Greetings, Faoii! Exciting news today!

The and best way is to watch the video of your newest missive by clicking here.

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For those who don’t want to watch the video, here’s a summary: SO MANY of you have asked me about a sequel to The Last Faoii. So, let’s make that happen. Faoii Betrayer is now open for pre-orders and I need you to pick up your blade again if we’re going to see it become real. It’s going to be a hard fight, my warriors. We need 750 soldiers on our side before we can even begin the process towards publication. I’ve already had people tell me not to get my hopes up... but they didn’t have an army, did they? Prove. Them. Wrong.

The biggest thing we need in order to see Faoii Betrayer is more soldiers. Our current army isn’t going to cut it--we must spread the word. So tell your friends and your family. Leave a review for The Last Faoii on Amazon. Do whatever you can to bring more soldiers to this banner. This campaign and it becoming real is on you, Faoii. You want to see Faoii Betrayer? Prove it.

It’s been too long, my warriors. Pick up your blades and let’s show the world what we’re made of. I’ll see you on the battlefield. 

Thanks to your continued support, Proteus has finally hit the halfway point in its publication campaign! We are now officially over the hump: from now on, we are closer to the end of this journey than we are to the beginning.

There is a LOT of work left to be done, though. It’s taken a full year to get this far (though that includes several long breaks while I worked on editing Tantalus Depths) and now we have only a little over a month to get the rest of the way there. That’s a lot of ground to cover, but I know we can do it, if we all work together. I know I say this every update, but I cannot stress this enough: telling your friends and family about Proteus is so, so important. If everyone who has already bought a copy found one other person and convinced them to order one too, this journey would be done overnight.

Remember, sharing social media posts is extremely helpful, but telling your friends and family about the book in person is even more impactful. Talk to your brother, co-worker, spouse, anyone you know who might be interested. You’ll be amazed how many people are interested in supporting the arts. I know I have been.

Even if the only thing you can offer is emotional support, I will certainly take that too. I’m not the kind of guy who takes to this crowdfunding thing easily, and it is the most emotionally draining thing I’ve ever done. I’m committed to getting this thing done no matter what, so I’m willing to take that toll, but words of encouragement are always welcome.

Alright, enough of the sales pitch. We’ve hit the halfway point on our journey, just like the crew of the Somnambule at the beginning of Proteus.  At the end of our journey is a publication deal for Proteus, but at the end of the Somnambule’s journey is something much more precious. I think it’s time we found out what’s so important that the Expansionary Coalition thought it was worth the massive undertaking of shipping 50,000 souls halfway across the galaxy, don’t you? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the planet Bella Rosa: The Promised Land.

It’s away!

So, as most everyone was probably expecting, I did not manage to finish my second development draft of Tantalus Depths within one week, as I had hoped. BUT fortunately it didn’t take anywhere near as long as the first draft did. I have just finished my second development draft of Tantalus Depths and turned it into my editor. Only took two and a half weeks!

So once again, we’re all going to have to wait a little while before he’s able to read through it and give me feedback on this latest draft. Unless there are any significant problems left over after two thorough rounds of development edits, though, we should be able to move right from here to the copy editing stage. We’re really making headway!

Once we do officially enter the copy editing stage, the ball’s really going to start rolling. Shortly after that is when the interior page design and the new cover art will be approved (which I can’t wait for). We’ll also get an official release date around that time too, hopefully. We are well on our way to reaping the benefits of all this hard work and finally holding a real-life, fully-published print copy of Tantalus Depths!

One thing at a time, though. As you’ve undoubtedly noticed by now, no stage in this process moves quickly. I’d say we’re closer to the end than the beginning, but any number of things could happen to set us back, so I’m not going to jinx it. For now, we’re back to the waiting game, as my editor pours over this new draft. That means I’m going to be shifting my attention back to campaigning Proteus once again, and boy, I gotta tell you, missing that extra week and a half of campaign time really did not do my campaign any favors.

Proteus hasn’t had any new pre-orders in two weeks, so we have to make a lot of headway in not a lot of time. We can absolutely do it, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work. As always, please tell all your friends about Proteus and try and get as many of them to pre-order copies as you can. We still need to sell more than 400 copies to get that publishing deal, and we only have until the end of next month to get there. If you have it in your heart to order multiple copies and can afford to do so, that would be absolutely invaluable to the success of the campaign. I already owe you all a tremendous debt for the help you’ve offered in getting Tantalus Depths a publication deal, and for getting Proteus almost halfway to one of its own. I can never express my gratitude to you all for what you’ve done to get us this far.

As soon as I have news about this second draft, you’ll all be the first to know. Meanwhile, back to Proteus I go, and I hope to see you all there!

Greetings, Faoii! It’s been another month, and this one has been our best one to date! Look at what we’ve done, my warriors!

