A Nice Review from Beth Murschell on Facebook

I just finished Sam Batterman's debut novel, *Wayback*, a futuristic Christian novel published by VMI which hits the finish line at 315 pages.

The plot: Indiana Jones meets Stargate Atlantis meets Jurassic Park meets Noah's Ark meets the Time Machine. Seriously. An evolution/intelligent design/creation debate is framed by a plot-driven time travel device.

The gist: A team of specialists travels back in time to witness key moments in the earth's history. What they find changes everything.

What I liked: unique plot, memorable moments/visuals, and concrete detail (seemingly authentic--either an impressive amount of research or a fertile mind, probably both).

The early chapters were a bit text-heavy in part because of the debate material, but by the last several chapters, the pace had quickened.

Characterization was a bit sketchy in favor of plot. Understandable, as there's a LOT of plot. :-)

In the main, he resists the impulse to over-spiritualize the way many Christian authors do. I may quibble with the occasional premise, but there's a lot of food for thought here. John Morris of the Creation Research Institute gives him props for authenticity.

On the whole, I'd say Sam has a good first outing, and I look forward to reading his next book, whatever it may be. Go get a copy of Wayback and see what you think.

http://www.amazon.com/Wayback-Sam-Batterman/dp/1933204877

Reposted with permission from http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=123838111458&ref=mf

Happenings in August - Reviews (Good and Bad)

Well, this summer has flown by. Wayback seems to be doing pretty well. It's bouncing around on Amazon like a ping pong ball, but when I look at the other titles that are adjacent to it, I feel like something is going right.

I'm also starting to get emails from people finding the book on chain bookstore shelves like B&N, Borders and others. That's a good thing.

Three more reviews came in recently. Dave Mincy wrote a nice review here.

Sam’s excellent background research, plausible plot, and well-developed characters make for a time-travel adventure I found to be both exciting and thought-provoking. While entertaining, this book also strongly confirms the biblical record and magnifies God’s Plan for the universe. The idea of being able to go back in time and see Noah building the ark, real dinosaurs, and the wickedness of an unexpectedly advanced civilization…what an amazing journey that would be! If you’d like to know more, I highly recommend reading Wayback.

Congratulations, Sam! I’ll be waiting for the next one.

Dave is a muscian (and married to an artist - so imagine the art program in that household!). Here's a link to his newest CD. We have his first work and can't wait to hear this new one.

Another review came in over at the Near-sighted Bookworm:

This new author contacted me to see if I would be interested in reading and reviewing his first release. It was not a disappointment. From first page to last page, I was kept wondering about what was going to happen next. The research that went into this book is amazing, which makes me excited to see what he writes next! If you are looking for a book that will make you think and keep your attention, this is it!

Those are the easy ones to share. Sharing bad reviews...not so much. I struggled about whether I should share this. In the end I decided that baring my soul would be a bit cathartic.

One of the things about being an author that's most difficult is taking criticism. When you first start writing (or painting or driving or anything), you get feedback. This feedback can be jolting and even just plain rude, but your attitude is the all important player here when you get that kind of feedback. No one has arrived. There is not a single person doing any kind of activity, be it business, school, athletics, or otherwise that can't attempt to do these tasks better with more refinement and better skill. If you look at the sports world (an area I'm not an expert in) people like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and others all talk about pursuing excellence-getting to the next level. It takes hard work.

The hard part of the journey is that some people, even with all the hard work you put in, won't like your stuff. Early on I wanted people - all people - to enjoy my storytelling. I wanted everyone to be excited about Wayback, the way I was. In the end I learned you can't please everyone and in the end you have to write to the population you hope will enjoy your story and wait for your next work with baited breath.

So that brings me to the review at ChristianFictionReview.com. This was an important place for me as an new author to get a review. I was confident in my product; having had hundreds of readers to this point and good reviews to this point.

I wasn't prepared for the review and it blew me back quite a bit.

In the end, I'm convinced God allowed this happen to keep my pride in check - to make me small again and to allow me to receive criticism in a way that I can apply it to my craft and get better where I can and not worry about a group of people that may disagree with the messages of the books I write.

