Sep 8, 2016

Hello, backers!

I have some exciting news to share. For now, all I am going to say is that this is going to be my last update through Inkshares. You’ll have to keep reading to learn more...

1) Michael Meyer, author of the books In Manchuria and The Last Days of Old Beijing, recently read UMDC and had some very warm things to say about it via e-mail. A blurb from him means a lot, as I’ve been a fan of his work for some time now, and you can read it on UMDC’s Amazon listing (here) under Editorial Reviews.

2) The book was displayed and repped by Foreword Reviews at the 2016 Beijing International Book Fair. No leads yet, but at least it is receiving some exposure in China!

3) A reviewer on TheNanfang.com, a blog that caters to expats in southern China, posted an absolute hatchet job of the book about three weeks ago. Fortunately, Tom Carter, who has several books out about China himself, rallied to my defense in the comments!

4) Chronicle re-aired their episode from June that featured UMDC and brought about another spike in sales/website traffic. If you’ve yet to view the segment and are interested, you can find it here.

5) #upMdownC is currently in second place on Goodreads’ China Expat Book list, behind no other than Peter Hessler’s River Town. Thank you if you happened to vote :)

6) And now for the BIG news: Camphor Press, an indie publisher that focuses on books about Taiwan/China, has agreed to take on the second edition of UMDC! John Ross, one of the founders, has been incredibly supportive of the book ever since writing a review on Bookish.Asia (here), and I’m positively thrilled at the prospect of getting the novel in front of a bigger expat audience. Inkshares has done so much to bring this work to life, however, and I would be remiss not to tell them (and especially all of you) how thankful I am for the support.

So, how can you stay updated moving forward?

1) Sign up for my newsletter (here). I will probably send out a few e-mails per year, similar in content to these.

2) Follow me on Facebook (here). There, I post content related to my book, volunteering abroad, life in China, etc. Sometime soon, I’ll be running a giveaway of Party Members, a new novel from my next publisher, Camphor Press.

3) Follow me on Twitter (here). To be completely honest, I’m bad at Twitter, but perhaps getting more followers will incentivize me to do a better job. I post/retweet all sorts of random stuff there.

That’s it! Again, thank you for getting me this far. One week from today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, so get some moon cakes, enjoy the full moon, and use it as an excuse to reunite with your friends and family (if possible). (It might also be a great excuse to re-read Chapter 4 of UMDC...)

I leave you with this e-mail, forwarded to me by an old classmate, in which he and another friend discuss what they are planning to wear to an upcoming wedding, in the style of #upMdownC. Don’t know whether to be flattered, insulted or scrutinizing. Start at the bottom and read up ;)

QC