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Hey, gang! It’s been a while. But I’ve kept myself busy! Let’s catch up some, shall we?

1st - Too Many Controllers was pulled from production for reasons beyond our control, but you can already find some of the stories from those amazing authors elsewhere on the webz. (Before you ask, if you invested, yes, refunds will be coming soon, so I’m told)

"So, what’s that mean for your short story, "1989?"

Glad you asked. I am currently working on plans to expand it into a longer tale. Right now I’m not sure if that means a novella (a short novel or long short story) or a full-length novel, but I’ll let you know as soon as I know.

2nd - I’ve been working on Timeless (working title), the indirect sequel to Ageless. I have planned the entire story and it seems to be turning into a full-length novel. I was hoping for something along the lines of a novella. But, alas, it seems that the life of Eugene will not be abridged. Things have been going well with the writing. I am about halfway through the first act with hopes of finishing the first draft by April. Follow the Inkshares draft page HERE.

And here’s the placeholder cover too!

3rd - I have a goal for 2017 to write one short story a month unrelated to any other thing I’m doing. I wrote one in January with the hope of giving it to you guys for free. But it needs a LOT of love, so maybe I’ll hold off on giving them out until they have seen a good bit of revision. I already have my idea for this month’s story. I’m eager to get it out of my head. Incidentally, the January one has a working title of "Cause & Effect."

4th - Happy Valentines Day! Much love to all who have supported this crazy dream of mine. Thanks!

TREKONOMICS nominated for best audiobook of the year!

Dear all, friends and readers,

I just learned that Trekonomics was nominated for an Audie Award (the Oscars of audioboooks) in the business and personal development category. It is quite an honor to have a book on a list next to works by Stephen King, John Scalzi, Colson Whitehead, Siddhartha Mukherjee etc.

The audiobook, read by the amazing Oliver Wyman, can be sampled here: http://amzn.to/2avFi4F

Thank you all for your support and friendship,

As usual, Live Long, and Prosper!

Manu

ps: here’s the (image) announcement for the business/personal development category.

Just a quick update on where things stand. In the next 24 hours we should be done with developmental editing and sending the manuscript over to copy editing. The manuscript is in really good shape. There are still some typos to fix and a few scenes that we’re working on, but I’m anticipating we’ll knock those out tonight/tomorrow morning.

Copy editing should take about a couple of weeks, meaning we should have a final version of the manuscript going into formatting on the last week of the month. This will enable Inkshares to print "galleys" (promotional versions of the book) by the end of the month, which is very exciting.

In the mean time, I need to do my "author picture" for the inside sleeve of the book. I have something cool in mind, but as I’m not very photogenic, it may not work out. Still, I’ve enlisted the services of my friend and photographer Lai Long whom I believe will endeavor to make photographic miracles happen.

I’m told everything is all set for the book launch at San Diego Comic Con in July. I’m not really sure exactly what it is that we’ll be doing there to promote the book. Maybe I’ll just do a little interpretive teleportation dance while wearing a futuristic LED suit. Probably not that.

So excited you guys. Jazz hands!

Tal

Friends!

I apologize for the lack of updates. My nose has been pressed against the old grindstone, and in spite of a slew of interruptions and several "I’M THE WORST WRITER IN THE WORLD I F*****G QUIT WHY DIDN’T I GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL" text messages and the holiday season sucking the dregs of my soul out of my withered retail worker body, I will be handing what I’ve managed to cough up to the copy editor on Tuesday. As in, less than a week from Tuesday.

This time last year I barely had 75 pages of what would ultimately become the one-act novella that started everything. As of right now, Devil’s Call has 151 pages and I still have about 20,000 words to write before it’s "finished," but it will be a quick 20,000 words. I’m not sure at which point things will shift from "Surreal" to "My Life Now," but I have an agent and a promotional schedule and Devil’s Call has a cover, which if you haven’t seen it yet

I’ve ganked it from Target.com’s website for your viewing pleasure.

According to the schedule the lovely Avalon Radys put together for me, I’m going to start being way more vocal about the novel’s progress starting in March, so enjoy the silence while it lasts.