Do you see that? 345 copies in one month. For every one of you that spread the word and left a review-- I thank you. This is your doing, and thus I raise my mug.

Actually, if you’d like to raise a mug or drinking horn with me in person, consider coming to The Montana Renaissance Festival in Billings on June 2 and 3rd. It’s at Zoo Montana, and I’ll be there with books, a booth, a quill, and a brand new set of armor. I would love to meet some of you in person, Faoii. Put a face to the warriors that have carried us so far. 

One more thing: If you haven’t already followed Faoii Betrayer do so now! We’re going to make this sequel real one way or another. But sequels only matter if people know the original book is out there. Keep shouting your battle-cry, Faoii. Tell the world! Rate, review, share! Ask your local library if they can get a copy in. Give The Last Faoii as gifts. Faoii Betrayer will never become real if people aren’t excited, but we know that they should be excited. You’ve seen Faoii-Kaiya’s journey. You know she’s worthy of your support. Keep pushing. Let me hear your battle-cry!

And, as always-- Keep those shields up.

Faoii-Tahani

Friends, we have an update!

Two days ago, I received my editor’s notes for my second draft of Tantalus Depths. He was impressed! The story is making serious progress toward genuine greatness. He said it will likely only take one more round of development edits before it’s ready to go to the copy-editing stage.

The last round of development edits I made took way too long. It took me months to get things just the way I felt they needed to be, and by the end of it I kind of just wanted to swan dive into a woodchipper. Fortunately, though, this next round of development edits won’t take long at all. I’ve gone through all of Matt’s notes a couple times now. There are way fewer of them than last time, and most of them are very simple fixes. With this last draft I had to fully rewrite four or five chapters from the ground up and ended up adding about 20k words to the manuscript as a whole. This next round of edits should be little more than tweaking sentences here and there, trimming a few out or adding a few in. I anticipate no significant multi-page rewrites for this one, so it should go a whole lot faster.

In fact *knocks on wood with all the might of Mjolnir* my goal is to finish this round of edits by the end of this week. I’m hesitant to put definitive timers on things these days, since every single step of this editing process has taken me WAY longer to do than I thought it would, but now that I have a better handle on how long it takes me to do this kind of work and knowing that the overall workload for this draft is way lighter than the last, I think one week is quite attainable.

Of course, there’s another reason to try and get this done that fast. As most all of you should know by now, I’m still trying to get Proteus funded. We’ve made slow but steady progress with that campaign, and as of right now it’s hovering at just a bit over 340 orders. We’ve almost reached the halfway mark with two more months to fund it.

Tantalus Depths comes first, though. That’s the book I started first, that’s the book that the most people have supported, and it’s the book people have already waited altogether too long for. So I’m taking a break from campaigning Proteus until I finish this draft of Tantalus Depths and send it in. Obviously I don’t want to lose more campaign time than necessary for Proteus, so hopefully that deadline helps keep me focused on getting this draft done quickly.

It’s going to be a busy week! I’m honestly looking forward to working on this draft, since I’ve already got some interesting new ideas to implement. I’ll send another update as soon as I’ve finished this draft and sent it in, so hopefully you’ll hear from me again really soon!

By the way…since I’m not going to be actively campaigning Proteus much this week, I’d be extra-extra grateful if a few more of you could support that book by giving it a pre-order or two while I edit Tantalus Depths. We can double our productivity that way and I’ll be at least a little less stressed out!

But not that much less stressed out. My body consumes stress for nourishment at this point.

Update!
Just a short one today, but a worthy one.

Proteus has finally passed 300 preorders! We officially have more pre-orders than the Somnambule has crew members (conscious ones anyway. We still need to sell about 49,700 copies to match the number of colonists in stasis. We’ll get there). This is solid progress! We’re slowly crawling up on the halfway mark, and I’m hoping to reach it within the next two weeks. We’re slightly behind schedule, but not by very much, and progress has still been pretty steady overall.

I’ve mentioned it before, but the stretch between 250 and 500 pre-orders is a vast, empty wasteland for a pre-order campaign. We’re right in the middle, so we don’t get to feel the surge of excitement that accompanies the first couple weeks of a campaign’s launch or the similar surge as we see the finish line approaching. Right now, nothing seems to make an impact. But I assure you, it does.

Please keep showing your support by liking and sharing Proteus on all your social media. Tell all your family and friends about this book, online and in person. I know I say that every time, but I can never overstress how important it is to spread the word. If you haven’t yet pre-ordered a copy, or if you think you’d be willing to order a second or third one to support the project, I implore you to do so. Proteus only becomes a book with your help. I’m just the writer here; you’re the ones who can turn it from a concept in the notes on my computer to a printed book on shelves worldwide and in your own hands.

Thank you as always for your support, it means more to me than I’ll ever be able to express. I cannot wait to share this book with all of you.