Greetings Destiny-followers,

It’s rubber-meets-the road time. The bottom of the ninth. Time to call for a Hail Mary. But I know you all want to dig deep. Give a 110%. And leave it all out there.

But seriously, your support from the beginning has been fantastic. I couldn’t have done it without you. Destiny Imperfect currently sits in fifth position. We’re 16 orders off third place and we have the chance to get into the top three (and get all the yummy publishing treats that entails). There are now only 10 days left in the contest. And 10 days can pass very quickly! So you can see where this is going …

To make Destiny Imperfect a success, I not only have to have to talk to people outside Inkshares, I also need to enlist your help. If you’ve already pre-ordered, think of one person who’d like to support an up-and-coming project. Sit them down in front of a computer, fire up Inkshares and explain that they have the opportunity to take part in a paradigm shifting experience. And then get them to pre-order!

If you haven’t pre-ordered, then I’d love you to take a look at chapter one and, if it’s something you like, hit pre-order as well. You’re all crucial to this crowd-funding experience, and I’d love us to move forward together!

Have a great day!

Cheers,

Peter

Dear friends and followers,

Two days ago, we celebrated Canada; tomorrow, we celebrate the U.S.; and yesterday, we hit 375 orders, the exact halfway mark to the full-funding goal. It is perhaps of somewhat less national significance than the other two, but it is certainly of great significance to me. So I thank each and every one of you who have contributed so far. Thank you for bringing me as far as you have.

And we have news. As hinted in the previous update, we have an Interactive Fiction game to go with our novel: "Mustard, Music, and Murder", in which you may step into the shoes of Eric Peterkin to solve the murder of an elderly investment broker....

It is also July, which, quite aside from holidays of national importance, means it’s time to hand in a cheque to our friends at Chez Doris. I was unable to do so on the 1st, as the offices were closed for Canada Day, but I will be handing this over tomorrow morning:

My ongoing introduction of the various characters in "Murder at the Veterans’ Club" seems almost like an afterthought, now. Nevertheless, here is Jacob Bradshaw, the club secretary.

And that’s enough news for the moment, I think! Until next week, have fun, and keep reading!

Happy Friday all,

I have a few updates for this weekend, but having already sent an update this week, I’ll make it snappy.

(1) 14 Orders left to reach Full INKSHARES Publishing !! That’s right, you can stop rubbing your eyes! We have 15 days to get less than an order per day.. are we up for it?!

(2) Please check out my interview on Nell Walton’s great blog. Nell offered this feature even though the novel has nothing to do with SciFi or Fantasy , I did say I’ll look into sticking a dragon in there... Khaleesi John maybe? ;-)
(credit due to Miss Emily Dital for colouring the caricature below)

(3) The Syndicate I lead here on Inkshares "Thriller Night" now has a Goodreads group. This is in effort to increase exposure of thrillers, mysteries and suspense novels on Inkshares; and to increase Inkshares’ visibility on Goodreads. We let authors who are nominated for our backing pitch their books, and a few have already done so. We encourage membership from everybody, not just paying syndicate members. You are invited through this link.

Again, thank you all for the amazing support!

JD

Caricature: drawing - Joni D, colouring - Emily D

Lore Update!

Here we take a sneak peak under the hood of The Diamelen and learn the basics of superluminal drive technologyin Tantalus Depths.

Also, Tantalus Depths has just passed 400 pre-orders! Thank you all so much for the continued support, this is really moving thanks to your tremendous help. Keep it up, and keep spreading the word!

Greetings Jackolytes,

No Sync! Surely not! I turned on the TV at an Airbnb place in Toronto and was greeted with this screen. 

But fear not! Sync City and Jack are deep in production and will be coming to you in the not too distant future. Sync City is more than set to ride (and still available for pre-order!).

In the meantime Destiny Imperfect continues to battle for a top three position (now sitting fifth) in the Inkshares/Nerdist contest. Some of you have already branched out and pre-ordered this project. Thank you so much! It would be absolutely awesome if more of you could go and check out chapter one of Destiny Imperfect and pre-order. If the project doesn’t finish in the top three, it’ll be pulled and you get your money back.

I’d love this project to succeed but, to put it simply, without your help, it won’t. Be wild. If you want to take Destiny into your own hands, pre-order here.

