A little early concept art of what the ending of chapter 19 might look like:



So we’ve released 19 chapters as of today. So far you’ve met our entire principal cast and so far they’ve been leading very different lives seemingly very far apart from each other. We’ve done this so that you, as the story experiencer, really get a sense of how large our universe is and just how each character lives before we throw them together and all hell breaks loose.

One of the things we wanted to target with this rewrite was the development of the characters earlier on in this story. Two unanimous points of feedback we received with the original version of The amaranth was that the characters need just a tiny bit more fleshing out so that we could feel how different and disparate their lives were and how amazing and heart pounding our 3rd act was. We’re not touching the second half of this story nearly as much as we have the first part.

A few of you have been so kind as to shoot us your feedback and we are so grateful!

Chapter Two is live!  I’m so happy to introduce you to Dax and his crew. I can’t wait to here what you think.

Hello everyone! This competition is incredibly close, and I am honored to be a part of it. I am incredibly thankful for all of your support...I am humbled to be in the top ten, let alone the top 3! There’s still just under a month to go, so anything could happen...I still need any support you’re willing to give, either by spreading the word or by pre-ordering your own copy if you haven’t yet! 

Hello, Traveller’s Cup Supporters!

I’ve got a lot of exciting updates to share with you. 

First, we’re still in the top 10! Barely hanging in, but we’re there. I want to be completely transparent with you. If you haven’t checked out the actual contest standings, we have 37 pre-orders. That’s it. This contest is spread-out and close. To give you a comparison, the current second-place holder is sitting at 72. This is an extremely tight race, and every single pre-order counts. If you’ve held back thinking it won’t make a difference, I assure you it will. 

Second piece of news: the latest chapter preview. If you didn’t notice it in your inbox yesterday, we continued to follow Damaus after his name was called for the Cup. I decided to keep going sequentially for this one because there’s a lot of detail and worldbuilding that I think is important to the later story. If you did or didn’t like the piece, please let me know on Twitter at @ac_baldwin. You guys are my backers, which means we’re partners in this. Your feedback is important to me. 

Third piece of news: This Friday, February 19, from 8:30am to 10:30am EST (UTC-5), I’ll be taking questions about my book and writing on Twitter using the hashtag #TheTravellersCup. Everyone who asks a question will be entered into a draw to name a space dragon!

I’ve got a lot of ideas bubbling up in my head to get more people engaged in this book, like sketching out characters and places, and maybe another contest or two, but I want to hear from you guys. What great ideas do you have to get the word out? Or if you’re someone who hasn’t ordered, what can I do to convince you The Traveller’s Cup is worth your pre-order?

Your tireless space-writer,
-AC

225 preorders - WOW! I feel like we ought to have a balloon drop or something! Thank you all SO much...

Let’s talk about reviews.

Make no mistake - this is the Big Ask. This is more important than you pre-ordering the book in the first place. This is what separates a nifty thing I made for all of you from a CULTURAL JUGGERNAUT. This is what takes the signal from AM to FM. This is what gets me closer to the dream. This is what gets you closer to owning a highly-prized First Edition Asteroid Made of Dragons instead of owning a Dusty Paperback Your Friend Wrote One Time.

When you receive your copy (soon!) and you turn the last page of the story proper - before the Acknowledgements, before the Author Info, before anything - I’ve added in an Author’s Plea. It’s a bald-faced request for a review. That is how important it is. More powerful than marketing, more potent than cover design, more influential than scores of social media posts - an honest review is what makes people read new books.

Sidebar: an honest review. What do I mean by that? I mean don’t just run  and give me all 5 stars to help out.  It will not hurt my feelings if you think AMOD is a 4 star book, or a 3 star, or a...2 star....or.....a.......1.........(faints)

Where am I? Who took my pants and replaced them with no pants? An honest review is what I want and what new readers need. I have personally read and loved books BECAUSE of bad reviews. The thing one person hated about a book - lo and behold was exactly why I knew I would LOVE the book. An honest reaction to a book - warts and all - is invaluable, because it cannot be bought. It cannot be manufactured in a Marketing Department. I almost always read a couple of reviews or articles before I try out a book that is an unknown quantity - most readers are the same.

Here’s a review I just wrote for The Life Engineered by JF Dubeau. I think a lot of you know that we’re bunkmates on the Sword & Laser shelf, and if you like great worldbuilding and robots this book was written just for you. I really liked it  - but I had some cranky quibbles, and I was honest about them here. As far as I know, JF has not launched any Capek assassins in my direction - fingers crossed. This is the type of review I love to get. Feedback, validation, criticism - what you liked, what you didn’t. I’m still growing as a writer and I benefit immensely from this kind of data.

