Paul Robinson · Author · added almost 10 years ago · 5 likes

Just a quick update this week.

Ghosts of War is closing in on 250 copies sold! It's at 244 currently and when it gets there that'll be 1/3 of the way to the eBook goal and 1/4 of the way to the print goal.

If you haven't picked up a copy yet, it'd be awesome if you could, and if you know anyone who might be interested, if you could show it to them it'd be really appreciated. Every copy sold pushes Ghosts closer to publication.

On the writing front, I got a couple of thousand words in this week, which is the most in a long time. It's slowly getting to the point of having a complete first draft, which is exciting after nearly a year of working on it.

Beyond that I already have a couple of pages of notes for revisions, edits and things I want to add for the ensuing drafts that will happen in November. One other thing I'm working on is a secret thing (at this stage) but it is related to Ghosts of War and should be kinda fun.

Until next time.

Paul Robinson · Author · added almost 10 years ago · 6 likes

Hey guys,

From now on I'll be doing updates of a Friday, I think having them be regular like that will make things a bit neater. Also since the Nerdist comp has ended there isn't as much of a need for frequent updates on campaign progress. So without further ado.

Ghosts of War has made it to 150 unique readers! (with thanks to Tabi Card for being number 150). Here's a very quick look at the stats for the campaign so far:

294 followers
150 unique readers
234 copies sold

So we're pretty close to some cool milestones and all going well we should hit them soon.

Massive thanks to everyone who pitched in during the Nerdist comp and specifically Phil, Stacey and my Mum who helped bring in a good portion of my current sales.

On the writing front, I've set myself a deadline for completing the 1st draft, and my thinking is that by telling all of you, I have no choice but to stick to it.

So barring an act of God I'll have a finished draft by the 30th of October.

After that I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo which is where you're challenged to write 50,000 words in a month. I did it last year, which was how I wrote the first 50k of Ghosts of War, and I'm rather looking forward to it again this year.

This time I'll be using the month to do some revisions of Ghosts of War but mainly to start outlining and developing the story for it's sequel Ghosts of War: Restitution.

So, there are some exciting times ahead, thanks for coming on the ride.

Paul Robinson · Author · added almost 10 years ago · 3 likes

Who wants some free copies of Ghosts of War?

Here's how to do it in 5 easy steps:

1. Generate your own referral link using the Twitter, Facebook or Email buttons as the top of this page: http://www.inkshares.com/projects/ghosts-of-war

2. Get some friends, family or coworkers to preorder a copy using your referral link.

3. For every person that orders a copy using your link you will receive $15 in Inkshares credits.

4. That means for every TWO people you get to preorder a copy, you can preorder THREE copies for FREE, and I mean...totally FREE. Awesome.

5. On Inkshares each reader can order a maximum of 10 copies. That's the rule. So if you've already bought 1 copy, you'd only have to get 6 other people on board using your link to increase your support to the maximum level.

I'm not allowed to buy any copies of my book, not even one, so I'm relying your support to help to get Ghosts of War to publication.

You've helped get me this far and I know if we all work together we can knock this thing out of the park.

Also don't forget about the $200 Amazon Gift Card promotion. Y'know those free copies I was just talking about? They totally count as entries.

I'm working on some other goal based incentives too, so keep an eye out for an update on those.

Stay awesome everyone.

S.T. Ranscht · Author · added almost 10 years ago

Strong 18. It ain't over till noon tomorrow. And even then, there's still time to reach your long goal!

Paul Robinson · Author · added almost 10 years ago · 7 likes

This is an update of updates!

Nerdist Comp Update

So we're just about at the end of the Nerdist competition, and it's looking like
Ghosts of War is going to be able to hold onto 18th place. Now that may not be a winning position, but to be 18th out of 335 other entries is pretty dang great, and that is thanks to the 140 of you awesome people who picked up one or more copies during the comp.

You guys have also helped make Ghosts of War the 13th most popular currently funding book on Inkshares, how cool's that? (and it's only just out of 12th) After the competition ends and the winners shift into 'In Production' mode, it'll move up to the 8th most popular funding book. Very cool.

Cover Update

In the last few days you may have noticed a slight change to the cover of Ghosts. Well your eyes aren't deceiving you. I'd noticed that when it was shrunk down (like on the Nerdist leaderboard) that the title wasn't very clear in red, and that Cole didn't seem big enough.

So I remedied the problem.

Book Update

I am happy to report that there were some words written this week that will actually be in the book and weren't just an Inkshares update. Some of them have come through doing a few edits and additions to existing chapters, quite a few were in expanding some outlines for forthcoming chapters and there were even a couple of hundred words that were completely brand new and gloriously shiny.

Now that the competition is over I'll be able to focus much more on the writing side of things. All that promotion can get very draining on the creative flow.

Did someone say competition?

You might have seen it on the project page but in case you haven't...

So if you're on of the 140 followers yet to hop on the Ghosts Train, hopefully this might tempt you to come aboard. We've got a 50% conversion rate going so far on followers to readers, and I'd love nothing more than to make that 100%.

In closing, I'd like to defer to Mr Jesse Pinkman to sum up my feelings about the success we've brought to Ghosts of War thus far.

Paul Robinson · Author · added almost 10 years ago · 6 likes

A wild competition appeared! It used 'Entice'. It was very effective.

So here we are, 3 days out from the end of the Nerdist competition and Ghosts of War is 290 readers out of the Top 5. I know they're not going to appear in 3 days, so I have a long term plan to get a good way to the end goal of 1000 copies.

A competition of my very own...

If you're one of the 134 followers yet to grab a copy of Ghosts of War, hopefully this might entice you....

