It has been decided that Natural Born Cyborgs will be the next novel I write. I set up a couple of polls to narrow it down and my adoring (they adore me!) public voted and let me know handily which novel they wanted to read first.

Which means two novels didn’t get picked. What of those? Well, the runner up was Big Box Blood Bath. That was a surprise. At no point did I think that title would take second overall. I thought it would be a fringe title that maybe one day I’d take a look at. I have to say I am quite pleased that my readers wanted that one second.

Actually, quite a few wanted it to be first. And makes me wonder how many of those that voted will pre-order Natural Born Cyborgs when what they wanted was Big Box Blood Bath. Of things that make you go hmmmm, this is the hmmmiest. I hate to disappoint a large portion of my readership, but I can only write one novel at a time. Sure, I’ll put it back on the list when it’s time to vote for the next next novel I write. But what if it gets second again? Will there be an armed uprising? Mobs burning me in effigy? Dogs and cats living together? Total anarchy?

I don’t know. I do know that I will have to watch that issue when it comes time to vote on my next next novel. If the vote is close maybe I’ll pick the top two. The great thing is there are only the rules that I set. If I want to write two novels that are voted on then I can do that! The main thing is whether they get pre-ordered and funded.

That brings me to the pre-order question (pre-order info will be up later this week): how many of the folks that voted will now pony up $50-$75 to pre-order Natural Born Cyborgs? As we know, living in the democracy that we do, votes are cheap. Books cost money. This is all a grand idea and experiment, but certainly not a done deal. The great thing is it can’t fail. Why? Because it is open ended. I am not putting a deadline on funding the project. It could get funding in six days or it could take six months. No one will know until it happens. I’ll promote the project for sure, but I can’t make that all I talk about or folks will tune me out. Can’t have that! NO ONE TUNES OUT JAKE BIBLE!

There is another thing this project has made me aware of: I need to up my writing game. I can’t just crank out this novel and hand it to the readers and say, “There you have it. Take it or leave it.”. That’ll kill any chance of doing the project again. So I have to make sure that this novel is better than all the others I have written previous. No hack and slash fiction here! Well, some of the characters may hack and may get slashed, but the words on the page have to be well thought out. In other words, I have my work cut out for me to make this the best novel I’ve written.

Fingers crossed I can deliver. I’m pretty sure I can. The notes I already have are getting detailed. The world I get to build will be on the foundation already set in the Apex Trilogy. But I get to totally mess with that and warp it how my warped mind likes to warp things. Warpalicious!

How about I talk some on the actually pattern of voting? Great idea! And there was a pattern, for sure. The first round of voting started on a Monday. That was when I got the most votes. The voting participation declined as the week went on. It also declined during the day until I sent out a tweet or posted on Facebook, then the votes would start coming in. This pattern was to be expected. Also, when I moved to the final round of voting, there were less participants than in the first round. That was to be expected as well. You lose participants to attrition. Some burnout on the promotional announcements, some just plain forget.

What I really found interesting was the pack mentality that set in on the last round of voting. In the first round people could only see the results as I posted them on my Facebook page. This blind voting freed folks up to vote how they wanted without regard to which novel was in the lead. In the last round of voting I set it so folks could see the results whenever they wanted to. This meant that those that may have wanted to vote for Big Box Blood Bath may have actually ended up voting for Natural Born Cyborgs. It’s simple human psychology that folks want to back a winner. But when I tweeted or posted that the race was still on and any title could win I would see an uptick in votes for Big Box Blood Bath and for PoDLanD. Showing people love an underdog when rallied.

Nothing groundbreaking. This is simple poll and statistics behavior. I haven’t discovered anything that pollsters haven’t already known. It’s just cool to see it first hand.

There you have it for now. I am sure I’ll come across more insights into the process and I’ll post about those. I want this process from here until I publish Natural Born Cyborgs to be open and honest. Have a question for me? Then comment away below! Or send me an email or tweet or FB message. For those of you that have reached out you know I’m pretty responsive. And just damn pretty!

Until next time, y’all.

Cheers!