In 2008 being one of the top game designers in the world I wrote the first edition of ‘Game Design Foundations’ which sold very well at $40 a piece published by Wordware which is now part of Jones & Bartlett. Then in 2010, I rewrote 40% of the book publishing the second edition which sold well.

Years later after getting divorced, losing my job and becoming homeless. In 2020, I moved into a shelter. Then the world was struck by the pandemic of Covid. It was during that time that I thought “if J.K. Rowling who became homeless could write a successful series called Harry Potter then somebody who has sold cumulative 100 million copies of his computer games and thousands of gaming books perhaps there’s a chance if he could only find the right subject matter.”

It was then that I started watching movies where three of them asked the exact same question. Then looking for work I saw several articles that claimed that the number one interview question was the same one that I had been researching.

Even the last New York City Democratic mayoral debate in 2021 ask the candidates the same question. The question asked by 100 websites 25 well known magazines such as Forbes, Time Magazine and Psychology Today is simply “if you could have one superpower would you choose to fly or to become invisible?”

Even Harry Potter has the cloak of invisibility and the ability to fly playing the game of Quidditch. Bilbo and his nephew Frodo Baggins maintain a hold of the Ring of Power which makes the wearer invisible.

I researched the topic finding little in terms of novels that actually answered the question.

I started researching what the internet considered superpower abilities.

I had everything but a reason for organizing such a group of individuals. Then reading about apocalyptic times where money is useless but items like gold, silver, diamonds, and Masterpiece artwork are items for negotiation.

Now I had information to start

Writing about “SuperPower The Ability to Fly or to Become Invisible.” I began thinking about Donald Trump’s hugely successful book entitled ‘The Art of the Deal” and that my book was about stealing from the world’s best art museums, I decided to call the subtitle “The Deal of the Art.”

The book’s mastermind villain was going to organize all those with SuperPower abilities to either fly or to become invisible. Since he was going to steal these Masterpiece artwork, I decided to name him ‘Professor Steele.’

When I went to college in Rochester New York the local radio station had a DJ who called himself ‘the FA King’ an obvious way to get around the FCC laws.

With my juvenile sense of humor, I decided to use the same name.

The character who is the world’s leading authority on masterpiece artwork is called the ‘Fine Arts King’ or simply the ‘FA King.’

Being a United States candidate chess master, I wanted to logically and strategically tell the story having very few analytical holes.

The beginning chapters of the book describe the background and how each person received their SuperPower ability what happens next before the Professor recruits them.

Like many movies that I have seen such as ‘American Graffiti,’ ‘Harry Potter’ and others I’ve always liked knowing what happens to the characters after the movie has ended. In ‘The Deal of the Art’ all of the characters from those who participate in the summer art camp to those who take part in the night of the $3.5 billion worldwide Art Museum Heist have their futures revealed.

The first book of the series merges Science Fiction with the history of art. It gives the background of every painting that is acquired by the Professor’s SuperPower teams including the being one of the few books to tell the true story of how Vincent van Gogh lost his ear that fateful night.

Through research of locations, history, and events everything is accurate and true except for the SuperPowers and the fact that book takes place in the future.

Each book in the series ends with a cliffhanger.

The second book in the series subtitled ‘The Next Generation’ tells the story of the twins of Diego and Carmen Martin who were characters from the first book.

Both of these books are for sale online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, and over 50 book sellers throughout the world.

Currently the third book entitled “The ‘Golden Eagle’ Has Yielded” is about to be edited by Paulina Hellstrand of Alpheria (in Sweden) who edited the first two books. I designed the first book’s cover having a professional artist from Nigeria, Ruth Adedeji who polished it up. On Facebook, the book cover has received thousands of praises which I pray converts into sales.

Like all of the best-selling YA books such as the Potter series, Twilight series, Tolkien series, Hunger Games series, and Divergent series, my SuperPower series hopes to reach the market of everyone between the ages of 13 to 25. The characters are of every race, every sexual orientation, humorous, well-traveled and relatable.

In my real life I have design over 100 video games and in each of my books there are three distinct games to be played. As the reader progresses through each book, I suggest that they write down on three pieces of paper the headings ‘films,’ ‘books,’ and ‘music.’ Every time the book mentions something in one of these categories, the reader is to write down on that page the name of the source. In the first book as an example, when the film ‘Casablanca’ is mentioned buy a line in the script the reader is to write down the name of the film. When the book has the SuperPower teams stealing from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and one of them plays the drums having the words ‘The Beatles’ on one bass drum as the other has the words ‘The Who.’ Under the page marked ‘Music’ these two groups’ names would be written down.

When one of the characters steals bread and he is reminded of Jean Valjean from Victor Hugo’s novel turned musical, on the page marked ‘books,’ write down the title ‘Les Miserables.’

