I am about halfway through the second draft. I’m a little nervous sharing, but I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished. I’ve made the first chapter available and I would appreciate any input.
Hey Campers!
Happy Wednesday!
I wanted to share this new interview I did with Inkshares author Alastair Luft. This one focuses more on my writing process.
Read the new interview here: http://www.alastairluft.com/blog
Current sales 659/750! I am so close, but sales have slowed drastically. Please continue to share my book with your friends and convince them to preorder. Remember, you can preorder up to ten copies to give away to friends, and if you become a "Super Backer" you will have access to drafts of the book before anyone else!
Thank you so much for your continued support! Have a wonderful evening!
Kyle T. Cowan
I’ve never been so thankful for a Wednesday.
First of all, A Beast Requires is closing in on a 100 backers! So far 93 people have pre-ordered 115 copies of the book, pushing it towards that first hurdle of 250 pre-orders. Yea, it’s pretty damn awesome. What isn’t awesome is that this entire month has gotten away from me. There was a carefully orchestrated schedule of events and a timeline set in place, that went out the window to find a shallow grave in the backyard. Granted my entire backyard is a shallow grave, see as it’s the place where good grass comes to die.
See, I have this job, right? It’s at night, doesn’t pay great, and ever so slightly eats away at your soul. It’s difficult to describe, mostly because of the sort of work they do. Say you’re out at the zoo, and you’re walking through the primate house, unless your zoo doesn’t have a primate house, which would make me sad. But let’s say hypothetical zoo has a hypothetical primate house, full of hypothetical primates. Now there is a spot in this hypothetical primate house, where hypothetical primates fling hypothetical poo. There’s no avoiding the spot, no matter how much you try, and before everyone leaves, they are always pelted with hypothetical poo. My job is to block the exit and ask you which hypothetical poo smells the hypothetical best.
On Monday I gave them my two week notice. On Monday I was offered a much better job. It will take me a few days to adjust to a new work schedule, but it will be much more conducive to updates. With 70 days left in the campaign, there’s a lot to get done, and expect the videos to start returning next week. Thank you all for supporting A Beast Requires. Without knowing it, you’ve all helped keep me sane and helped me to survive the hypothetical house of poo.
- Jay
Every last one of you is fantastic. I thank you sincerely and truly for helping this dream come to fruition. The timeline for final production and shipping is fluid, but I am hoping to launch sometime in late Spring, give or take. This may be as early as February but, as my old boss used to say, it’s always best to under-promise and over-deliver
Speaking of, those of you who won raffles or earned prizes; you have not been forgotten. They are coming.
To every last one of you, whether you supported this dream with a follow, a recommendation, a review or even a gorgeous, eternally beautiful pre-order: You are Magnificent. You have helped to sculpt a wonderful reality. You have earned my appreciation.
In short, Borehole Bazaar, the first book the Vow Unbroken series, is in the works and being shaped and polished to accept its physical and digital forms. And a special, extra thanks to everyone who has helped in this process.
Trivia Update:
I have done more world-building for Tantalus Depths than will even come close to actually showing on its pages. This is partly because I do intend to expand upon the universe in the future, both in direct sequels and unrelated anthology stories, but if I’m honest with myself, it’s mostly because I don’t know when to quit.
While much of the world-building I’ve done is crucial for fleshing out characters and themes within the book, there are some things I’ve crammed into the story purely because I can.
Here’s a short list of Easter eggs, hidden references, and insignificant facts you can expect to find in Tantalus Depths.
Don’t worry, there are still plenty in there that I’m not telling you about.
What else can you expect to find in Tantalus Depths? The unexpected, mostly. I’ve filled every page with layers of meaning. It’s an adventure on many levels. If Tantalus Depths affects you the way I want it to, by the time you’ve read the last page your brain will have either exploded or twisted into a knot.
Be a part of this adventure. Pre-order Tantalus Depths today!
Hi everyone! Happy Fall!
Long time, no chat, huh? It’s been about a month and a half since It’s All Fun and Games went live, and I’ve got all sorts of news to share.
The first thing is that I was fortunate enough to receive some pretty cool media attention to coincide with the release. I had a nice sit-down with John Holyoke from the Bangor Daily News, and I was featured both in their online paper and on the front page of the Lifestyle section. IAFAG also was in a segment on the 207, a statewide public interest show that airs nightly in Bangor and Portland. It was fun hearing people tell me that they’d seen or read about me. Look out Kardashians, I’m coming for you.
I’ve also been out and about for a couple public appearances. I had my first public book signing at The Briar Patch in downtown Bangor. If you live locally, make sure you stop on by – it’s a wonderful store filled with books, games, and other things that the little people in your life will enjoy. And then at the end of August I was the featured presenter the Orono-Old Town Kiwanis (which, having just recently seen Calendar Girls at Penobscot Theatre Company (Season Tickets Still Available!), makes me chuckle at the role of “featured presenter”), where I talked about NANOWRIMO, Inkshares, and all the nuggets of stuff that go into making the sausage we call a novel.
I had the horrifying experience of being asked by my award winning voice actor, Cassandra Lee Morris, how to pronounce a few words and realizing that I never really thought about how those combinations of letters would actually sound. Garbaldar is a tricky one to roll off the tongue, and don’t even ask me how to pronounce Gahrauah. I actually just punted and told her to make something up. Memo to me – read all future novels aloud before sending them for publishing and make sure the names are actually pronounceable. If you’d like to read more about Cassandra, you can visit her web page here. She’s pretty impressive, that’s for sure!
Sales have remained steady, though they have tapered off somewhat. Word of mouth is a wonderful thing, so if you know anyone who might be interested in It’s All Fun and Games, have them swing by their Friendly Local bookstore or Amazon and pick up a copy. Or grab it on an e-reader, or in a week or two the ebook!
Also, if you’ve read the book, please swing by Amazon, Goodreads, and (if you have an account) Barnes And Noble and leave a review. They don’t need to be long – “I really liked it” is plenty! I’m currently sitting at 51 reviews on Amazon, but there were 578 people who preordered the book. It’ll take just a few moments of your time, and can make a huge difference. We haven’t yet broken into B&N’s retail stores (which would be instantly several thousand copies sold), but a couple hundred reviews on Amazon and Goodreads would make a pretty convincing argument.
In fact, go do it now. I’ll wait.
….
See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? And now you have a warm fuzzy cause you know you did me a solid. Speaking of which, I’ve had a number of people tell me that they’ve let the book around their office or circle of friends. That’s great, and I hope your friends all enjoyed the book too. Please ask all those folks to leave me a review as well. 3 minutes of clicking and typing is a great price to pay for a novel.
So, I think that’s all the news that’s news. You may or may not have received an email from Inkshares regarding new contests. There are three right now. Of perhaps the most immediate interest to backers of It’s All Fun and Games are the Geek and Sundry Fantasy Contest and the Crypt TV Horror Contest. If you’ve got any interest in helping another author fund their novel, here are some suggestions of books written by some of the buddies I’ve met throughout my own contest process –
Phew! That was long! Thank you again for all your support, and I promise not to wait so long between mailings next time!
Short update just to show I’m still alive. Writing is continuing steadily as the end draws ever closer for the final draft of The Children of the Forest. In the meantime, enjoy another preview of a possible cover for the final version. Have a great week everyone ~
P.S. Preoders are always welcome. If you’ve followed along with my little passion project but have yet to grab a copy, I’d suggest taking a look at the sample chapters provided, and if you enjoy what you see, why not grab a digital version (or 10) I’m just saying...