Hey everyone. Just wanted to give a quick update on THE GHOST TRACKS. Inkshares has scheduled a release date of October 19th. The book is also available for pre-order at most major book retailers. I’m glad the book will soon be in your hands! Thanks for your patience.

Dear Henderson House Supporters,

Hello All,

Well, we’ve got an ISBN and a Library of Congress Control Number.

Here is the cover. It needs a bit of important copy to plug into that white void on the back, a final page count to adjust the spine, and it’ll be done. 

I struggled with the cover art. I initially thought I wanted something pretty, and harassed good friends with my bad ideas. As any sensible person would expect, the results of that direction didn’t translate the content. Also, my ideas of fanciful colors and dynamic fonts didn’t elicit any questions or emotional responses from the people surveyed. Another discovery showed those ideas were lost in the field of contemporary covers.

In a flock of swans, it’s the mangled farm goose that captures your attention. 

Out of frustration, I smashed the front of this in a few seconds and it stuck. It’s the frustration that speaks. The emotion. Those of you that don’t know my story probably understand what’s depicted here on a visceral level. Way down under the level of consciousness - where letters have no meaning and language is unrecognizable - pictures speak. 

All over the world, primitive cultures without a written language scratched and pecked momentous events into stone. Many of those friezes depict times of loss and death; these scrawls often have a horizontal line separating stick figures above and below while some exhibit rows of humanoid figures - both upright upright and inverted. That’s how we described burial or the debarkation of the living to the world of the dead. That’s how we recorded our pain.

Also, I think this cover works for reasons you’ll understand when reading my story.

Anyway, there’s your dose of nerd for the day.

The proof read will be completed and sent to Inkshares on Wednesday the 26th of May. From there, they will merge any repairs into the final pour. After that, it’ll be a few more weeks until the E-Readers are sent to you. Paperbacks follow shortly after that.

Thanks for your support,

Sharek

Hello All,

After a conversation with Inkshares, they agreed to a summer fulfillment if I can provide the proofreading by the end of May. I’ve contracted that through Reedsy with a delivery date of 26 May. Square peg, round hole. I still have concerns; I figure there’s nothing to stop them from kicking the can down the street again. We’ll see.

I’m moving toward marketing, and some disturbing realizations are facing me. Who really wants to read this? It’s not a happy story with a happy ending. Most of it is really depressing. I thought that maybe the story of my family might be able to help families struggling with the same condition (Li Fraumeni Syndrome) as mine, but that’s a horrible idea. LFS has no turnaround. There’s no cure, and now it’s known that traditional cancer treatments aggravate it. You might add a few yeas to a life but that’s it. Everyone needs hope in a situation like that; you’ll cry to God for it but you’re staring down the barrel of a gun. I really hope those families never find this story.

I don’t know what you’ll get from my book - hell half of you probably won’t read it when you get it - and that’s fine. Maybe it’s just for those that are gone. Maybe it’s just the satisfaction of knowing all those moments wont be forgotten.

Thank you for your help. I appreciate it,

Sharek

Happy Sunday!

Just a quick update on how things are going ahead of Bane of All Things’ Nov. 9 release.

I am finalizing the manuscript with the copy editor. A copy editor scrutinizes the manuscript for the niggly things related to punctuation, American vs. Canadian spelling, and consistency with a style guide (like The Chicago Manual of Style). They are also a last pair of fresh eyes to catch things that may still be unclear to a reader or details that may be inconsistent from one end of the story to the other (like details of a character’s appearance).

The manuscript will go next to the interior designer. They will turn the manuscript from a Word doc into a stylish layout and file format ready to become an e-book and sent to the printer for the trade paperback edition.

For the cover of the book, that falls to Tim Barber of Dissect Designs, who has done a number of fantastic covers for Inkshares. I look forward to when I can share with you the real cover and that do-it-yourself placeholder down below can finally be retired.

There will be lots more work to do in the months that remain before launch day. Advance promotion is critical – this will include distribution of ARCs (advance reader copies) to generate reviews on sites like Goodreads before Nov. 9. The hope, of course, is that the reception from these advance readers will be generally positive—they get an advance copy of the book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Taking time to reflect

I found myself rather reflective this morning on the long road to get to this point.

I landed the deal with Inkshares for Bane of All Things on May 1, 2019. That’s just three years and two months after I began writing the first draft in March 2016.

That could be considered fast, especially for a debut author. On the other hand, I first started working on this idea in 1999! Two other failed versions of this story – two other full-length novels – came before. 

Over those years, I worked on other stories that might also be published someday. But I kept coming back to this one, determined to unlock its mysteries. Figuring out the best way to tell a strong and engaging story is the most difficult and the most rewarding thing that’s within my ability to do. I am compelled to do it.

While Bane of All Things was a completely fresh start from those two previous efforts – think of it like the recent Planet of the Apes reboots versus the original movies of the ‘70s – it did benefit from an already established foundation. This world and these characters were already entrenched in my mind and that made a big difference. There is absolute truth in the saying that every overnight success was years (even decades) in the making.

It remains to be seen if Bane of All Things will be a success. But no matter what happens, I remain grateful and humbled that you chose to be part of the adventure with me.

Stay safe and keep reading!

Cheers

Leo