Canopy Harvest

Writing Canopy Harvest

I wrote Canopy Harvest over six years, and though it’s dated when I read it back now, years later, I am proud of what I did here. When I started I had an unbridled imagination, originally I started writing it purely to get the weird ideas and inventions that would pop into my head, out of my head. Later I decided to commit, and started the unintuitive (to me) task of learning the craft of story.

It took:

• 4 major re-writes
• 2 professional editors
• 12 beta readers
• 1 meeting with a London trademark lawyer (I’d wanted to call it Earth’s Halo)
• A superb proof reader

… but despite my evolution since, for something produced in my early twenties, I’m happy with it. I learned to self publish in the most professional way possible, and I’m confident that in aspects such as type, format, and editing, the final book matches the quality you’d expect of traditional publishing.

How did the launch go?

Well, I’d say, all things considered. I went hard with the marketing plan, and had a spreadsheet with 50 some tasks, (I even consulted a pro who was blown away by my plans). I launched the book with no previous experience; reached 4th place for a few days in the ‘Science Fiction’ category on Amazon, and got featured in a few local papers here in the UK.

More importantly to me, I sold over 200 copies and planted over 200 trees as part of my Plant a Book initiative. I’m still thankful to this day for all of those who supported me.

If I was to relaunch a book today, I’d approach the social aspects differently, but largely I’d do the same. I’d definitely:

• Have a .com with localised Amazon links (to start to grow SEO and deplatform)
• Have lots of call to actions (in book, email list autoresponder) to review the book
• Have the same ‘review buffer’ approach I used in the back pages
• Lots of review copies

There were two things I’d do differently next time:

• I’d make sure I had 6 months of energy left for post-launch marketing. Unfortunately I was all out of energy and not in great health, just managing to push this over the ‘finish line’. In hindsight, the finish line is long past launch day.
• I’d try less hard when writing. I was younger back then, and impressionable. I think the writing I did sometimes hit the mark, authentically my voice, but I also read other parts and I shake my head at my younger self. Bigger brush strokes, confident authenticity.

Things I learned while writing CH

I learned that I need a creative outlet to balance my other tendencies. I tend to absorb a lot of disparate information. I’m always learning, always absorbing, always curious – it’s part of my nature. The natural, necessary, completion of this absorption is creation. When I learn loads without doing, I get unhappy.

I also learned that I love to write, and starting to get a grasp of storycraft gave me great appreciation for those authors who I adore reading; Herbert, Heinlein, Neil Stephenson, Arthur C Clarke, Ursula Le Guin, Asimov. I have since continually used this new skill, though most of the creative writing now sits in my daily journals.

On a practical note I massively expanded my vocabulary, improved my grammar, and I think, successfully found my voice (though I suspect if I were to re-approach this, it’d be far more refined now, years after I published this book).

Beta reader copies of the book (having 10 beta readers really helped me round out the book!)

Would I write another novel?

I hope one day to write again in the novel format, even if basically very few people make a living doing it. I’ve got so much out of reading science fiction, fiction, and non-fiction that I would be a pale replica of myself today if I’d not found books. I’d like to leave my mark in that chain, however small.

Further, I still have the initial issue, (though tempered). I am chronic at inventing/imagining, and a fraction of what comes out of my subconcious is at least viable in science fiction.

As I read now, and enjoy audio books, I am often again inspired to document qualia as I see them, feel them. But one things for sure, I’ll only do it when I can do it justice.

Planting trees with books

Launched with a lot of help from my friends, I am happy to say that I’ve planted hundreds of trees because of this first novel, as I offered a 1:1 deal for those who ordered on launch week; buy 1 copy, I’ll plant 1 tree for you!

I championed this initiative through my Plant a Book project, and anyone who purchased a copy via CanopyHarvest.com. From that launch I planted 200+ fruit and nut trees alone, most of which ended up in my first food forest, which today produces a plentitude of fruit.