Hi everyone,

I’ve been trying to write this short update for a few days now, but I keep being interrupted with more things to add in.

Friday night, I was having diner with family and my phone as vibrating like it was trying to make a break for it. I usually don’t look at my messages at the diner table but the whole point of having a mobile device is to be available in case of emergencies and, considering I rarely get any messages, I was wondering what was up. Turns out, I had sold a handful of copies of The Life Engineered in a very short amount of time. “Cool.” I thought, making a note to track down what as up later that night.

The thing is, I’m a marketing guy. My instinct when seeing sales is rarely about the money or about the visibility, it’s almost always about ‘where are these coming from?’. So as soon as it was polite to do so, I went to social media to see what had happened. Turns out, The Life Engineered, along with Sword & Laser, were the focus of a short article on io9.com.

I read io9.com daily.

Already that's pretty awesome and I wanted to put up an update about it. Then I got confirmation of this article by Alicia Smock being posted on examiner.com. It’s a great article and was fun to participate in. So I was going to include that in my update.

Then The Life Engineered gets mentioned on Geek & Sundry and I lose my God damned mind. I can only keep a rational, marketing oriented line of thought for so long before I become an irrational mess. This isn’t a client’s product being mentioned in the media according to plan. This is my book.

Finally, another article, this time on Inkshares very own newsletter pops up.

So there you have it my friends. The surreal events of the first few steps of promotion of The Life Engineered. If you’ve ever doubted that this little crowdfunding venture takes care of their authors, I think I can testify that we are handled with much love and care. And that’s just the stuff I feel comfortable putting on a public forum!

But wait! That's not all. Remember when I gave away a model of the character Koalemos to someone at Nerdtacular last summer? Well, I'm making more of these models (7 more for reasons obvious in the book). A couple of them are earmarked for people that need to be thanked for their help, but one is going to be raffled off to the people who pre-ordered during the funding campaign. I know more about building and shipping these things now. It's going to be cool. Check out who got the first model.

As always, you have my gratitude. It’s an incredible ride so far and none of this is happening without your support. Thank you.

JF

Hey all,

We have achieved 250 orders! The ebook will 100% be printed. Thank you so much, it is a privilege to receive so much support.

The next goal is 750, which is lofty, but I have confidence we can reach it over the next few months. There will be additional editing input as well as marketing support, and a hardback version, if we reach the goal. I'm excited about the possibilities of reaching more audience at that goal.

To incentivize, I've released another chapter. Please take a look and spread word if you enjoy what you see. I'm thrilled to be able to allow more Nazis to be corralled by the magnificent Dracula.

Thank you,

Pat Duncan