Cheers,

Peter

Hi knife wielding followers, 

just a little splash of news, I have now been officially welcomed into the hallowed halls of Quilldom...there was a lot of funny handshakes and strange creatures in masks, but it’s all over now and I am awaiting my mission instructions before the next stage.  

I am also piqued to discover that I am number one in the mystery community...which I’m sure is a whole heap better news than a lower number...unless the scoring is rather like POINTLESS in which case more is less if that makes sense...

Anyway, I should also take this opportunity to steer you in the direction of a stonkingly great read by Peter Ryan, smash hit author of Sync City...his latest work is called Destiny Imperfect and is one of the two books I’m supporting this month and beyond.  So check it out or tell a friend!  DESTINY IMPERFECT 

The other book I love is called PROXY, if you like the idea of a collection of pop artists selling their souls to live forever, than this might just be you cup of tea...

Friends, followers, Inksharians! Send me your pre-orders!

The good news is Destiny Imperfect now has 106 individual readers – which is fantastic! We also have 150 followers! This means we are still very much in the hunt for a top three position (currently fifth). It also means that if you have yet to jump on board, now would be an awesome time to do so (there are only two weeks left in the contest!).

Destiny Imperfect is very much a crowd driven project, and I already have had some fantastic feedback from people who have read the first chapter. But without a crowd of pre-orders behind the project it will, unfortunately, not get funded. The bottom line is, Destiny needs to achieve a top three position to make this project viable. If we don’t achieve a top three position, then the project finishes and you receive your money back.

If you have yet to pre-order, it’d be great if you could do so and bring this project to life. If you have already pre-ordered, recommending it to someone close would be brilliant! The greater the support, the more likely we are to succeed. Take a chance on Destiny  and pre-order today!

Cheers,

Peter

Dear friends and followers,

It has been an exceptionally slow week, but I did say I was going to sit back a bit and consider my next steps. So ... with the manuscript for "Murder at the Veterans’ Club" done, what have I been up to?

Those of you with a taste for Interactive Fiction might be interested to know that I am putting together a little game for our friend Eric Peterkin. Join him--well, BE him--in a little investigation! I expect to have this out in a couple of weeks, so watch this space.

With all the news currently coming out of the UK, I’m reminded that the action of "Murder at the Veterans’ Club" is supposed take place in November 1924. Among other things, this is the month immediately following a general election in which the Conservative Party ousted the incumbent Labour Party with a landslide vote. Much of the Conservative victory was attributed to the publication of the Zinoviev letter a few days before the election, fanning fears of communism and suspicion against the left-leaning Labour Party. Interestingly, this seems to have hurt the Liberal vote more than the Labour vote: perhaps the non-Labour partisans of the day were voting strategically by throwing their collective weight behind the stronger of the two remaining parties.

Was the Zinoviev letter a forgery, though? And would anyone at the Veterans’ Club have cared? The military branches seem to tend towards the conservative, but that’s not exactly a rule. And conscription in the Great War meant that a lot of men, of non-military backgrounds, now qualified for membership at the Club....

I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, what’s on the shelves at Inkshares?

1) "American Art Killers", by Andrew Oye. This has some very slick production art, and Oye appears to really know his stuff. I’m honestly a little surprised that this hasn’t had more traction over the course of its campaign.

2) "Falling from Grace", by Felecia Downing. A supernatural mystery, rather than a straight-up murder mystery. The sample is very well executed and shows personality right from the first paragraph.

And now, friends ... it is a glorious afternoon, and I intend to take full advantage of it. Until next week: have fun, and keep reading. 

Greeting Jackolytes,

Christmas in July! The word is I’m getting the copy-edited version of Sync City back mid-July. I’ve got to say I’m excited (and nervous) to see what comes down the pike.

I’m also off to Canada tomorrow. Hopefully in a couple of days I’ll get to meet Christopher Huang and some of the other Montreal Inkshares crew – and, in all honesty, that’ll be awesome!

I’m  also still feverishly banging away at Destiny Imperfect to try and get into the top three of the Inkshares/Nerdist contest. It’s amazingly tight at the top and if you could throw a pre-order my way, it’d be much appreciated.

Have a great day!

Cheers,

Peter