As a sixty-something male who grew up in the southern United States, I got my indoctrination in American football (AF) early in life, and have been a staunch fan ever since. I always wondered why the rest of the world didn’t seem to care much for our style of play and preferred soccer, which seemed to be a pretty boring display of ordinary looking guys (or women) running up and down a field kicking a ball around. Then, in 2010, everything changed. I actually watched a few soccer games during the World Cup in South Africa. Suddenly, I realized that soccer was the right game for me. I’m still a fan of AF. I check scores and news articles, but I rarely attend a game, or watch more than bits and pieces of one on television.

Two things led to this transformation

The Players

The people running around on the soccer field (the “Pitch”) look like ordinary men and women, athletic to be sure, but otherwise just like regular people. AF players, on the other hand, have turned into hulking giants that look nothing like the people I see on the streets.

The Time

Maybe I value my time more than I once did, but it seems that AF games have become much longer than they once were. As a result, the entertainment value ratio (the amount of action time relative to the time invested) has declined, and it probably wasn’t great to begin with. Most NFL games take about three and half hours to complete. That’s a lot of time to invest for 11 minutes of action, which, according to a Wall Street Journal study a few years ago, is what you get. That’s right. The average play lasts about eight seconds and there will be about 130 plays during a typical game. That’s eleven minutes.

A soccer game, on the other hand, takes two hours to play. You can count on it. The clock starts when the official puts the ball in play and it doesn’t stop until the half-time break at the 45-minute mark, with a couple of minutes usually added for stoppage time. The same thing happens in the second half. The game ends when the second half stoppage time has elapsed. The officials determine stoppage time based on the amount of time they had stopped the action to attend to injured players.

Here is a simple table that illustrates the action time relative to the time invested.

                                                                                            American Football (AF)           Soccer

Total time invested to watch game on television (minutes)                 210                             120

Game clock time (minutes, including stoppage time)                             60                               95

Game action time (minutes of ball in play)                                             11                               90

Percentage of action time to time invested                                     5.24%                       75.00%

I’ve also learned to appreciate the action in soccer. Those men and women aren’t just kicking to ball around for the heck of it. They move the ball from player to player with remarkable precision; constantly looking for a weakness in the other team’s defense that they can exploit in order to rush the goal. And it can happen in the blink of an eye. Now, I understand why virtually everyone in the world knows who Lionel Messi is, but outside the U. S., few people would know Peyton Manning.

People who read my books often refer to them as “science fiction”, but here’s the strange thing. I don’t like books that generally fall into the category of science fiction. Stories about intergalactic travel, space wars and super beings hold no interest for me. The notion of time travel can be slightly interesting when it tackles important historical topics, but otherwise, forget it.

So here’s where you ask yourself: “Why does this guy write science fiction if he doesn’t like science fiction?” Good question. The simple answer is that I don’t consider my work to be science fiction. Sure, there are aliens. There are humans spread throughout the universe. There are amazing human-like machines called “Gardeners”, and some of the storyline takes place on a distant planet. Surely, a clerk in the local bookstore would shelve these books in the science fiction section. Still, I describe my books as “suspense, with elements of political intrigue, speculative history, religion, romance and a little science fiction”. In fact, the science fiction in my books is all based on generally accepted scientific principles, such as quantum physics, properties of light, and the realities — not the fantasies — of space travel. Most of the action takes place right here on Earth, in places like Tampa, Detroit and Manaus, Brazil. The characters are ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

There is also a very important speculative anthropological angle to the novels. Suppose humans on a faraway planet “seeded” the Earth with human embryos a little over 50,000 years ago, along with three “Gardeners” to tend the crop. That would explain what many anthropologist call “The Great Leap Forward”, when humans began to develop such things as sophisticated languages, art, music and communities. Protohumans had existed on the planet for millions of years before then, but had changed little in their use of communications or tools. Readers who are unfamiliar with the topic should read Jared Diamond’s wonderful book The Third Chimpanzee. Of course, Diamond doesn’t propose alien embryos as the source of the Leap and I sincerely hope he isn’t offended by my use of his work in such a speculative manner.

In categorizing The Eden Project and The Salt Castle for publication on Amazon, I have decided to use “suspense” as the primary category. I felt that readers looking for space-opera type science fiction would be disappointed with my books. On the other hand, I think readers looking for intelligent suspense will be delighted with these “outside the box” novels.

New authors face a serious dilemma: Traditional publishing or indie publishing. For the majority, their publishing dream is rooted in the traditional publishing world, and includes a nice advance and then semi-annual royalty checks. Most begin by seeking representation by a literary agent, or by contacting publishers directly. Then, after many rejections and growing frustration, they self-publish on Amazon, Smashwords, or some other self-publishing platform. Some will be successful — we are all familiar with the stories of John Locke, Hugh Howey and a few others — but most will not be.

My approach was different. I never considered the traditional publishing route. Not because I didn’t think my novels were good enough. To the contrary, I think my books are better than anything I’ve read from a traditional publisher in the last five years. (OK, I’m entitled to an opinion on this.) I have no doubt that, in time, I would have secured a traditional publishing contract and gotten my books into brick and mortar bookstores. But, I did a lot of research and decided that wasn’t the best approach for me. Here is what I found:

1.      Agents and publishers are swamped with submissions, most in the form of query letters that include a short 200 to 400 word synopsis of the author’s 100,000 word creation. Their evaluation of the novel’s potential will occur in seconds, not minutes or hours. Personally, I think it’s very unlikely that even a well-meaning agent or editor is going to get a good picture of the book’s potential based on a query letter. In fact, some of the most successful books of recent years were rejected many times before they were eventually accepted. I have read that The Help, one of the most successful books of the last decade, was rejected 60 times before it was accepted. That means that one reader in 61 got it.

2.      In today’s business environment, publishers don’t budget marketing funds for new authors. So, even if one agrees to publish your novel, most of the marketing effort (and expense) is still going to come from the author. They will provide cover art and editing, but based on what I’ve seen in recent years, you may want to hire your own editor.

3.      Royalty advances for new authors are miniscule. While the publishing industry doesn’t disclose these numbers, anecdotal evidence based on the comments of many writers and bloggers indicates that advances for first time authors range from $2,000 to $7,500, largely based on genre. And with no marketing budget to support sales, most of these never pay out.

I was 60 years old when I wrote my first novel, which I think made the choice easier for me. I couldn’t see spending a year or two chasing a contract and then another year waiting for publication. All for a few thousand bucks. I decided to find a good editor and publish my own work. I’ve also had the time to publish the second book and to start on the third.