Where were you when you heard you had won the Lesfic Bard Award?
I was sitting in the car with two women I’d met for the first time just the day before. We had carpooled from the airport to our meditation retreat in Sedona, Arizona. We were making a grocery trip for the group when I, sitting in the passenger seat, checked my email…
What was your reaction?
I scrolled down, trying not to get my hopes up… When I saw my book cover I cried out, “Yes! I won!” and pulled my fist in.
My new friend asked, “What did you win? A million dollars?”
“I won the book award that I really wanted to win!” I said. “The double blinded, triple blinded one! The most important one!” I started dancing in the car.
Where were you born?
Pakistan. Worked hard to immigrate and integrate into the USA! J
What were your parent’s professions?
Dad was in the government, so I know how things work from the inside, and how they break down…
Mom was a yoga teacher, so I grew up with that body-mind-breath connection.
Pen name vs no pen name? What was your rationale?
Zaayin Salam is my pen name, for safety while I see how things go, and for a little more freedom than I would have with my official doctor name, and also because it’s easier than my real name. In fact, I like it more. J
Why do you write?
To self-connect. To get it out. I’m also hoping ‘my people’ will recognize me and find me. J Who am I?
What do you think makes good writing?
When the story is bigger than the writer, and the writer delivers it well.
How do you choose the names for your characters?
Names are so hard…. I started writing what was then called “The Legends of Free OWN” years ago in a private blog in 2009. Then I started residency and left it. I made up Zara’s name back then from a derivative of my real name, and Leisha was a derivate of the name of my ex back then…
When I realized a book was coming out of me in 2018, I picked up that old blog and changed it around. “The Legends of Free OWN” became “Planet B”, but when that name got taken by another book and a bigger author, I had 2 days to change it (because my designer was working on the cover and I had a deadline for an ad).
After going crazy for two nights I listened to my heart center while at the gym, and my heart center said: “With Love, and leave the rest up to them.” (Them meaning those above on the higher levels who had been helping me write the book). Yes, I really just said that. Yes, I was also surprised that I had even thought that thought. But it was a moment of truth. So the name became “From Planet B, With Love”, which then became the more palatable “With Love, From Planet B”
Thought I’d tell you about the name of the book as well, lol J
The names of the teams – I googled and chose the easiest names and then I stuck to it. For Zachavy I chose a name with ambiguous religious roots. For Keystone, I took “Lock-Heed” and made it “Key” and Keystone just came up.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
Maybe more emotional drama, cause people apparently like that? Maybe more explaining?
But honestly, I couldn’t. I did the best I could. I’ve gone on to the next level and the ideas coming through now are just… something else.
What is the hardest part of writing a book?
Wondering if the message is coming across.
Realizing you’re dating someone who doesn’t like to read L (that didn’t last).
Not having anyone to ask questions and get feedback from L
What is the easiest part of writing a book?
Sitting down and typing! J
Do you think a book can have too much detail in it? Do you think it can detract from the story?
Oh yes, and yes. Writers have been taught to ‘show, don’t tell’ and ‘use all five senses’ and this has caused an era of over-descriptive books trying to copy TV. If it were not also for the over-prescription of Adderall, I suspect we’d have a lot less readers! Lol J just kidding! J
I might be too biased about this. Because I cut my book short by a lot. Instead of a series, I decided on a stand-alone novel. From 160k words I cut it down to 116k then opened the words up to 120k. It is very, very condensed… Each line had to survive elimination. So I hope people read it slowly…
I don’t want my readers spending their valuable energy visualizing an object or character. I want them to see ideas and concepts in their minds that only they can describe. My words are just a pathway. I want to take my readers deeper, and to take them there in one unbroken journey, without wasting their time.
I sometimes wonder if I should have explained some parts more… But it’s done now, and I did my best. I hope people will read or listen (or watch?) my book more than once, because it’s designed to take you further with each visit.
Do you have any writing rituals? And can you tell us about your writing discipline.
Yes, there was so much…
I had made an unspoken promise to myself (and all my readers) that beneath the surface story, there would be nourishing nuggets of Truth and Meaning, layered and patterned. I did not want to abuse the reader’s intelligence or trust.
