it's only showing the series link, but at least that bit works.  It might be an idea to link all my short stories into an umbrella 'One off' or something.  Unfortunately the preview is only showing the title graphic, and the length estimate is still not showing.  And now since it's not free, I have to run around a different way if I want to get it on my own ereader...

 Phuture Pharaohs

 

Is Cheap Better than Free?

 Who wouldn't want something for free? Well, as it turns out - a lot of people.  There are a rather large number of free ebooks, free videos on YouTube, free brushes on art sites and so on.  From what I can see, if it's 'too free' then people don't seem to want it.  Free usually means no advertisements for it - because that would be a money sink - and hard to get in front of the right eyes.

Sometimes people collect free things, and don't use them.  Websites may collect free things, but don't necessarily highlight them.  They cost money to keep around, but don't add to the profit when the are consumed.  

There is a certain expectation of quality.  People wonder, 'Is it free because you can't sell it?' If people don't pay for something, they may not try to extract any value from it.  Millions of people will gladly pay a subscription fee and complain about the programming, crying foul when the prices go up.  If one hasn't invested in a product, there's sometimes no motivation to pay attention or re-consume it. If I'm not poorer for getting it, how can I be richer with it?  Have I bothered to do a valuation of something that only costs time? 

Free, or mostly free content is available on the internet if you know where to look, and with a bit of sifting, you can find better quality than stuff you paid for.

Or not.  So many AI projects are churning out stuff, filling the internet with, well, filler.  Stories that go nowhere, art that is 'by the numbers' and uninspired.  Functional but not fulfilling.  Most content sites have a filter on things that are sold, making sure you are clearly stating if things are AI.  Maybe that's the reason people would rather pay.   Again equating effort in to price out?

I don't know.  For a while I'll put my ebooks at the lowest price for some comparison to free.  The Kobo staff have already said that "Other works by this Author" isn't shown if the books are free.  Who knows what else 'free' disqualifies you from?  I notice that very few 'free' books have a length summary for them, and perhaps those that do have it from a time when there was a price attached.

Maybe a cost is good too because people want a tangible way to say 'Thank you for your effort' and 'Here's something so you can keep doing this'.  If something is free, and no obvious way to support them, there's a question as to how they can afford the use of time.  How frequent is an update or new material going to be?  Is it worth me investing in this series if the author hasn't committed to relying on it for an income?

Download from Kobo!

I have uploaded a number of short stories over to Kobo (14 at time of this post).  To keep results for Author grouped together, I put them all under the name "James Utharian".

For the covers I have gone with (mostly) AI, but touched up in Photoshop.  A lot of extra tiny font and 'sameness' seems to edited out.  In the original version of the cover below, all the moons were the same size and surface feature orientation. 

Right now, they are free ebooks, but I am looking at getting audio versions for a small price, or perhaps a bundle - not sure if Kobo sells bundles but we will see.

 

Tourist Cube 

 

Denosha Station

 

Denosha Station was at the far end of the high density zone. That meant that it still had the full range of docks and amenities of a core station. Shipping was both high and low – most of the goods were on their way out of the zone, with little directed to or suitable for Denosha itself. General traffic was relatively high, as it marked the farthest point you could reach without a higher rated jump vessel. It was also a great spot to watch the larger deep space vessels get ready for their journeys.

 

Despite being relatively luxurious compared to the Deep Stations, it was still considered Frontier for a lot of softer people. That probably boiled down to the food. Most of the markets didn’t bother with RealSense protein and nutrients, preferring to serve the bulk paste with the full range of dried spices and herbs. RS packs were still available, but at a premium – there just wasn’t a large enough demand to warrant a full cargo run, or the expense of a setting up a GrowStudio. Besides, proper food would make it like every other station, and take away the ‘frontier’ uniqueness of Denosha.

People who lived here were work oriented, not that other places weren’t but, there was little else to do here once the initial thrill had worn off. Most shifts were done quickly and quietly, drama on the station was fairly low, outside of the tourists. News of anything that happened was disseminated fairly rapidly via VidPads and rarely discussed. Crews were often ‘overseen’ by visitors, who didn’t want politics and small talk interrupting their vacation.