That's right, I'm offering up 200 big ones if we as a group can get Ghosts of War to 400 readers. The important details are in the pic above, but the most important detail is that you're all awesome and I wanted to make sure you could get something out of this too (besides my book).

So go forth, spread the word, share this to your friends, families and coworkers!

Let's get that goal.

Paul Robinson · Author · added almost 10 years ago · 6 likes

200 copies!

You guys, Ghosts of War has sold 200 copies! That's 1/5 of it's hard copy goal and over 1/4 of it's eBook goal!

We actually hit it over the weekend, but I completely whiffed on posting an update, so here it is.

There's still about 132 of you yet to pick up a copy, so I strongly urge you to. If you've got any Inkshares credits laying around whack 'em on a copy of Ghosts of War. Doing so would get Ghosts 1/3 of the way to it's goal of 1000 copies, which means there'd only be another 2/3's to get.

Throughout this campaign I've been wanting to do my own art, but was in quite a creative rut. Well today I thought I'd just sit at the computer and force myself to art.

And art I did.

This is the approach of the Havok over the city of Tragg from the first chapter. That darkish blob up the front is the Tragg Empirical Casino.

I may not be completely out of the rut yet, but I am hoping to do some more of this kind of thing as the campaign continues. It may not all be this style of thing, but there will be more...

Paul Robinson · Author · added almost 10 years ago · 3 likes

Hey everyone,

The update today is about the short and long term future of Ghosts of War.

In the short term, we're getting down to the nitty gritty of the Nerdist contest. There's only 11-ish days left and Ghosts of War still has a long way to go to make the Top 5. Here's where we stand right now:

Ghosts is currently in 15th place (out of 323 entries!) which is all kinds of awesome in and of itself.
It has sold 196 copies to 125 unique readers, which (as of this update) puts it around 168 readers out of the Top 5.
That sounds like a lot...and well...it is, but it's not an impossible goal, not by a long shot.
Positions 3 to 8 are separated by only 36 people, meaning that if we can get Ghosts up into that conversation, it's in with a shot at one of those final 3 places.
At the moment Ghosts has 254 followers, meaning there are 129 of you that are yet to preorder a copy.
If we could get all 254 of you on board, Ghosts would be solidly in 9th place and in close proximity to the cluster of positions 3 through 8.
From there it's just a matter of bringing in more people, even now without the extra 129, if each follower was able to get just one more person, we'd be knocking on the door of that cluster. If everyone was on board and did that, we might even be in a position to win this thing.

What's important right now is getting as many unique readers as possible by the September 30th deadline, and I know I can't force the other 129 people to buy a copy, and I don't want to force you. If you're following along, you've obviously had some amount of interest in the project and I hope that it's enough for you to place an order. If you can't do it before the end of September that's okay, not placing in the Top 5 of the Nerdist comp is by no means the end of the road, because...

As I said above Ghosts of War is currently sitting at 196 copies ordered, which means it's as good as 1/5 of the way to it's print goal. Even better than that, it's 1/4 of the way to it's ebook goal of 750 copies. In a little over a month Ghosts has nearly doubled it's reader base from the Sword & Laser contest (even without getting over half of it's prior backers back), and has well surpassed the total sales from it as well. So here's the plan going forward:

The current funding period has 92 days remaining, which should be plenty of time to at least hit the ebook goal.
I know it's probably not a reasonable expectation, but if we can get a 100% conversion rate on followers to readers (and them buying at least 1 copy), then as of this update, Ghosts would be sitting around 320-ish copies sold.
Every sale helps push Ghosts into a more visible position on the Inkshares website. More exposure means more sales and more sales means a better chance of publication.
I truly believe that we have the people power here to get this done by Christmas, you've all gotten me this far and for that I'm eternally grateful.

Beyond that, there are other avenues to get this to you. I plan on doing a self published version of the book sometime towards the end of the year and I'm keeping a record of all of you so if that ends up being the only way to get it, I'll make sure you can all still get one.

The end of the Nerdist comp isn't the end of Ghosts of War, this train is only just getting started.

All aboard...

Paul Robinson · Author · added almost 10 years ago · 3 likes

PLEASE READ: Important note for prior backers from the Sword & Laser competition earlier in the year.

There has been some ongoing confusion around the preorders made for Ghosts of War during the Sword and Laser comp earlier in the year and if they are still valid or not.

This should clear it up:

Any preorders for Ghosts made during the last round of funding were nullified when the funding period ended on the 18th of June.
If you got a copy last time and you still want to support Ghosts and see it make it to publication, you will have to preorder again.
It's still only $9.99 and you will not be charged a cent unless Ghosts places in the Top 5 on September 30th, or reaches 1000 preorders by the end of the year.

I hope that clears things up for anyone that was wondering, and I hope you'll all consider coming back and supporting me and my dream to get this book published.

Thanks guys.

Paul Robinson · Author · edited almost 10 years ago · 7 likes

Hey guys,

Just a quick note to let you all know that there was a featured interview with me on the blog of fellow Inkshares author John Robin.

World Builders - Paul Robinson

There's some questions there that I have answered with varying degrees of success as well as an excerpt and an exclusive about the title of the sequel to Ghosts of War.

Also if epic fantasy is your kind of thing you should check out John Robin's book Blood Dawn, which is also on Inkshares.

Check out Blood Dawn here

Oh and before I forget, Ghosts of War passed 200 followers overnight and sold a couple more copies as well. If you haven't yet grabbed a copy, I really hope you'll consider doing so, there's a little under 3 weeks remaining in the Nerdist competition and every order gets Ghosts that little bit closer to the top 5.

If you have any referral credits hanging around you can put those towards the cost of the book, further reducing the commitment.

I can't do this without all of you (yes...you).

Until next time.