I’m a medical doctor, writing about the real predicted extinction of our species, and diagnosing humanity with the Three Spiritual Diseases, and mapping out pathways to regain our ‘lost’ senses. I didn’t hide my metaphors. I was walking the border of fact and fiction, and then… several of my predictions started coming true!
This meant I had to go back and change the line about the Amazon fire (2019), and the mass animal death (Australian fire, 2019), and the part about the abortion ban (2022), and the mandatory gender registration part, and the Pakistan flood part (2022). Zion and genocide (2023). Migration caravans (2019). The Attention Economy.
I started taking this book more seriously. Sometimes I woke up and knew I had to change a single word.
Ritual: The right song, from my list, on repeat… It opens doors… Soft techno, Euro trance, or modern dramatic musical. I’m very picky – genuine, clean vibes only. Music is a powerful tool. Clean air. Clean intentions. I don’t visit the realms of smoke. There are no ideas in my book that originated from the realms of smoke. I am for clarity, and for health. This is my responsibility, my diagnosis, and my spiritual prescription.
I wrote all day, every day, as I wanted. This was a labor of love and fun, of realizations. There were moments of AWE when energy literally flowed through my body and goosebumps spread. This energy, this strength… is passed on to the reader.
The Discipline: My book became a spiral-ritual. My discipline was how to insert only the most divine truths in this book for you. During the last year of writing, I removed some of my ‘creative’ ideas and left it all up to the divine inspirations I had started to receive.
There is a method I followed which I detailed in my website, but basically, I had to see it and feel it, and understand it. Imagine sacred geometry, telling you a story. Let these gems take you into the dark so you can see your own light. You can trust the positives in my book. They take you to nondual realms. The negatives are all less real anyway, even in the dual realms.
What is your greatest fear as an author?
That after I die my book will disappear from the market. I wrote it for Gen C so it must stick around! J
That the book will be cancelled like so many feminist books.
Who do you have fans compare you to (other authors)?
I’m humbled and honored to copy-paste the following from on Amazon:
“It is classic “hard” sci-fi–taking on big, profound ideas in the tradition of Asimov, Clarke and LeGuin”
“Add Salaam to Huxley, Le Guin, Butler, and Sinclair.”
What are you working on now?
Nothing. I’m giving attention to my human self… do I want a relationship? Is there anyone out there for me? I’m also forever working on my abs… but eating chocolate and snacks so… Lol. J
How do you keep your different characters separate in your mind?
I used fewer characters J
Do you write full-time or part-time?
Part-time. In my real job I’m a hospital doctor, Internal Medicine.
Do you aim for a set amount of words/pages per day?
No, I have the opposite problem. I can’t stop writing, and rewriting, and rewriting. J
Where do your ideas come from?
Our creative imagination is very, very powerful. Having said that, strange things did happen. There were real levels, that were not of my imagination. That I reached for moments. I don’t believe things easily. Skepticism is healthy, but some of the messages and details, especially to do with the Three Spiritual Diseases and their Cures, came from … my Higher Self. From ‘up there’ somewhere. Not from this little head, or this personality. I was not ‘channeling’, I was tunnelling, digging through solid ground. Like a wall, or the Veil. The back cover of my book is the Veil nebula, btw.
Have you ever meditated? The back of your mind is like the back of your spine. Your cerebrospinal fluid. The secrets this fluid keeps are not for the conscious mind to know. The Kundalini rising. The subconscious mind.
The First disease, especially, was an unexpected gift. It was gift for speaking up about the 2nd disease, and for figuring out the 3rd.
Words are powerful. Language is magic. Darkness, for example, causes darkness. Darkness hides things. Darkness hid even its own defense from me. I used that word three times. Some things in the book are mentioned twice, (and the third time is in the reader). Some are mentioned thrice (and the fourth reverberation is inside the reader). These things were not planned. But they happened. Even when I listen to it now, I notice what my subconscious did, and I get goosebumps. Girl…! There is more magic in this “sci-fi” book than in most “fantasy” books that are all about magic. The book is a map, leading to where these ideas came from. The book is a manual. I worked five years and dug the way through, for you.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
The ideas take me.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
An astronaut
What genres do you typically read?
I’ve read several lesbian sci fi books over the years, especially on kindle.
Are there any authors who have influenced your work?
