NORMAL - Christopher Hoerdemann envisioned a high-tech suit. Imagine it regulates temperature to the comfort of the wearer, that it is bulletproof and that it has a chameleon effect of blending into surroundings.

Imagine the usefulness of such a suit in desert warfare and the military contracts that would come and how fabulously wealthy the inventor of such a suit would become.

It's the premise of Hoerdemann's book, "Pipeline RnD," published through a dot.com that produces both electronic and printed versions.

Hoerdemann counts sales by single copies, not the thousands. It sold about 50 in the first couple weeks of the release.

Those sales figures would make this story about a publication unremarkable - except Hoerdemann is 15, a Normal teenager and a sophomore at University High School.

Hoerdemann identifies the book's theme as redemption, but the process of writing it speaks to perseverance and to how a young person, failing to make the basketball team as hoped, harnessed his time and energy toward the project.

Working off a general outline but letting the story take its own turns, Hoerdemann completed his 140-page science fiction novel this summer. Among lessons he can impart to aspiring writers:

"I thought once it was edited once, it was done," he said of his initial work. "Once you make corrections on the first draft, you have a long way to go."

The book had a back story, and so does its writing.

For a birthday gift last October, Hoerdemann's father bought Christopher a Web domain. Christopher used it to develop a mock corporate Web site, at www.pipelinernd.com, for a company he invented called Pipeline RnD. He worked on company history, latest news and important dates in the business' history.

He already had the idea for the suit, which became Pipeline RnD's "personal body environment." He then made a hero, known as Pipeline, who wears one of the suits while combating evil. Pipeline's true identity is left a mystery for the first portion of the narrative.

The project's development traces to Hoerdemann's long-time interest in writing, cultivated by his parents, who read to him nightly as a baby. The book content alludes to Hoerdemann's interest in comic books and his partiality to Batman.

Like Batman, Pipeline is a human character who derives his power through genius, training and use of gadgetry rather than by genetic mutation or by the fluke of landing on a planet where the planet's physics or the physical characteristics of its populace rank the alien as superhuman.

Encouraged by his parents, Hoerdemann years ago had developed his own comic book characters. He now considers the quality of his drawings to be laughable, but the exercise helped show him that his strength was in writing and story-telling rather than in art.

On the book's cover, Pipeline appears as an outlined, white figure without detail - evoking the invisibility of the Pipeline suit while masking Hoerdemann's lack of drawing skill, the writer conceded.

Hoerdemann's jump into the project traces to an event beyond his control: At 5-5, he didn't make the freshman basketball team. In response, "my parents said, 'You have to do something.'"

Thus, his PipelineRnD Web site became the basis for a book.

His lead character is Henry Williams, co-founder of the company Pipeline RnD. The nemesis is the other co-founder, Greg Kilborn, who at the beginning of the book is missing and presumed dead. Henry quits Pipeline RnD under a death threat, and this stress causes tension with his wife, Sue.

Their relational issues presented a challenge: How can a 15-year-old credibly explore a fight between a married couple? Every couple argues, including his parents, Hoerdemann responded, making sure to clarify that his parents don't argue often.

His parents are Jane and Paul Hoerdemann, and they have collaborated on the book at their son's request.

"I'm one of the few teenagers who will openly profess that I like my parents," said the teenager.

Paul was "creative editor," reading drafts in sections and returning them with broad suggestions.

"I was always scared he'd come back and say, 'Wow, you bombed that one.' He never did, thankfully."

Jane was copy editor and proofreader. The main work conflict, mother and son agreed, came when the mother caught her son getting lazy on his copy, guessing at spelling with the expectation that she would fix it. She told Christopher to stop it; and, he did.

Christopher worked at home, mostly on Saturdays, and the cross country runner used long runs to clear his mind and unlock him when he was stuck over plot and narrative.

He also wrote with a fury during his free period in the University High School computer lab. Other students were casually surfing the Internet, so his busyness drew their attention.

By the beginning of the spring 2006 semester, Christopher had 40 pages, but he had more to say. So Book I ends with a promise for a second book, and that expanded into a trilogy.

He burned copies of Book I onto discs and gave discs to friends, classmates - anyone who showed remote interest.

The book also can be downloaded on the Web.

He finished Book II in March. This time, he sold copies for a dollar.

He finished Book III this summer.

He shopped it to a few publishers, but he said the best that resulted was a rejection from the editor of Marvel Comics. (In the industry, sometimes receiving a rejection represents a small victory.)

He gravitated to self-publishers and decided on the online publisher Lulu. Its advantage is that he had no upfront fee and no initial press run that obligated him to find buyers for boxes of book. He set his profit. Lulu set the price based on that. This explains the strange price of $5.23 for a downloaded PDF version. It's $12.99 in bound format.

Hoerdemann said he has much to learn about writing, selling and marketing.

But he looks back at rough drafts to see how far he progressed. Of those early versions, he said, "It was almost embarrassing."

And he is showing signs of marketing knack.

With Book II, he sold a couple dozen T-shirts designed with the book cover art and the lettering www.pipelinernd.com. The site links to the book seller. At a comic book convention last month in Chicago, he handed out free shirts to people involved in publishing.

He also is toying with ideas for his next book.

Imagine how the human race contemplates exploring outer space. Imagine that humanity started elsewhere and that humans feel an instinctive longing for home …

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Self-publishing: It's not that easy

By Steve Arney | sarney@pantagraph.com

There are some things to be said about self-publishing, and not all of them are good, says John Throop, a writer and writing seminar teacher.

For a young person's sci-fi story, online publication through a self-publisher may be a good route, he said.

But at his writing seminars, Throop notes there are benefits of going though the regular publishing route. Among his points:

• Self-publishing allows writers to say exactly what they want to say, but how many people will it reach? Throop said he benefits greatly from work with editors. His work becomes a team process, he said. Often, self-published books lack the polish because they usually don't have the professional editor's hand.

• Self-publishing leaves all the promotions, marketing and sales to the author.

• Books published solely online lack the physicality that people desire in books. He doesn't want to drag his laptop or a printout to the beach. The book medium - its portability and its feel, its essence - has a certain appeal.

Throop is an Episcopal priest based in Peoria, and he teaches seminars at Heartland Community College in Normal as part of the school's community education program. His work includes the books "Shape Up from the Inside Out" on the struggle against temptation to overeat and "Dealing With Suicide," which relates to helping those who have lost loved ones to suicide.

He also is president of Summit Planning Group, a consulting firm that trains employees of not-for-profit groups.

Throop has been conducting seminars at Heartland for 10 years. His seminars this fall are:

• Copyright & Intellectual Property: Protecting Your Material & Getting Permission from Others, 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 12.

• Getting Published: Marketing & Selling Your Writing, 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 17.

• How to Write a Book, 6 to 9 p.m. Nov. 14.

Registration for these and other community education courses are conducted in person, by mail, by FAX, by phone and online. Call (309) 268-8160 or visit www.heartland.edu/CCE.