The message underlying the book is important, in my opinion. I know there's a debate in the Christian writer's community as to how overt to make faith and the message of the gospel in the books we write. We don't want to come across as "bible-thumbers" or lunatics or crazy people, but in the end, in a Christian fiction novel, the reader needs to have something to connect to the words of hope we find in the Bible, otherwise you should publish the book to the secular market and widen your reading audience.

I believe that your worldviewpoint will be imprinted on your work whether that work is a "normal" 9-5 (does anyone just work from 9A to 5P any more?) job and doing that job excellently as to the Lord, or writing a novel or even a facebook status. What we are and who we are comes through.

Let's change subjects. I'll be at a booksigning at the Gifts from Above Bookstore in Scranton, PA on September 17th from 6-8PM with 16 other authors. I don't know who the other authors are yet, but when I know, you'll know.

A read a book while on a business trip the other day and literally raced through it in about 24 hours. The book is Havah, the story of Eve by Tosca Lee. I had to read this book. It deals with the story of the first woman in a first person form - through her eyes. Since Wayback has some dealings with the Garden of Eden 1600 years later I was interested in what she would explore in this novel. I was not disappointed. As a male reader I was not expecting to get drawn into the emotional side of the book like I did. I never really thought about what enmity (Gen. 3:14-15) really meant in Genesis until I read this book. Again, going back up this blog post. A good Christian fiction book makes you think and review and go back to the Bible to think about the subject being written about.

Havah does that.

For the record, Tosca does take some "artistic license" that may be controversial to some. For example, she uses a storm in the Garden and rain to create a very dramatic flight out of the Garden. The Bible is rather clear that the water cycle was quite different before the Flood. The storm does heighten the the situation in a very dramatic way, it was a calculated risk to do it (and I'm sure she knew that going in). Based on my experience above, I suspect she'll get some mail about that choice. It's still a great book.

This book is not for the younger set (17 and younger in my opinion). It contains sexuality in terms of a husband and wife - nothing graphic mind you - but you do have a naked man and naked woman in a pefect garden setting. Hello! Things will happen in that situation. If you read this book, I'd be interested in your feedback...

MidCycle, the tentative title for the sequel to Wayback, continues to plod along. The first draft is almost complete - around 75,000 words right now (Wayback was 94,000) and I still have a ways to go. It will definately be bigger (word count wise) than Wayback. After that, the rewrite begins to get everything accurate and tied together and then an initial edit. So, there's still a ways to go. I'm also working on another novel that's unrelated. I'll talk a bit about that in a few weeks.

Thanks for your time.

Blessings,

Sam

ICRS 2009 Denver, Colorado

It was nice to return to the state I grew up in. I had forgotten how much I love mountains. ICRS – the International Christian Retail Show—is the largest Christian Bookstore show in the world. Bill Carmichael, the president of VMI Publishers, invited me to represent them with two other authors. From the moment I received the invitation to ICRS I was conflicted – excited about seeing what the business was really like and a bit scared about being the “low man on the totem pole.” After a day of making it out to Denver, I met Bill Carmichael for dinner with his lovely wife, Nancie Carmichael, who has a huge list of books to her own credit, and the two other authors I would be signing with.

Michelle Rae Eich has written an interesting novel called Wolf Boy: A Case of Mistaken Identity. It’s a modern day allegory and it takes a very creative approach. I instantly liked the idea upon hearing it. Dr. David Gustafson was the other author. He’s a Senior Fellow and a scientist at Monsanto in St. Louis and his book was called Reaping the Real Whirlwind: A Christian Response to Global Warming. (You can hear an interview from David here). Regardless of your views on this very controversial subject you owe it to yourself to hear his viewpoint.

One of the things that’s neat about ICRS is seeing the “famous” authors signing and walking the floor. For example, Josh McDowell (Evidence that Demands a Verdict), Oliver North, Terri Blackstock (my sister is a huge fan and it was cool to get a signed copy for her), Jerry Jenkins (he wrote a little series called Left Behind) were all there—even Marie Osmond made a showing (Whoop-dee-stinkin'-doo).