When I was 7, I read a children’s book in my catholic school’s library where the kid is being bad so he’s sent off on a journey with other people who are also being bad. On their journey their bad behavior materializes as literal burdens on their backs that they have to carry. I forgot the rest but that idea, of the non-physical materializing stuck with me. I don’t know how but it probably influenced me, since I still remember it.
I googled it, apparently it’s famous! It was called “The land of far beyond, Enid Blyton.” Google says it was religious K, haah! J
What was the craziest thing you’ve ever done when it came to a storyline in your book?
I entirely removed and changed one sub storyline just months before publication.
Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?
Yes! I love it. That it’s the most touching book they’ve ever read. That they felt seen. That it was great. J J J
What kind of hero/heroine is in your current book?
Zara is a survivor, a climate refugee with forced religious upbringing, who is slowly deconstructing religion. She loves learning, and climbed her way up, becoming a brain-programmer. She is very lucky to have become a Free OWN citizen and leader of the Teleporter’s Team.
She is insecure about exerting her authority over others, and about her job safety, but when shit hits the fan, she is a good leader of the team. She is a Master Lucid Dreamer! And this part of her job lets her believe in way too many things, straying away from science and reality.
Lex is athletic, and more intelligent than people might first assume. She took a job out at sea because life didn’t turn out the way she had hoped, but she isn’t fully aware of this. She is an atheist. She doesn’t believe in flighty things like Zara does, except the bare minimum. She was brought up by her dad and had a surrogate mother. She is a mathematician, happy to get lost in her equations. She is naturally confident and assertive, or perhaps its privilege. She is an American, and if she loses her Free OWN citizenship, it isn’t the end of the world, though it would suck…
What are your favorite character traits that you cannot resist?
Boss lady. Athletic stud. J
Some quickies (pardon the pun—pick twelve):
Satin or Lace?
Satin
Hot or Cold?
Hot
Denim or Leather?
Leather
Talking or Texting?
Talking in person.
Thunder or Lightning?
Thunder
Holding hands or Holding her attention?
Hold my Hands. Let my mind wander…
Mountains or Beach?
Mountains
Rain or Sunshine?
Rain
What were you like at school?
Shy and nerdy, over thinking. Slow to realize and respond when someone insulted or bullied me. L
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
To have as many people read my book as possible, to have thousands of 5-star reviews. To have it become a ‘classic’ for the future generations. J And to win awards, especially the LESFIC BARD AWARD!
If you could have anyone play the main character of one of your books, any actress/actor, who would you choose and why?
Hmmm
Kristen Stewart for Lex. A hot Persian/Indian/Pakistani actress for Zara. All the top actors. Will Smith for David. Oprah Winfrey for Spirit Dancer. Cate Blanchett as Sage. Let’s just keep an avatar for Muhammad J lol! J
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
With Love, From Planet B was my first novel and it took 5 years.
Do you ever get writer’s block?
No. I think that happens when someone is trying too hard to create a story.
Any tips on how to get through the dreaded writer’s block?
Ask yourself: What would you rather be doing? Is this really your greatest passion right now? Really? Really? J
How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?
I’ve evolved in more way than I can understand right now.
For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I like eBooks because I like the black background. In fact, I’m trying to get my book printed on black paper with colored images. Please subscribe on the website for that www.planetbthebook.com , because I won’t be able to sell that on amazon or other stores.
Do you let the book stew – leave it for a month and then come back to it to edit?
Only when I gave it to an editor, but even then I couldn’t stop adding new insights.
Tell us about the cover and how it came about.
I had it made in 2019 when I finished the draft. Not a good company. Then, years later I hired 100covers. I was open to fresh new ideas, but they came back with gloomy dark stuff, so I decided to stick to the original. They were very patient and always friendly as I went back n forth for a year. J
The images inside the book – mostly all me, except the chromosomes.
Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process?
Yes
How do you market your books?
Amazon takes my ad-money but I don’t think it works.
Magazine ad – complete waste of money even in a lesbian event!
Tiktok – but that place is like a battleground mine-field of drama.
Facebook has a whole bunch of lesbian book groups – good place.
I speak to women at LGBT events – no idea if it works.
Now that I’ve won awards, it gives me the confidence to market my book better!
Would you or do you use a PR agency?
Yes I would… where are they?
Do you have any advice for other authors on how to market their books?
tiktok , facebook , Instagram.
What do you do to get book reviews?
