Thanks for all the support and enthusiasm thus far, everybody! As promised, today I’ve posted the second chapter. I’ll keep on posting a little smidge every week until the Launchpad Competition results are announced. Beyond excited to continue sharing. If you haven’t yet, please do get those pre-orders in if you want to keep reading all the way through! We have twists. We have turns. We have unexpected betrayals and romance. I could go on. But I won’t. Because I’m going to let you go read it! :)

Liz

Just a subtle, but perhaps nonetheless powerful, update to the project page today. I have changed the short description. This has come about after re-running a plot analysis and review. The story is still the same and the chief pro- and an-tagonists have remained. I have ’retarget’ things a little. The new short description now reads:

’It always causes enough trouble when any son rebels against the family business, but when Mummy is a supreme deity things are going to get real ugly.’

I feel this is a more powerful ’elevator pitch’ and avoids the trap of people thinking it is ’Just another generic story’. Also, as soon as I’ve worked out how to do it I shall be including some more graphical stuff in the about section too.

As always, I am very interested in everyone’s thoughts and suggestions.

Happy Monday, all! Guess what? We’re now at 152 copies, 132 readers.  This means Witherfist is now less than 100 copies away from Quill publication. I hope you’re excited about that as I am!

With new readers joining us, Witherfist has now taken the 8th spot in the Geek & Sundry top 10. There’s a narrow margin between myself and ’The Delicate Art of Soulripping’ - and ’Sorcery for Beginners’ is hot on both of our tails! Ahead, ’The Living God’ has a decent but not unshakeable hold on 7th place. I guess what I’m saying is - the final week of this contest is going to be exciting and every preorder now could mean the difference between shimmying up or sliding down the top 10. 

I had a great weekend at a local convention, giving out postcards and printed samples of Witherfist. I was one of only a few authors at the convention - the big draw of the day was the actor Jerome Flynn, who plays Bronn on Game of Thrones - but there were plenty of people interested in finding out more about the book and Inkshares in general. 

Here’s a picture of me, manning my little stall, wearing my Witherfist t-shirt. (Not pictured: my glamorous assistants or the unspeakable amount of Haribo that was consumed over the course of the two days at the convention.) 

 A couple of dozen people took my sample chapters (which were printed by the AwesomeMerchandise company, check them out if you’re in the UK!). Overall, it was a very enjoyable weekend and I’m hoping that many of the people I spoke to will be joining my list of followers and readers on Inkshares very soon. I think I might even have recruited a few would-be authors into joining the community. 

Thanks for reading and, as always, for your support!

~ Jenny

PS. Here’s a bonus work in progress bit of character art, this time of one of the book’s antagonists: Karaben. She is a peer and former ally of Irusai’s who has also made an ink pact with an ancient spirit. Unlike Irusai, whose tattoo is on her hand and arm, Karaben’s tattoo extends from her lower lip down over her throat and connects her to a crow spirit. I won’t tell you exactly what ’power’ she gains from the spirit she’s connected to, but I will say this: Karaben acts as a spy and interrogator of sorts for the Empress and the people she questions are often found as eyeless corpses.

Copy edits are done, and we have a cover!

Thank you all for your comments and feedback! I am really grateful to everyone who took the time to voice their opinion. This final version has been tweaked to make it a little lighter, and I think will be really eye-catching both on store shelves and as an online thumbnail!

Next step is trying to secure cover blurbs from prominent authors or reviewers, then final proofreads, spine and back cover design, and final interior layout for both the ebook and hardcopy versions! It’s all coming together!

Thank you all yet again!