Back in February, 2018, I posted a reprise of my third novel, ‘Eugenica’. I had just finished writing ‘Mesozoic’, a science fiction book that included one of my long-time passions, dinosaurs, and as usual I wanted a change of literary scene. I went back to Eugenica because of all my works it is the one that resonates with me most persistently. Without doubt this is because it is my most personal written work to date. There is something else, it received one of the best endorsements that I could ever imagine. A reader told me that, in their opinion, everyone should read Eugenica because it would change their view of disabled people. The person in question was the parent of a teenager who had Cerebral palsy so they had some relevant experience to inform their opinion. To date, every reader who has expressed a point of view on this book has been positive. I just wish that more people had read it.
I am not sure why Eugenica has been so difficult to sell to people. Inevitably, my first consideration is the fact that it features disabled people as the central characters. The disabled are not warmly received generally. In culture they are often the representation of evil, horror, or the unnatural. If not, they are the objects of pity, which in my opinion is even worse. I call it the Richard III-Tiny Tim syndrome. Eugenica was my conscious effort to offer something different. I suppose the question is, how do you break through people’s natural aversion to the disabled? Writing the story is one thing but getting people to read it is another. It is the question to which I do not yet seem to have found an answer.
In the past I used marketing to try and enhance the book’s readership. It did not really work. Even though I emphasised the books themes of adventure, dystopia, and the triumph of the human spirit the take up was not as great as I had hoped. Even when I gave the book away for free, requesting only an honest review, the experiment largely failed. Although plenty of people took up the offer to date only two have posted a review. It seems people really do want everything for absolutely nothing! The thing is, I really believe in the worth of this book. I do believe that it is the most powerful story that I have written to date. The Sorrow Song Trilogy is a rewarding account of the events of 1066. Mesozoic is a fun time-travel adventure. Eugenica is, to me, more important than any of them. It has a real statement to make about the human condition, one that is as relevant today as it would have been back in the 1930’s where the story is set. Everything that I see today is as callous, uncaring, vindictive, and prejudiced as it would have been had eugenics really become the cornerstone of a government’s social betterment policy. If you do not believe me then why not give the book a read?
That is my challenge.
Eugenica is currently available for a measly $0.99. That’s right, a book over 160,000 words long that will challenge and entertain you is available for your eReader for less than $1 or even £1. It is approximately one-third of the price of a cup of coffee in a trendy outlet! I won’t get rich doing this but then that is not the objective; getting more people to read the book is. So, why not accept my challenge? Follow the link below and have a look. If you like what you see buy Eugenica with the coupon, enter the code ‘FA67F’ at the checkout. I promise you, by the time you finish reading Eugenica you will have spent a small fortune on coffee, but your soul will be all the richer for the experience.
Peter C Whitaker 