I hope and I ask! J
Beware, there’s a lot of cheating. I joined the usual publishing voices and attended their zoom meetings… and guess what? They led me to fake review websites where authors give each other 5 stars. They scare you so much, I tried and in a few days I had three 5-star reviews but I shut it down immediately. Because it felt terribly wrong. What is the point? Empty fake reviews? I want human connection.
Certain people guarantee to make you an “Amazon bestseller” and even a “Barnes n Noble bestseller”, for $5000 and up. They cheat the algorithm.
It has lost its meaning.
Hence a triple blinded award is now more important than ever.
How successful has your quest for reviews been so far?
I have to try harder. It’s not easy to market yourself and ask for reviews.
Do you have a strategy for finding reviewers?
www.onlinebookclub.org gives genuine reviews and if you don’t like them, they don’t publish them. But the reviews will be on amazon India J hahaha
What are your thoughts on good/bad reviews?
First – I’m SO grateful for all the good reviews I get. Thank you readers. I love that you loved my book. Now please tell me, cause I’m dying inside!
As detailed above, there are many fake 5-star reviews nowadays. Is that book really that successful? Or were the stars bought n bartered? Our perceptions are being manipulated. We automatically think: ‘this must be good’. But we have to think: ‘this might be fake’.
Even book awards are heavily biased. Look at their friends, their circle, look at the donations, and then look at the list of finalists. Everyone has a bias.
So really, the triple blinded LESFIC BARD award is, in all seriousness, THE most important award for lesbian literature. And I am proud that such an award was created by lesbians. No body else has such high a standard. I think it speaks for the heart of the lesbian literary community. It is simply a brilliant idea. All lesbians should be proud that we have such an award.
1-star reviews are suspect… especially if a book is free or cheap. These are often hate-reviews. They have been used to cancel people, especially women. It happened to me and she hadn’t even read the book, yet made a video about me and everything, but I won’t go into detail here.
Any amusing story about marketing books that happened to you?
The amusing part is that I wrote a book about women’s issues and because I am fighting for women’s issues, I can no longer market my book about women’s issues, because I’ve been warned by several women who’ve been cancelled and fired for speaking about women’s issues, that if ‘they’ discover me, then ‘they’ will cancel me too, by a bombardment of 1-star reviews. J Amusing.
What’s your views on social media for marketing?
It works best when someone else does it for you! J
Nothing beats a Tiktok video someone else made praising your book. But everyone doesn’t want to make videos about books, so you cannot pressure them. They will DM me about how much they love it… but not even your biggest fans want to necessarily make a video about your book!
Which social network worked best for you?
Tiktok is good but Facebook lesbian book groups are better.
Any tips on what to do and what not to do?
If we heart-center, we’ll know what to do.
Did you do a press release, Goodreads book launch or anything else to promote your work and did it work?
I set up a pre-order and asked all my friends and family to get it for $0.99, so on launch day I automatically had 20 sales, and that was apparently enough to take me to #2 in LGBT fiction for one day. A male erotica was #1 by a far margin. Oh well. Lol J
Did you get interviewed by local press/radio for your book launch?
I did a bunch of podcasts. Now that I have won the LesFic Bard award and also the Indie Reader Discovery Award, I will try to find my local press and see if they are interested!
No free promo? Not enough marketing?
But also, most people want to read the same few famous books.
Do you think that giving books away free works and why?
Yes. I am giving my eBook away free indefinitely, because I want souls to read it all over the world, especially in poor countries. Growing up in Pakistan I know that cultures are very different, and it’s not typical for young women to have their own credit card. Sharing credit cards and amazon accounts means no privacy. It is my wish that my book be pirated on all the pirate book websites where women in poor countries can easily download it from google and read it without worrying about leaving any electronic trace. J J
Free is an important part of the coming Attention Economy.
This is why I wrote about Free OWN. In fact, this is the Free part of Free OWN.
Did you format your own book?
Eventually, yes, after initially having professional help.
In what formats is your book available?
1-Ebook.
2- Paperback/Hardcover from Ingram-Sparks (black and white).
3- Colored special printed on black paper: pls subscribe on website: www.planetbthebook.com
4- AUDIOBOOK! In the beautiful voice of multiple award-winning Gabra Zackman! J J
What is your favorite positive saying?