I am not sure, but I would guess that there are not too many books that contain such games to the unknowing reader.

Besides working on the computer both professionally and recreationally and being a competitive chess player, I am an avid film buff viewing current as well as classical films, enjoying several Carnival cruises a year as their diamond, highest level member and visiting all of the theme parks and historical sites.

My dream would be to sell enough of my series to continue enjoying cruising and traveling. Perhaps, I could again enter the real world by purchasing a home and a car.

I have been asked by my editor, Paulina ‘how do I avoid writer’s block?’

I responded that ‘I really don’t write at all. I hate typing which I do with my two index fingers. I walk around all day with my cell phone using a speech-to-text app where I talk into my phone discussing whatever thoughts come into my head. From there I email or direct connect from the cell phone into a Word doc where I use the edit features to correct spelling and grammar. Then, I add additional text trying to reach 300 pages being close to a hundred thousand words.

I use the ‘Read Aloud’ feature in Word to listen to every sentence that has been written and evaluated it. After the book is finished and I have read and reread it several times I have Paulina edit the book. After a month or two with many reads, checking each other’s inputs having several heated discussions the book looks amazing to me.

At this point the work is half finished. Using a purchased product I convert Paulina’s final Word doc into a PDF-A document.

Stepping back, let me explain that I was a novice in book publishing. I have been approached by what is called vanity publishers to spend $500 to $5,000 to have them publish my book giving me very little royalty money. My two game books published over a decade ago where I received over $75,000 plus a 10% of all collected money does not exist today for most authors. Being completely broke and unable to afford these publishers and forget about getting a literary agent or publisher, I had to find an alternative. Everyone in the industry claimed that they could get Amazon and Barnes and Noble as they dealt with a company called Ingram. Being

either naive or desperate, through the internet I communicated with Ingram. For under $100 I became a publisher using Ingram to produce and sell my softcover and eBooks. I purchase a product called Calibre that converted my PDF-A book into an ePub formatted book for all of the electronic readers such as Kindle and Nook.

As I was reformatting in HTML the ePub formatted book, I was able to purchase from Bowker 10 ISBNs for each book; one for the soft cover and another for the eBook. After the first book ‘The Deal of the Art’ passed through the IngramSpark system, I saw it available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Target followed by dozens of loca*l booksellers throughout the world.

Then it was time for me to go through the entire process again for the second book ‘The Next Generation’ that was finished by me.

Repeating the same steps working with my excellent editor Paulina, to reformatting my softcover and eBook for Ingram.

Everything from continuing each book in the series to publishing under PSI Publishing Corporation is completely under my control.

Looking back, it is an awful lot of work that if not for my economic and the world pandemic situation, I might not have had time to write and research.

I am seeking out reviewers and bloggers to get a ‘review only’ copy of my book in either eBook or PDF formats. Working and writing alone my first SuperPower book, I found a review site that for $35 a reviewer would read and criticize my book. Although I often send out to 300 Facebook groups my writings no one had read and commented on my writing. I wrote about Michael Roberts who falls over an ottoman like in the classic Dick Van Dyke show sending the passage to the actor, writing about two legendary magicians named Pencil and Sayer sending that chapter to Penn Jillette with no response, writing a version of Julia Roberts from Notting Hill to Julia’s fan FB page and another passage from the second book to Robert Downing Jr. FB page.

Young JiJi tells the mayor of Botswana, “This is a delicious, special dish

of mopane worms. I can’t remember ever having had better!”

The mayor of Botswana questions her, saying, “So tell me, when was the

last time you ate mopane worms?”

JiJi smirks at her, saying, “I told you that I can’t remember eating mopane

worms, especially with their black head and grubby, grey body,” as all the dinner

guests and their servers laugh.

Back to the $35 review, I received a 2 out of 4 stating “SuperPower: The Ability to Fly or to Become Invisible by Roger E. Pedersen is a power move of a story.” “The overall storyline was fascinating and came close to being the thing I liked the most, but what my actual favorite thing ended up being was how easy the writing was to read.”

“It was about as easy to read as a children’s book, but with content that was more adult. I also liked the main plot of the story and how it was about normal people becoming less average after they earned SuperPowers. It was interesting to see how these newfound powers changed people and how differently each person handled having them.”

The review ending resonated with me as “I wouldn’t say it was professionally edited as there were a lot of punctuation errors. Even though I gave the book a pretty low score, I would still suggest that readers give it a chance.”

For a few dollars, I had a mission to find the best, affordable editor. On FB I luckily discovered Paulina Hellstrand who had an opening and I had two finished books. As an IT consultant working with offshore team members from India, I am used to the time zone working issues so getting up in New York City at 2 am checking and reading Paulina’s latest emails was nothing unusual or new.

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