Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is enjoying the Yuletide Season, having a white Christmas, or experiencing whatever makes this time of year special for you.
I’ve been intending to post something for a while now, but time keeps getting away form me. However, I desperately wanted to get this one out because this post is particularly meaningful for me. I don’t think I mentioned it elswhere, but 2023 marks the 10-year anniversary of the first Kid Sensation novel. It’s amazing how fast the time flies. And here’s what I’ve managed to accomplish with the Kevin Hardman brand during that time:
- 9 Kid Sensation novels
- 2 Kid Sensation spinoffs (not counting the upcoming Smoked)
- 1 Kid Sensation short story
- 4 Warden books
- 3 Fringe Worlds books
That’s 19 books (if you count the short story)…almost 2 books per year. By most standards, that’s a pretty good pace. What’s really surprising is that during that time, I had some long stints where I actually didn’t publish anything. (To be clear, though, I was always writing; work and other things just kept me from finishing and publishing as quickly as I wanted to in some instances.) In short, I feel fortunate to have published as much as I have. However, I feel particularly blessed that readers have been patient during the lulls and continually expressed their enjoyment of my books, as well as encouraged my writing. There’s little more that an author could ask for, so for that I sincerely thank you.
In closing, I thought I share something fun. I’ve been playing around with text-to-image generators lately, and I recently used them to create Christmas characters as superheroes. I’ve shared some of that elsewhere, but here are two where I asked it to envision Frosty the Snowman as a superhero.
This first one is okay – not many people can pull off the white top hat (and look happy doing it), but Frosty’s the man in that regard. However, with the fur on the cape, he looks more like a ’70’s pimp that a superhero.
All in all, I think it was a pretty good effort. (And you also have to keep in mind that I’m new to this, so some oddities in appearance can probably be chalked up to operator error.)
This next one is a little more challenging, mostly because – other than the head – you’d be hard-pressed to say this is a snowman. In fact, it looks like the AI took some muscular hero (say, one that may have originally been green), then slapped a coat of white paint on him before putting a snowman’s head on hs body.
As above, the top hat is a nice touch. And I didn’t mention this before, but almost every time I see someone in a top hat, Puttin’ on the Ritz starts running through my brain. However, while I can see Frosty the Pimp on stage singing it, I have a tough time envisioning that with Frosty the Hul Bodybuilder. But if it happened, I’d make him wear baggy pants (for obvious reasons).
That’s all for now. Thanks again for your support, and Happy Holidays!
8 months since you posted anything about anything and you claim to not have the time but then you post a bunch of silliness you have been playing with. Great time management.
How about info on smoked? Or on the next actual Kid Sensation novel?
Nope, none of that. Just patting yourself on the back and proving you have plenty of time on your hands to at the very least make a monthly progress update. Why do you even have 2 different websites when updating one is obviously more than you can handle. I don’t get it.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Kid Sensation series, but are you trying to compete with George R.R. Martin for being the slowest author to put out the next book in a series or something? I actually wonder if there are any fanfic authors out there continuing where you left off.
First of all, thank you very much for your candor. I tend to view it as a positive that readers tend to feel passionate about my work – even when they express their fervor in a way that I, personally, probably wouldn’t. That said, I understand your frustration. Believe me, no one’s more disappointed than me that I haven’t been able to release books at a faster pace, because the plan has always been to step on the gas in that regard. Unfortunately, plans get derailed, and in many instances there’s nothing you can do about it. By way of example, a few years ago – essentially when I was on the eve of releasing a new book – my dad died.
It was completely, totally and utterly unexpected. I had just spoken to him the night before and he was fine. But the next day, he was gone… Needless to say, the book didn’t get released until several weeks later. However, it wasn’t a book that anyone was expecting at the time, so no readers were disappointed by the “delay.” As to my dad’s death, I never mentioned it to my readers. I’m kind of private when it comes to things like that. (In fact, I even requested that no announcement about it be made at the office where I worked.) Generally, the most you’ll hear me say is something like “the schedule was thrown off,” “there was a setback on the timetable,” “life threw me a curveball,” or words to that effect.
By and large, readers have always been understanding in that regard. They tend to acknowledge that things happen in our lives that are unexpected and out of our control, and in relation to my books they have generally accepted that those kinds of things will postpone publication. That type of consideration has been a boon for me, because – a I said – I’m just not one of those people who can put those kinds of things out there for public consumption. I have a friend who posts her entire life on social media: every doctor’s visit, every mani/pedi, every restauarant meal, every movie she sees… (She even posts pics of her movie tickets with date and time). I’m just not like that. But the point here is that – even though every slippage in the schedule is not the result of a tragic event – if there’s a delay in my releases, I’d argue that it’s not frivolous.
As to posting “silliness,” it’s arguable that I probably didn’t provide enough context. Basically, AI is eating the world right now, invading every industry, and book publishing is no exception. AI is being used for translation, content, covers, etc. Early in my writing career, I made an error that was a result of me not fully understanding the world of publishing and how rapidly it can change. It cost me dearly, and to this day I’m still paying for it. (In fact,I anticipate I’ll be paying for it the rest of my writing career.) However, I resolved that nothing like that would ever happen again. Ergo, bearing in mind how useful and powerful AI can be as a tool, I play around with it – especilly text-to-image generators because they can create stuff that’s useful for promotion. (In fact, I’ve used it for that purpose in response to changes Amazon is making with respect to its ad platform.) I’d argue that I’m only okay in terms of my skill set on that front, but some authors have mastered it and can produce mesmerizing artwork. In short, I need to be at least passable in terms of what I can produce in order to compete. The “silliness” was the result of some of my efforts, and I shared it because I thought it could provide a laugh.
With respect to having two websites, I’m not sure what you’referring to. This is my only website, but if you’re talking about my old blog on Blogger, the only thing I generally post there these days are links to current posts on this site – just in case someone finds their way there instead of here. If you’re talking about my Patreon page, I guess I don’t really consider that a website, although I do regularly post there. However, speaking strictly about this site, I won’t argue with the notion that I could post more frequently here, and I will endeavor to do so. On the topic of updates, I’ll be succinct: I’m trying to get Smoked out within the next month; Kid Sensation #10 is in the works, but I can’t hazard a release date at the moment.
Finally, with regard to patting myself on the back, that was never my intent and I didn’t view what I’d written as anything more than what it was presented as: reflection on my writing volume up to that point. (In a similar fashion, I’m a military veteran, but I don’t consider it patting myself on the back if I list my service/duty stations on my résumé.) Basically, I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished because writing is incredibly hard, but it was never intended to be braggadocious; if it came across that way, I apologize. Thanks again for your candor and for being a reader.