I cannot think of any. May I instead share two knowings that I have earned for myself?
“Love is that feeling, that when everything is lost, and you are in such a deep dark dense place that you cannot even generate a single positive emotion, and you cannot even generate a single good thought, LOVE, will come and touch you. Any love you ever felt for anyone. The love you felt will come back and touch you. It will save you. And when it touches you, attach to it.”
“Everything good is happening all the time, just below the surface.” Repeat this.
Where can you see yourself in 5 years time?
In the mountains, somewhere beautiful, preferably with a partner…
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Hello younger self – it’s you. You’re just different. All lesbians are not like you. Also, wh*res and sl*ts do exist, as much as you hate those words, and not all of those women are getting exploited. So don’t get too upset.
Also – Start doing planks sooner! It’s the only way you will get flat abs given your short torso L
Did you have a good childhood? Were you a wild child? Are you the ‘odd’ one out in your family?
Yes. Yes, and yes, the only gay one.
If you had to use THREE words to DESCRIBE yourself and you were looking from the outside, how would you describe yourself?
Fix your posture! J
20 years from now your books are assigned to a women’s studies class. What would you want them to say about your body of work?
Thinking about this should have been fun, but it made me sad, almost made me cry. Because my brain cannot ignore reality and facts. So…I hope this is okay, I had to fictionalize it, and turned it into a mini story. Imagine a young woman doing a book report on my book:
This book is perhaps more important today than it was 20 years ago when it was written. One after the other we have seen the author’s warnings come true. World leaders have been debating for the past 50 years, while cities got destroyed, and millions became homeless, which in some places turned them overnight into criminals. Women now have less rights around the world than they did only 20 years ago, due to both religious and non-religious ideologies, but to even speak about such things will get you cancelled by the AI, because the definition of woman it was programmed with was not based in biology. The AI thinks everything is just fine with women. It was programmed to not understand us.
(AI auto corrects the sentence and replaces it with the following suggestion) …but most women still report high levels of happiness and find their new roles very comfortable.
The 2020s was a time when books were being banned by extremist conservatives, and feminists were being cancelled by the extremist liberals. The author saw that there would be no equal and opposite reaction to correct these movements. No, Newton’s third law doesn’t seem to work the same for women, does it? What was being set in motion for women in the 2020s… by powers above the left or right, was a downward spiral. The author claims her book was a spiral-ritual, which is the root of the word “spiritual”, but what if she was trying to tell us something more? Something secret?
What if the pull of “pi”, that her character Lex felt on Planet B was something real? What if we could activate our right brains and regain our senses? What if the answer was inside us all along? She would say it doesn’t matter what she knew or didn’t, what matters is that the knowledge is there, forever, safe in our collective subconscious… waiting to materialize. And if there’s one natural resource that the female has more of, and better control over, it is the spiral… X marks the spot. Only the deserving will find the treasure.
Like Zara and Lex, we can dig our way into a better world. The Ten Tools are just the beginning. The author claims to have not known the power of the “Mm” sound until after she finished the book, but we now use the power of sounds and vibrations every day. Her job was to diagnose the root of the problem: the 2nd Spiritual disease – the most heinous infection – the male-god virus. Our job is to speak it out of existence.
We can no longer afford to be afraid of the darkness. We can no longer harbor the 1st disease. We must face the Unknown and walk right into it. The men will not leave what they have built, we women must lead the way. It is our time. It is literally us females who can and must do this. The Sanamay of Planet B said that our 3rd disease is the most difficult to cure, but it is time to face this animal. We women have been externalizing our power for far too long. It is time to internalize it.
Do you consider yourself successful at this thing called writing? What makes you think that?
Yes. You made me think that. Thank you, LESFIC BARD award!
Do you enjoy debates? Any particular subjects?
I like facts. Not everything is up for debate. And THAT is where the more interesting stories are being told. Would you like to hear them?
If you had a time machine would you go forward or back in time and why?
Forwards……! To see what happens….!
Is there one scene from your book that is the most memorable?
When Zara opens her dark-sight, and what she finally sees at the end of the second dark-sight chapter.
Bio: Dr Zaayin Salaam is the author’s pseudonym. She is an Internal Medicine MD and an energy worker. She lives in the US. You can learn more about her on her website: planetbthebook com
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