Howdy all,
Things have been progressing very nicely, with us up over twenty preorders -- about halfway to hitting the top ten of this Nerdist contest! -- and with plenty of folks sharing links around and encouraging their buddies to check out the page. Your enthusiasm is much appreciated!
I’ve been coordinating, in the meantime, with my cover artist, Jason Kerr. We’ve got a few new cover designs for y’all to take a peek at. If I can crowdfund this project, the least I can do is let the crowd get a little say in the cover art, too, right?
So don’t be shy, shoot in some comments or find me on social media (Rusty Zimmerman on FB, @RussellZee on Twitter) to let me know which cover you prefer, and why.
Or just look at the purty pictures. That’s fair, too.
Operation Week One: a resounding success! In the last seven days, 36 awesome readers have pre-ordered 43 copies of Over The Stars, and each and every click and share has helped us climb the ranks, to 17th place (out of 85 contestants!). We started this contest when it was halfway finished, and we’re STILL doing great -- you’re awesome, everybody, and it’s much appreciated.
Our primary objective was just getting our feet on the ground and starting up the campaign, but we also did a bang-up job with our secondary goal during Operation Week One, and that was working up some stellar cover art. Jason Kerr did great work, and thanks to some fan input he kept doing it, and now we’re pretty well settled on the current draft. Thanks for your input, everybody, and let’s hear it for Jason!
Coming up this week we’ve got Operation Majestic Eagle (what, you thought I was just gonna called it Operation Week Two?), where I’ll post updates that introduce you to the cast of this season’s The Protectors. This is one part game show, one part reality tv, one part military academy, and one part recruitment tool, and it’s a major lens through which this first book will be told. Here, the Navy, Marines, Army, and Lunar Guard of the DemFed compete against one another to make their branches look good, to recruit new citizens, and to win the corporate sponsorships they need to keep ships in the air, grav-tanks sliding along, and uniforms snazzy. This week you’ll be meeting the contestants, soldiers, spacers, and Marines, all ready to serve, and look good doing it.
But there’s a special note available just for the next few weeks: not all of these character names are carved in stone. Many of these characters can still be renamed at the drop of a hat, and when the time comes to do so, it’s going to be these earliest of backers -- folks who’ve helped us in this Nerdist contest! -- that I’ll be drawing names from! So if you like the odds of seeing your first or last name mish-mashed up with other backers, and then featured as a major character here in Over The Stars, let’s keep those pre-orders coming...and make sure to share the link (and the news) with your friends, so maybe they can sneak into this sci-fi epic, too!
Thanks for the support everybody, and let’s keep the momentum going.
Top Ten, here we come!
--Russell Zimmerman