-J.

 There’s a long list of things I didn’t think would ever happen when I first decided that writing fiction was going to be ’my thing’. Obviously, getting one of my books optioned and meeting an academy award screenwriter weren’t on this list because I hadn’t even conceived of that possibility at the time. 

That being said, I’ve always wanted an audiobook of one of my projects. What would that sound like? How would my characters feel coming out of someone else’s mouth? And an audiobook felt out of reach but still within the realm of possibility. Something to hope for without ever planning for it to happen. 

Well, today is the launch of the Audiobook for The Life Engineered. Produced by Blackstone Audio, featuring the amazing voice of actress Amy Landon and available on Amazon, Audible and probably several other places where audiobooks are usually purchased. 

It feels weird guys. I’ve listened to the sample on Amazon but I haven’t taken the plunge yet. I’m nervous. I’m 100% confident in the work that Amy did on the book (she is a veteran of over 200 audiobooks) but this is a milestone. Do I listen to this casually in the car? Do I set aside some time and enjoy the over six hours of audio in the dark with my eyes close? Just drinking in every detail, good and bad? 

If you’re looking for a way to experience The Life Engineered anew, maybe learn how to pronounce some of those complex names I picked for the characters, then hop over to your favourite purveyor of audio literature and get yourself a copy. If you’ve never been on Audible, there are countless ways of getting your first book for free and frankly, that might not be a bad one to start with.

If you want to learn more about the audiobook making process, Paul Inman and I had Amy as a guest in our latest episode of WriteBrain and it was fantastic having her on.

As always, thanks for your support. None of this would have happened without you. 

JF

NOTE: I should really update the header with the new cover image...

Dear readers, it has been a while since our last update. A lot goes on in the life of young author in a big family and whose co-author (dad) is also a pretty busy guy. That being said, our work continues, and we still plan to have "A Friend for Otter" completed and shipped in the first half of 2017. 

One of the challenges we have been working through over the last several months was to commission cover art. In case you haven’t seen it, that art is complete, and it now adorns our Inkshares and social-media pages. Sylvia and I are extremely happy with it, and we hope you will also appreciate the inspired work of Natassia Scoresby, our illustrator.

Beyond that, Sylvia and I remain really enthusiastic about telling you Otter’s story, and we are grateful for the outpouring of support we’ve received from our reader community. So please accept our gratitude as we redouble our efforts in 2017 to deliver a compelling and meaningful story to all of you. We couldn’t do it without you.

Thanks!

Sylvia and Jesse

Dear friends and followers,

It is now three weeks since we won the Full Publication deal with The List. The manuscript for "Murder at the Veterans’ Club" was submitted two weeks ago, and now it is a matter of waiting for an editor to be assigned to me. This could take a while; here’s the article about the publishing timeline, in case you missed the last update: I know there are a couple of new faces among you since then.

So, what lies ahead?

Well, I am currently halfway through working on a story-game project for Choice Of Games. I expect to see it come out some time in the latter half of this year. (I encourage everyone to check them out. I’ve enjoyed their stuff over the past few years, and I’m excited at the possibility of seeing myself in their lineup.)

There is also the matter of what to do with the Peterkin franchise. With the publishing timeline being somewhat longer than I expected, and with the additional time required to properly fund a campaign ... plus the sheer chutzpah it would require for me to begin asking for orders on a second book before the first book is even in anyone’s hands.... If I plan on getting the Full Publication deal on something, I should probably start the funding campaign after the launch of this current book, which means it could be two years or more in between books. That seems ... likely to result in an overall loss of interest.

So, I’m toying with a couple of ideas.

One: start a new campaign anyway, for the short story collection "Peterkin Investigates the Anthology"--but aim only for the 250 orders required for the Quill imprint. It won’t get all the services of the Full Publication deal, but then it isn’t a sequel and it isn’t a full-length novel, and it will be out there and available within a year after "Murder at the Veterans’ Club".

Two: take that collection apart and publish the stories individually via Kindle Direct; say, one every two months.

I haven’t quite researched these options yet, nor have I decided on a course of action. It seems the adventure is only just beginning....