Designing a whole new world called Koiné

VaroBear

Emerging author
Last year, after being fired from my job –which I got only two and a half months before– I had to make a stop in the road and reassess some of my life choices. I had gotten that job after struggling with my own company for some years.

As an entrepreneur, I had traveled through the ups and downs of managing a company that was offering a service considered “weird” (yeah, the euphemism is “innovative”). When I decided to return to be an employee, I had already been through the “fat cows, thin cows” periods for seven years (so much for Biblical coincidences), and I was feeling exhausted.

I got the job offer in less than two weeks after I started looking, so I thought the Universe was sending me “positive signs” that I was walking in the right direction, even though something in my heart was giving me a faint warning. The warning had to do with the reasons why I had decided to become an entrepreneur in the first place, and somehow, becoming an employee again meant a betrayal to such reasons.

Anyway, I found out very soon that the market considered me to be “too old” already for the kind of positions my professional profile could get me, and that the “expedite hiring” I had experienced was just a very rare lucky strike. “Too old? I’m just 49 years, for crying out loud!” Yeah, too old, my friend. Even 40-year applicants are “in the edge” already.

Oh, well. For some years back then, I’d been telling everyone that, when I was old and retired (you know, with a lot of time still ahead of you and trying to find a new sense of purpose in life, like everyone who becomes a senior citizen), I would be a writer. Life, it seems, has its way to push you into your true vocation. I realized I was “old and retired” already –or at least the job market seemed to be thinking so– and I was feeling full of energy and ideas, crazy ideas.

So, I began to devise a whole world. It had to be somehow similar to our world, so anyone could relate to it and find themselves reflected in any of its multiple facets, but at the same time, I wanted it to be completely alien so that anyone could find an “awe moment” in every page where it was going to be described.

And I created Koiné, and the Five Breeds, and then the world map, and the cities and settlements, and the world’s history, and the characters, and the plot, and the way to tell such a monstrous thing (pun intended) in a way the reader could keep interested. How do you reveal the world that is inside your head in a way that anyone else can begin to get a glimpse of it, without feeling they’re reading a glossary of terms or a dictionary? How do you help the reader to relate to the Breeds and imagine them?

Well, I just released the first volume of seven, to wander alone in this world. Will my baby withstand the storms? Will she grow up and walk, run, fly? How far will she go? Only time will tell. Only time will tell.
 
Welcome VaroBear,
Nice backstory. At 58 years and disabled, I feel ya.

Saturation is your friend.
You put your 'book', 'story' out there at as many places as you can.
There are 7.7 Billion people on this planet right now.
Set up a webpage so you can get ad bucks and saturate the web.
Always include a link to your webpage.
Get every cent you can.

If the story is good and it is well written it will promote itself.
We currently enjoy planet-wide connectivity.
Enter sub-stories into contests and onto writers forums.
The more people that can reference Koine the better chance you have of funding your endeavor.
Attempt to put Koine on everybody's lips world-wide.
Make them talk about at lunch, make them want to give a hard copy to loved ones as gifts and so on.

Seven 'volumes' is pretty courageous. Concentrate on the first, the second and make the people want more.
If you promise seven, you must deliver seven or you have lied to your readers.
If you promise one and you deliver one with an open ending, your readers are going to contact you to find out if more is coming. Those hits on your website are ad revenue potential.
Then roll out book two with an open ending.
Your readers will tell you if they want a third book.
They will do this by buying the first two.
The will do this by website hit counter and ad revenue.

This way, if it doesn't 'take off' like you hope, you are not committed to writing seven books for an audience that won't buy them.
 
WOW, this is the most heartfelt answer I've ever received.

Saturation is your friend.
You put your 'book', 'story' out there at as many places as you can.
There are 7.7 Billion people on this planet right now.
Set up a webpage so you can get ad bucks and saturate the web.
Always include a link to your webpage.
Get every cent you can.

If the story is good and it is well written it will promote itself.
We currently enjoy planet-wide connectivity.

You are right! A few days ago I purchased a book called "Publish. Promote. Profit" and, among some of its most catching phrases, I remember this one: "The good news is that with the rise of Amazon, it is easier than ever to publish your book. The bad news is that with the rise of Amazon, it is easier than ever to publish a book." A friend of mine told me I should have created a website by now, and now I find the same recommendation, "with steroids". :geek:

Enter sub-stories into contests and onto writers forums.
The more people that can reference Koine the better chance you have of funding your endeavor.
Attempt to put Koine on everybody's lips world-wide.
Make them talk about at lunch, make them want to give a hard copy to loved ones as gifts and so on.

Heheheh... that idea of the sub-stories is intriguing. I'll give it a try. I don't know where to start, though. But it's not like that has stopped me before. :sneaky:

Seven 'volumes' is pretty courageous. Concentrate on the first, the second and make the people want more.
If you promise seven, you must deliver seven or you have lied to your readers.

Well, yeah. But the thing is that I've never felt so happy and fulfilled as I feel now that I'm writing. Of course, I'm doing this because I want to make a living out of it, but also I want to regain that lost sense of purpose. The material for seven books is in my mind already (and I have two chapters of the second volume already written), so the only reason for me to not finish this would be if I died.

This way, if it doesn't 'take off' like you hope, you are not committed to writing seven books for an audience that won't buy them.

I hear ya. What if the story wants to be told, no matter what? These past months, when I was getting feedback from my lifemate, my closest friends and family, looking at their reactions to the story and listening to / reading their comments about it made me realize my ideas weren't that crazy after all. Rather than hope, I prefer to say I have faith that it will take off. 🙌🙏

Thanks for your comments, Tom. I really appreciate the time you took to write.

Big bear hug, my friend. :bear:
 
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