With Love, From Planet B was the winner in the ENVIRONMENT category of the 2024 IndieReader Discovery Awards, where undiscovered talent meets people with the power to make a difference.
Following find an interview with author Zaayin Salaam.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
With Love, From Planet B, published first in eBook format on 11/11/2023. Yes, I was seeing 11:11 and other “angel numbers” everywhere at that time! Please check out www.planetbthebook.com for more fun stuff.
What’s the book’s first line?
By the time my mother Zara was born in 2050, the sixth extinction event was already underway, with several species of plants, insects, and animals disappearing.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Zara and her girlfriend Lex attempt to teleport to the newfound Planet B, but find that they must earn their way in. On Planet B they discover even more surprising Truths about the nature of reality and must evolve to survive.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
I consider myself a “world citizen” and have been concerned about the environment ever since I was 15 years old. In 2017 the USA pulled out of The UN Climate Accord and instead started causing more harm. By mid 2018 I found myself writing about the future I was seeing, both the positive technological advances and the dystopian parts.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
This is difficult to answer because both the main characters Zara and Lex have elements of myself in them. Zara is a Pakistani climate refugee who is astute enough to climb her way to the top of Free OWN, with her confidence growing as she did. Lex is a white American in a world where she is blamed and hated simply for her ancestry. Honestly I cannot think of any living or fictional characters they remind me of. They are original in my eyes, but perhaps they will become archetypes.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
As the author I am biased, but in all seriousness, I sincerely believe that anyone who cares about the state of our world, about the environment, politics, women’s rights, the coming world-wide poverty, corporate ownership and the enslaved working class, the coming Attention Economy, and Artificial Intelligence and how it should be designed, should all read this book. Not only will it easily expand their mind while telling a story in just 420 pages, but it will also evolve their soul and give them real ground to feel hopeful, by opening doors to perspectives and new depths that even I as the author did not see coming. The spiritual messages in this book were gifted to me, I earned and learned them. This book has seeds that will grow in the mind and produce fruit – if you want them to.
If they made your book into a movie, who would you like to see play the main character(s)?
For Lex, maybe Kristen Stewart 💕 or someone who fits the picture. For Zara, an attractive actress of Indian/Persian/Pakistani descent. I would love to see Will Smith as black David. For Muhammad we would have to use an avatar, of course. For the “aliens” of Planet B, we would have to use special effects to make already impressive actors appear even brighter, more human, and ambidextrous, just to start off with. But it is doable. I’m ready to write the screenplay if they want.
When did you first decide to become an author?
Halfway writing this book, when I decided I must make it the best I can and publish it. That’s when I decided to spend money of professional editors, quite a lot of them.
Is this the first you’ve written?
Yes, this is my first novel.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I am an Internal Medicine doctor and I travel to hospitals that have a doctor shortage or who need extra help. I love that being a doctor teaches me about the secrets of Life and also the pathology that causes our death, There are stories at every level of our being, and I put some of these stories in the book.
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
I would usually write (or rather rewrite) every day when I had time, except when I took breaks to wait for an editor’s feedback, and even then if I received an inspiration about something, I would follow it. Honestly a lot of the spiritual elements of the book came from up above, and not from this little head I have.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
I love the freedom of being an Indie author, and that I am in charge of every aspect. I am a perfectionist and the fact is, most of the people I hired for things I thought were peripheral, for example the cover etc, were disappointing, and so I even had to control that aspect of it. Indeed, the cover has meaning embedded within it!
Self publishing though, is very hard work, at least it was for me, but I couldn’t waste more time waiting on some agent to open my email when they receive thousands of emails and have no way of knowing which book is good or not. I suspect that traditional publishing is way behind on ideas.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
I would agree if it put my book in bookstores and made it famous. At the end I just want as many people as possible to read it, listen to it, watch it, and get the messages it delivers.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
I honestly think this book will elevate the collective consciousness of humanity. Love and Healing have been woven into this book. Fame would be nice if it’s mostly positive. Fortune would be nice but I have actually spent a fortune on this book, and I’ve made the eBook free where I can, so that people in poor countries can read it without worrying about money. Also because free things will make up a large part of the coming economy of the Free One World Nation (from my book 😉)