I was able to do two interviews – one with the Dish Network and one with Destiny Internet Radio. Destiny will be up in a few weeks and I’ll provide a link from this site once it’s available.

I gave out 24 copies of my book to influencers and bookstore owners from all over the United States and my signing gave out another 100 or so. It was neat to tell people the pitch of Wayback and watch their expressions as they began to imagine the world contained in my first book.

Here are a few pics from the show...

Here's Terri Blackstock and yours truly

Josh McDowell of "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" fame.

The man who changed it all - Jerry Jenkins of "Left Behind"

My Signing Poster

Sara Peters and the gals from the Living Word Bookstore in Lousiville, KY - they are some of my biggest fans! It was so cool to finally meet them in person.

Waiting for the line to form - will anyone come?

Me, Michelle Rae Eich, Dr. David Gustufson, Coach Bill McCartney

...and then they came. *Whew*
...100 books gone in 45 minutes!

What did I learn?

As I’ve written here before, I really enjoy the storytelling aspect of writing. I love the research, the plotting and developing the characters ... and I really enjoying hearing a fan or reader tell me what they liked - as if they have mentally gone to the place that I did in the book.

But – and that’s a BIG but!

It has to sell to allow me to write more books. This is a business that’s insensitive to new authors and isn’t really trying to acquire new, un-proven talent. Publishers are staying with the big bets – authors that sell thousands of copies in a predictable fashion. So, now it’s up to the author to do a great deal of their own marketing and brand management. That means developing a fan base and an audience for your work. This won’t happen for me instantly – nobody yet knows me in the author capacity, so I have a long way to go. I am learning on the go how to do marketing, promotion, salesmanship and how to develop myself as a brand. It’s hard work and no one has the exact formula for success.

God helping me, I am going to continue down this road. Hope you enjoyed this post.

Blessings,

Sam

A Quick Summer Update

We are now officially into the summer and while Pennsylvania is getting a lot more rain than normal, it's been a good one so far.

Last Monday night, my wife and I enjoyed our first book club meeting where we discussed Wayback with Pat Webster's friends. We go to church with many of the members and it was a fun night. It was really neat to see how the scenes that had originated in my gray matter over two years ago came alive to those that read the book and to find out what they liked and disliked. It was very energizing.

Reviews are continuing to come out and you'll want to keep your eye on a "big one" coming from Christian Fiction Review over the next few weeks - Wayback will make an appearance there. Good reviews also continue to come in on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The Facebook Fan Site is also continuing to grow at a healthy pace.

I am diligently working on the sequel to Wayback, tentatively called MidCycle. I'm about 80% of the way done with the first draft and I like where it's going so far. Someone once said that a sequel must be similar to the original work to be considered a sequel and different enough so that it really is a different book. That's a challenge.

I will be in Denver on July 12,13 & 14 to attend the International Christian Retail Show, representing STL Book Distribution with Wayback. This is the largest Christian Book Show in the world, so I plan on making the most of it (looking for an agent, looking at different publishing houses, networking and even meeting some of the best Christian Fiction authors).

As more news comes out this summer, I will post it here. Enjoy your summer!

Blessings,

Sam

Book Sightings!

While my book has been available on-line for over a month now, it's finally starting to show up on physical book store shelves around the country. I received an email from a reader in Michigan who found one at Barnes & Noble and I got a note that Master's Mercantile was beginning to carry it. On Saturday, June 6th, we loaded the family into the mini-van and drove over to the local Master's Mercantile and found four copies.

This is the kind of stuff that puts a fire under me to complete the sequel as fast and best as I can. If you find a copy on a shelf and snap a photo send it to me and I'll post it here (sam at sambatterman.com - replace at with, well, '@')

Blessings,

Sam

A few early reviews from the Blogosphere

Now that we are a few weeks out from the launch, I have a few reviews that are staring to roll in. Here are three that I thought I'd share:

From Tammy Litke at Three Different Directions:

One can tell just by reading the first couple of chapters, that a lot of research went into this book. Some of the topics discussed kind of went over my head a bit (lol!) from a scientific point, but the writing is very good and kept me engaged throughout.

