Hello, everyone! I have 101 followers and my book has 222 - that's crazypants! You are all awesome and I feel like I need to bring this back: 

And 200 readers - that's a fine goal, isn't it? Let's shoot for 200 by Friday!

I know this whole "sign up + I'll follow you = $10 in credits, buy my book for free" thing is all the rage these days, and by all means - sign up your mailman and best friend and chiropractor and entire college lacrosse team to get my book for free! Everyone likes a free book!

But what about you, dear followers who have already signed up and gotten their first follower and spent your first credits on other books?

What must we do, we who wander Inkshares in search of our better selves?

Recommend me some books! I have credits and I love supporting other authors. Then you'll get the referral credit when I buy and you'll have spending money to spend... on my book? Or on other excellent books, of course. There are plenty...

LIKE THIS ONE GO ORDER IT NOW!:

The Elephant in the Room, by Jack Bender. This is one of those golden books that is on the LAST DAY of it's campaign - and it is sooo close to reaching its goal. Only 49 readers away! 

Help this guy reach his goal. You can be part of his success!

Or this one:

Teal Book of Oaztaltia by Ryan Cordova - The Emerald Speaker is Dead, Long Live the White Speaker. (I'm freaking out over this book - enough with the Everything is Vaguely Medieval fantasy! Pre-Colombian North and South American fantasy, here I come!)

:) :) :)

It's official!

Thanks to the generous, brilliant Inkshares team (a special thank you to Jeremy Thomas), the new, higher rank of DRAGON has been created for Blood Dawn backers! Check it out:

This means if you visit my Blood Dawn page, you'll see the option there to become a DRAGON backer. In addition to what GOD-KING backers (3 copies) get, DRAGON backers will get a t-shirt with the Blood Dawn dragon logo on it (if we reach the fundraising goal), and I'll name one of the dragons in my story world after them, in the Em-Makkar language.

And guess what? I already have my FIRST DRAGON. (Thank you Patrick Jamison, whose dragon name is Patazamazzon). While I'm talking about Pat here, please do go and check out Patrick's great book idea for The Stones of Ragnarok. It makes me think of a James Rollins thriller -- a modern doomsday story rooted in ancient Viking history. I can't wait to see this book go live, and would love to see Pat gain more attention as he's new to Inkshares.

You'll also see that the DRAGON rank has been added above GOD-KING, with Pat's avatar daring anyone else to step up and start a fire-war:

Aint it awesome? So, if you are super enthusiastic about this book and want to breathe not just life, but fire into it, then why not order 7 copies and have the honor of knowing you've got a dragon  name lurking in my mythology file, ready for use when the story calls for it? You'll have 6 extra copies of Blood Dawn to pass around to your friends, to help spread the word like wildfire...er, I mean dragonfire.

Good day sentients!

Oh it is a good day. I have so much to share... Let's start with a fresh new cover? Behold! The final layout for the cover of The Life Engineered!

Thank you Elsie and Eric who both contributed their artistic talent (layout and illustration respectively) for this. It looks amazing. Notice the little starburst there? Awww yeah...

Now for something more serious

Friends, let's take a look at the gears and wires of things. What some would call the 'inside baseball' of the situation. What follows is my publication calendar as it stands today:

You have The Life Engineered, releasing in late February/early March and then two mystery books in 2017 and 2020 (I'm so eager to be able to talk about those!). Still, this looks a little empty doesn't it? Here's what I want my calendar to look like if things go well:

If I can fund A God in the Shed I'll have enough momentum and confidence to start funding the sequel to The Life Engineered (tentatively called Arch-Android). I'll also be in a position to look at getting the sequel to AGitS funded and published as well. This leads us to what I dream my calendar could look like:

This version implies that I can spend more time writing either by doing it full time or having it allow me to work less hour at the day job. Obviously this is a pipe dream but this is a 'go big or go home' industry. You'll notice that Arch-Android gets a much earlier release and that three other books are added to the list. These might be another sequel to The Life Engineered or other projects I have in mind. I might also move the sequel to A God in the Shed earlier. I love looking at this version of the calendar. It hums at me like a  well tuned ion thruster.

Of course, to get to calendar 2 or calendar 3 I need you help. There are over 400 of you guys following The Life Engineered and each of you is amazing for your support. Many of you have already backed A God in the Shed and that is awesome. However, if we want to fast track this train to the second calendar, I need your help. The Nerdist Collection contest is a shortcut to part of that. All I need is for more of you to pre-order a copy of A God in the Shed.

I know you're getting a lot of these updates with those kinds of requests. I'm aware this must be getting tiresome. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least try. I have a lot of cool things planned for the future and I want you guys to be a part of it. Go pre-order A God in the Shed. It'll be awesome.

Thanks again for your continued support.

JF