Writing this after midnight, mostly because I really wanted you guys to have a post this morning (or tomorrow morning from when I write this), one that wasn’t the Classic Being a Better Writer post that’ll go up on Saturday.

So, what’s to write about? Well, there is some news. Book sales have slowed a little again, though thankfully nowhere near the alarming dearth from a month ago. Probably normal fluctuation. And at the same time they’ve still kept getting ratings on Goodreads, which is always good. The more reviews and ratings that are left, the more people are willing to pick up one of my titles on a whim, which is always great!

Still working on Hunter/Hunted, though my progress has been slow the last month. It’s my fault, mainly: Lack of sleep. Which doesn’t make writing easy. I’ll be working on it this weekend to catch up.

As well as on A Game of Stakes! And I’ve got good news here: The new influx of Alpha Readers? Not one of them thought there was a major issue. So this weekend I’ll be poring over it and making lots of little fixes and tweaks … because it’s time to make this Beta! And once the Beta Reading is done, I can get it out and submitted!

In other news … I am trying to come up with something short and fun for Halloween to let my Patreon Supporters look at. We’ll see what I can come up with. A Jacob Rocke short story, most likely.

So, that’s the news as far as writing and whatnot goes … Wait, I lied. Just for kicks, One Drink will be free this weekend. Why? Well, because it’s about to reach the end of another 90-day period, and I figured I’d use that sale up. I was honestly checking the possibility of Halloween stuff when I noticed it and … well, why not?

So right. Legacy. Interesting choice of words but …

Lately I’ve been thinking about it. I hang out in a few places online that talk about books, naturally, but there’s a real item of note that I’ve been musing on over the last few days. Basically, any time anyone asks for a recommendation, 90% of the books that are recommended? The same books. Every time. Crud, even if the one doing the asking didn’t ask for them, though that’s kind of a whole ‘nother story that says a lot about the reading comprehension of the folks doing the recommending (Someone says they want Sci-Fi that isn’t Cyberpunk? You can bet someone saw “Cyberpunk” and posted Nueromancer anyway).

Now, the reason for this is already known: People post the same books because they’re what they know. For example, when I post about books I’ve read, there’s a good chance that many of them—sometimes as many as half of them—are new. Why? Simple: Because those are the books being advertised that most of us (and myself) hear about! They’re the new ones that clamor for our attention! Beg to be read!

But once you start looking at book talk out there, a lot of talk of older generations? Well, it dies off a little.

Oh, people remember the standouts, sure. Dune, for example, comes up in just about every thread from someone looking for a Sci-Fi book. Just as The Lord of the Rings comes up in just about every Fantasy thread.

Now, does that mean that there weren’t other great books in those genres around that time? Well, with Lord of the Rings probably not. That was almost the start of the genre for the time. But in a case like Dune?

No. No less than the idea that there weren’t other great movies in the eras of the famous films we think of throughout history.

What am I getting at? Well, it’s kind of a couple of things. The first is that there are plenty of great books that probably went fairly undiscovered, or worse, fell by the wayside without a way for people to find them. These books languish in libraries, once read, but now are undiscovered because, well, there’s so much out there.

Now, that doesn’t mean that every “lost” book is somehow a classic. Many books are forgotten for a reason. But there are a lot of good books out there that go forgotten.

Okay, I’m not trying to say we should forget the real milestones and seek out the books they may have overshadowed either. I mean, you could. And hey, you probably will. One thing that the internet has opened up in other industries is a sense of renewed discovery of other eras of games, music, and music. Just look how many famous movies that are now free of copyright end up on Youtube! The internet can do that for books, and probably will over time.

But the other thing that it makes me think about is legacy. I’ve got five books out now. Which is a respectable number. Ideally, I’d like to double it in the next couple of years (it’d be a lot easier if I wasn’t spending half my day at my other job, sadly). But will they last?

That’s the real question. I hope so. I’ve put a lot of work, time, and effort into making them shine. And, without tooting my own horn, all those four and five-star reviews are pretty nice and point to some good longevity.

But will they last? Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, are they still going to come up when someone talks about Science-Fiction or Fantasy greats that they’ve read? Will they still be paying the bills?

I hope so. I’m working hard to make sure that they do. But I guess only time will tell if ten or twenty years from now, when someone says “I’m looking for a new fantasy book” someone else will say “Hey, have you ever read Florschutz?”

There’s no way to know until I get there, but until then, I can put in a lot of hard work to make it happen.

While we’re on the topic, how many of you readers hang out places online and talk about books? Any of you?