The book includes lots of action, a good plot and a great dose of science fiction all told with a creationist perspective. It's like Indiana Jones meets Stargate meets Answers in Genesis. Really!

Batterman's first novel can be considered a success. His writing skills should make him a popular author in the future. I'm sure we'll be seeing many more of his speculative fiction books to come.

Here's another from Glynn Young at Faith Fiction Friends...

"Wayback" by Sam Batterman is a novel, a thriller and a movie all rolled into one. I haven't had this much fun with a book since "Jurassic Park." 

Utilizing work developed by Nazi Germany as it was collapsing, a group of American scientists has succeeded in creating the means to travel in time. They've run into a problem, however; trying to go earlier than about 3000 B.C. ends in spectacular failure, with the deaths of the crew. More recent times don't represent the same problem. And so they confront a question -- what if the earth didn't exist before 3000 B.C.? Could the account of creation in the book of Genesis be accurate after all? So the scientists assemble of a team of experts, and travel to the approximate time of the biblical account of the flood. 

Enter some terrorists, bent on changing history -- recent history. They're aiming for the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel smashed the military of Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The terrorists would like to change what happened. 

The two stories track and parallel each other, as the tension mounts in both and the reader is propelled into the action. Batterman has an extraordinary gift of describing settings and landscapes -- the reader can see and almost smell what's going on. And it doesn't matter if the landscape contains a gigantic boat or rows of fighter jets and tanks in the desert. 

The research undergirding the novel is mindblowing -- not only the sciences of geology, botany and physics but also the history of the Six-Day War and the speculative description of the antedeluvian world. The research makes the novel come alive in a way that's extraordinary. And "Wayback" would be a great basis for a movie -- it's that visual. 

What a story! And what a storyteller!

Here are a few more impressions from his great blog...

Here's a nice one that was posted on Amazon:

I picked up this book the night before boarding a 6 hour flight to the West Coast from back East. I literally had it completed 2 hrs after landing. My main complaint is that I started the night before the flight and did not get much sleep as it was such a page turner. It is a rare book these days that keeps you from turning out the light when you are exhausted. 

In my opinion the "time travel" theme can be very campy, however this novelist did not get lost in the technology or predictable plot line of many science fiction genre writers. 

Very unique story, and strong character development make this a great summer vacation read that will appeal to those that desire a good fiction escape with a healthy dose of a positive message. 

At the end, you find yourself wanting more story (in a good way), and desiring to find out what happens NEXT. Clearly Wayback and the main characters have some franchise potential if done properly by the author. If you want a book that literally makes "time stop" while you are reading, pick this up and it will not disappoint.

There are more on the way, but wanted to share these out. 

Blessings,

Sam

What's going on?

Wow - it's been a busy two weeks since the books starting shipping. I've sent about a hundred and fifty influencer copies into the world (literally - some going to the Caribbean, Australia, Canada, etc.) and I hope to start seeing both reviews and "influence" on blogs, Facebook sites and even major Christian Fiction Review Sites.

The economics side of the book publishing process is very different from the solo-creative part that preceded it by over two years. It really is all about networking. Finding people who have a bazillion friends on Facebook and are willing to spread the word about your book, or finding that Reviewer that reaches thousands of people --- these are the people that can seriously impact book sales.

I'll keep you posted on reviews and such over the next two weeks or so as they start popping up, but hey, what about you? Will you write a review on Amazon for Wayback? Perhaps consider joining the Wayback Fan Site - it costs nothing - while you're at it, suggest it to your friends - again, totally free.

I had my first book signing at my church last Sunday night. I'm blessed in that my Senior Pastor, Scott Wendal, at vfbt.org is a big supporter. They are carrying it in their church bookstore.

Is yours carrying it? If not, drop me a line to find out how to remedy this: sam@sambatterman.com

Blessings,

Sam