It’s the beginning of the end...
Tantalus Depths is now only 100 pre-orders away from the full publishing goal. We need 50 pre-orders a week, or about seven a day, to get there.
If there is anything left you can do to help get us there, now is the time to show your hand. If there’s anyone left you haven’t talked to about it, talk to them. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, order one. If you have ordered one, consider ordering another copy for a friend.
Anything you can do will absolutely mean the world to me.
But mark my words, Tantalus Depths will get there. If I have to pull my bloody carcass across that finish line on my own, I’ll do it. We’ve come way too far to settle for anything less than total victory.
Wanna see something really REALLY cool? Was going through an old file-cabinet over the weekend and found a bunch of materials from the early days of The Amaranth Chronicles.
We originally started mapping out the story using flashcards and pinned them up to a wall in my college bedroom. This was all back in 2008. Take a look at those first 3 cards. Its really amazing to reflect on my life and all that’s happened since then but I am amazed at what didn’t change in all these years.
Check out the early sketches of the Stormchaser at the bottom. I did those nearly 11 years ago... Puts a tear in my eye...
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(Picture: Halloween night 2001)
Hello friends, family, and fellow authors
We are three months away from the release of The Catcher’s Trap and this humbling journey continues to fill me with joy.
Last week Out Traveler’s editor, Brian Van Gorder, had this to say about my book: “In his fast-paced and tense first novel, The Catcher’s Trap, Ricardo Henriquez introduces us to an entirely original, richly detailed universe filled with strong, well-developed characters trying to survive their nightmarish new world. Sure, there are plenty of horrible monsters lurking on every page, but it’s the glimmers of joy found in the despair, the humor poking through the inhumane, that may just be the book’s cruelest beasts.”
As I read his words, I couldn’t help to feel emotional and reflect on the past 15 years of my life. On October 2nd, 2001 I arrived in the U.S. like many other immigrants: full of dreams and hopes for a life of unlimited possibilities. During my first 2 years, I rented a small bedroom where everything that I owned fitted with room to spare. I worked as a waiter from noon until 1 A.M. 6 days a week while learning English by attending free adult education classes, reading children books and watching Will and Grace.
Those days were hard. Money was not enough to live comfortably and, as time passed, I started questioning the decision of leaving my country.
Fast-forward to August 2016. Thanks to the love and support of many, many people, today I’m writing to you, my readers; friends who either cared enough about me to pre-order a book that didn’t exist yet, or strangers who read a couple of chapters and thought they would take a chance on this weird fantasy/horror idea.
Mister Van Gorder’s words not only made me reflect on this journey and feel thankful for all of you. They also gave me much-needed fuel to continue working on The Catcher’s Trap sequel, Worlds Walker and continue pushing to make sure my book is a success.
So there are two things I will do in the coming months:
Both goals are bold. But I feel energized and ready for them.
If you are on this list and haven’t pre-order a copy of The Catcher’s Trap, please consider doing it.
If you are on this list and have not check yet Worlds Walker, check it out here and consider following the project.
Have a fantastic week.
Hello everyone,
I guess I should talk about this shouldn’t I?
There’s a minuscule little article on The Tracking Board that talks about me and my upcoming book; A God in the Shed. Go read it. It’s fun. I’ll wait.
You’re back? Awesome. So what do you think? Yeah, I was a bit overwhelmed. Still sort of am. I’m not exactly wired to take compliments or bask in the glory of good news on that scale. I’d love to pretend that it’s because I’m humble and level-headed but in truth I’m just terrified of disappointment and incapable of processing success. My own issues aside, I think it’s important to know a few things about this announcement.
What this isn’t:
What this is:
The great Mike Mongo (Astronaut Instruction Manual) once told me; "However long you think this process is going to take, double that." and the awesome Adam Gomolin also shared this nugget of wisdom; "It’s a no until it’s a yes."
So I’m going to try and take it easy. Keep the day job and continue chipping away at my other projects (check out Arch-Android, the sequel to The Life Engineered, along with Too Many Controllers).
Thanks again for the support everyone. Go read that article again and while you do that, keep telling yourself; ’I’m part of this.’
Because you are.
JF
I’m just going to open with the final cover for The Seventh Age:
I want to thank all of you, the people who have supported me, in helping pick directions, refine options and taking the time to vote.