One last thing: I need 100 reviews on Amazon. 

That’s the magic number, the tipping point if you will for that site’s algorithms to take more notice of the book. Amazon is the 500 lb. gorilla for better or worse and for the book to succeed, that’s the platform the book needs to be visible on. If 1 out of 4 of my followers here on Inkshares leaves a review - we’ll hit the magic number.  Actual written reviews are better, but even just taking the time to leave a star rating is all that is needed. 

Okay - I’ve yammered about this enough FOR TODAY. It’s just over six weeks until the official launch of AMOD, so I’ll be bringing this UP again. Give me some feedback here - does this make you feel weird and imposed upon? What other sort of topics can I regale you with?

As always - thank you so much for your support and attention. Crazy to think we’re coming up on the year anniversary of the Sword & Laser Contest that started this all in motion.

Hello Friends

I was waiting for the book’s release date to be set before sending my next update, but that seems to be taking a little longer than expect it. So, in the meantime, I’ll share the latest regarding the production of The Catcher’s Trap.

Last week I had my kickoff meeting with my Production Editor at Girl Friday, Bethany Davis, and Marketing gurus Avalon Radys and Matt Kaye from Inkshares. I’m not going to bore you with the details of the meeting. The following GIF represents my feelings afterwards.

If everything goes according to schedule, the book will be fully edited by mid-June. After that, there are many other pieces to the process, including the whole marketing side, which will be another four months, at least. My hope is releasing the book in November, but, at the end of the day, is not up to me.

What I can tell you is that there is a dedicated group of people working hard to make sure  The Catcher’s Trap is a great book that you will enjoy.

I also met my developmental editor, Ryan Boudino. Ryan is an author and has a lot of experience with the fantasy genre. So I think we are going to make a good team.

This is all incredibly exciting and still hard to believe. There are so many people to thank, including all of you, but especially those who went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure my book funded. You know who you are and, trust me, your names will be printed in the book’s acknowledgment page.

If you want to read some of my writing while you wait for The Catcher, follow my project Ysolda and The Coven of Fire. I will be adding chapters regularly to gather plenty of feedback before I go into funding mode (it will be a long time before that)

Lastly, there are over 100 people following this project who have not pre-order the book. I encourage you to do it. If you are hesitant, and you want to learn more, or if you are an author and you want to make a swap, reach me at ricardophenriquez@yahoo.com.

Have a fantastic rest of your week.�

30 days left and 62 pre-orders. Am I downhearted? Nope. 
188 to reach Quill, but with the possibility of an extension, this is do-able.
My thanks in particular to Thomas J. Arnold for the review and recommendation. Wow. That bolstered my ego no end. Thanks also to everyone who has pre-ordered, and especially those who have shared on social media.

Yesterday I co-presented a book themed radio show on my local station. I was joined by published author Simon Dawson and we had a blast. 
I read the weather in a variety of literary styles as suggested by Simon and we interviewed each other about our books. Not that anyone ordered the book as a result, but it was fun. I promoted Inkshares as well.

I have paid Facebook to put my posts in front of avid readers and lovers of historical fantasy although $15 later I have had three click-throughs and two followers. I’ll have another crack at that though as it may yet bear fruit. My Facebook author page is https://www.facebook.com/ollitooley/

I am also giving £1 (that’s $1.45) to Cancer Research for every pre-order between 02/08 and 02/29 £12 ($8) so far, but I hope to be paying out three figures on March 1st. This is regardless of whether I hit my funding goal or not, so don’t be afraid to order now. 

My Twitter account just for me as an author was set up in January, and now has over a thousand followers. I didn’t pay for any of them. Tweet me @OTooleyAuthor 

There are a few lovely but technologically inept friends who want a paperback copy but don’t want to pay $15 for postage. Some have no online presence (my mum) or are having technophobe issues. For those people I will be using a friend’s account to buy up to 10 copies. This will be genuine demand, so I am not "gaming the system" hope that’s ok.

On the subject of pre-order exchanges.  There are numerous books that I have a sincere interest in reading but were I to buy all of them with my credit card, I would very rapidly go bankrupt. I’m sure many other authors feel the same way so if you are not pre-ordering my book for a genuine lack of funds you can always ask me if I am having the same problem with your book.