Frequently Asked Questions

1. Who are you?
   I’m the author of the Jump 225 Trilogy, including the novels Infoquake (2006) MultiReal (2008) and Geosynchron (no publishing date as of yet). I’m also a web programmer, consultant, and designer. I live in Northern Virginia and work part-time in downtown Washington, D.C. for a brand and identity consulting firm called Beveridge Seay.
2. Are you related to Scott Edelman, Marian Wright Edelman, Ric Edelman, or Randy Edelman?
   No.
3. What is the Jump 225 Trilogy about?
   My original elevator pitch for the trilogy was “Dune meets the Wall Street Journal.” But I’ve also heard “Neuromancer meets Wall Street,” “Boston Legal meets The Matrix,” and “the love child of Donald Trump and Vernor Vinge.” Any of those will do.
4. Are foreign rights and film rights still available for Infoquake and MultiReal?
   As of this writing (April 2008), yes. See the Contact page for information about who to talk to if you’re interested.
5. Are any of the novels in the Jump 225 Trilogy available in electronic or audio versions?
   Alas, no. Not because of any hesitancy on my part, but because my publisher hasn’t quite jumped onboard with either e-books or audiobooks yet. <crosses fingers> In the meantime, you can read 30,000 words from Infoquake and MultiReal online, and you can listen to the same on audio (Infoquake, MultiReal).
6. What’s your writing process like?
   I try to write every day for at least an hour or two (though I don’t succeed at this nearly as often as I’d like). I only do web programming part-time, so I get a lot more done on the days when I’m not programming. I addressed some of the details of my novel-writing process on the DeepGenre blog in the articles How to Write a Novel, Part 1 and Part 2.
7. How did you get your novel published? How would you recommend I get my novel published?
   I wrote a series of articles about this on my blog. See How Did You Get Your Novel Published? Part 1 and Part 2.
8. I’m a first-time author. My book is coming out soon and I have no idea how to promote it. What do you recommend?
   I wrote a series of articles about this on my blog too. (They’re actually some of the most popular articles on the blog.) See How I Promoted My Book, Part 1 and Part 2.
9. Are the characters in the Jump 225 Trilogy based on people you know in real life?
   The characters of Natch, Jara, and Horvil aren’t based on any one particular person. They share a number of characteristics with various people I’ve worked with at dot-coms over the years. But they’re all heavily fictionalized.
10. The Jump 225 books have a lot of politics and economics in them. How do you lean politically?
    Depending on the day of the week, I tend to think of myself as either a libertarian or a left-of-center Democrat. I would like the Republican Party a lot more if it wasn’t so full of religious wackos hell-bent on telling you what you can do in your own bedroom. Come to think of it, I would like the Democratic Party a lot more if it wasn’t so full of New Agey environmental calamatist yahoos.
11. Who are your favorite authors?
    Some of my favorites, in alphabetical order: Douglas Adams, Paul Auster, Nicholson Baker, John Barth, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Stephen Dixon, E.L. Doctorow, Stephen R. Donaldson, William Gibson, Joseph Heller, Frank Herbert, Ward Just, Franz Kafka, Jerzy Kosinski, Milan Kundera, George R.R. Martin, China Mieville, Tim O’Brien, Mervyn Peake, Richard Powers, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, J.K. Rowling, John Steinbeck, Neal Stephenson, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Kurt Vonnegut.
12. Do you sell autographed books?
    I don’t have any organized process for selling autographed books yet. Feel free to contact me to discuss arrangements.
13. What are you working on now?
    As of this writing (October 2008) I’m working on Geosynchron, the third novel in the Jump 225 Trilogy. Currently the plan is for the book to hit the shelves in early 2010, but we’ll just see how it goes.
14. What are you going to write after you finish the Jump 225 Trilogy?
    There are a number of writing projects that I’ve started over the years, some science fiction and some not. One of them takes place in Southern California and Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1994. Another takes place in Imperial Rome. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to pick up next after Geosynchron is done.
15. What kind of programming do you do?
    It’s more scripting than programming. I’m proficient in the basic technologies of the web (HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML) as well as a number of back-end server technologies like ColdFusion, PHP, ASP, and Ruby on Rails. I’m also pretty handy with Photoshop.
16. Can you design a website for me?
    Certainly. In addition to designing and programming this website, I’ve designed and programmed websites for science fiction authors Kate Elliott and Matthew Jarpe, not to mention the DeepGenre group blog. In my professional hat, I’ve designed and programmed websites for the U.S. Army, the FBI, and Rolls-Royce, among many others. Feel free to contact me for information about my rates.