Ashley Marie Witter, the Illustrator, who crammed me into her intensely busy schedule of Squarriors. You can check out more of her artwork and rabid apocalyptic rodents by clicking HERE.
Scott over at Cyantype Covers. They did a fantastic job making different options and helping pull everything together for the final version you see today. My finest metal (\m/ >;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;. salute goes to the work that they have done.
Lastly, to Emily, Avalon, and everyone at the joint Girl Friday / Inkshares production team for helping take the very nebulous concept of a cover into something this badass.
My sincerest thank you to everyone involved,
~Rick Heinz.
I’m a habitual lurker over on Reddit. Sometimes I’ll post, but unless I know for a fact I can add to the growing conversations on the site I keep to myself. The only time I step outside of these practices are to promote the works of others.
Reddit is heralded as the frontpage of the internet, and with the many different subreddits on the site you can tailor your experience to suit your needs. Due to the huge influx of individuals they have on a daily basis many people created subreddits devoted entirely to promotions, where people can post about their work or that of their loved ones, favorite authors, musicians, etc. Suffice it to say, it is a wonderful place to freely advertise yourself.
When I decided to post my novel, The Weaver Chronicles: Graft, here on Inkshares I knew I’d have to promote myself to get the book funded. It was up to me to bring in those potential buyers if I wanted to be successful. It’s really a required element to the process.
The first place I went to was reddit.com/r/kickstarter, which has over 33,000 people subscribed to it. Original intended to allow people to promote either their kickstarter campaigns, or those that they felt were interesting and deserved a wider audience, it steadily grew to include Indiegogo and other crowdfunding sites. Personally, I’ve posted a number of campaigns there, and have seen a decent influx of sales for the many projects I have supported after having done so. More importantly they have received a huge increase in traffic, which I desperately want for Graft. I want people to see, to tell their friends about it, because I have faith in it.
After doing a quick search I discovered that no one has ever posted an Inkshares project to that subreddit. This put me into a very interesting situation, as there was no precedent set I couldn’t be impetuous and just post my own, at least not without the possibility of getting banned and losing that resource for future projects. I did the only logical thing, I messaged the moderators, and I’m still waiting for a response (I’ll probably message the Mod again this week to see if I can get an update). I’m sure you all can understand how this would us all, and I hope we get a favorable response.
The next subreddit I proceeded to check was reddit.com/r/inkshares. Honestly, this should have been the first place I looked, but I wasn’t really certain Inkshares would have it’s own subreddit based on the lack of mentions of Reddit these forums. I was surprised to find one, and that are 2 posts there, and a whopping 8 subscribers.
Reddit is a fantastic resource, especially for authors, and developing an Inkshares subreddit could drastically increase the amount of traffic to our respective projects. This would help not only in regards to follows, but also by word of mouth. If people love your work, they’ll promote it for you, and it’s remarkably easy to do on Reddit where in many cases all they need to do is copy and paste a url. There is an additional benefit, we will be able to create the type of community we want for ourselves, rather than being forced to endure what already exists.
Some places on Reddit lack a certain bedside manner, people can be confrontational and downright rude, but we have the ability to ensure that does not happen. Honestly, it’s going to take effort, and I know that Reddit is daunting for many people, but it’ll be worth it in the long run.
Now, when posting in the r/inkshares subreddit you can also crosspost to other ones. This means that after posting to r/inkshares your post could simultaneously show up in r/crowdfunding (2,900 subscribers), r/wroteabook (3,000 subscribers if your project is funded or nearly there) and r/fantasy (over 97,000 subscribers here, but I wouldn’t necessarily self-promote there unless you use the specific thread for it or your book is on sale, it’s just an example) without much effort. Now, it becomes incredibly easy to do the same thing for our friends and fellow Inkshare authors, without the stigma that many subreddits have towards self-promotion.
I could probably go on forever about this, but I implore you to sign up for Reddit. Start checking out the other subreddits, make sure to become a part of the community before promoting yourself (stick to the rules of the subreddit, but the same thing applies for Goodreads if you haven’t already used that site), but subscribe to ours. We want people to go there, and in order for that to happen we need to cultivate a presence. People are lazy, and they can receive an astounding amount of information on Reddit very easily, we should be using it to our advantage.
If people want I can list off some subreddits where you can get started, most of which will be genre specific. If you have any questions I’ll do my best to try and answer them. It’s possible, also, for me to start helping you promote your work there, but I need you to start participating there as well.