Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I live in a center of Silicon Valley, in California. Victor Torvich is my pen name. As a writer, I’m very young. I started to write just about a year ago, when I retired from my last job. Before that, I did not have time for writing a book. I wrote academic papers and patents, but not books.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I wrote “Subsurface History of Humanity”. This is my first book. It is a nonfiction history book, which covers the last 44 thousand years in the history of mankind. I was born shortly after the end of WWII. Looking back and into all the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, I wondered if the history of humanity is just a chain of unrelated, chaotic events or not? I was not able to find out an objective direction of humankind development in any books or scientific publications. I started to write about it. And I found an objective direction in which mankind is moving. Answers to many other big questions about humankind are also presented in my book.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I would not call it a habit. Typical advice to authors is to separate – separate research phase from the writing phase and to separate the writing phase from the editing phase. I was not able to always follow this advice. My book is oriented towards the general public, who are 13-14 years or older. At the same time, there are over 200 references in the book. I had to do a lot of research. Sometimes scientific publications, which I found made me rethink what I was writing. My writing phase and research phase intersected pretty often.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Ray Kurzweil “Singularity is Near” book was an inspiration for me. This book revealed a lot of long-term trends in mankind history. However, those trends are dedicated mostly to technology.
What are you working on now?
I finished writing and editing “Subsurface History of Humanity”. Most of my work now is dedicated to the growth of my author’s platform.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
There is no single best method or website for me. Publishers and literary agents require authors of nonfiction books to have several channels for their book’s promotions. I’m mostly active on my website/blog, Twitter, and Linkedin.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
My advice would be to start working on your author’s platform as yearly as possible. Better to start it before the writing. You could set up your goals in writing, like 250 words every day. And you are mostly in control here. You could and should also set up your goals in expanding your Internet presence. However, your control in this area is very limited.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”. Winston Churchill
What are you reading now?
Max Tegmark “Life 3.0”. The subtitle is “Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”.
What’s next for you as a writer?
It looks that, at least for a year, I would be busy with a promotion of my last book.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The first book should be about how to get out of this island. If that is not possible, then I would like to have a book on how to communicate to the world that I’m here. The second book should be about how to survive on this island. The third one should not be a book at all. Instead, it should be a notebook with blank pages. That will allow me to write.
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