Greetings, everyone!

I’ll keep this update short and sweet.

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The bad news is, I’ve been sick all week. So, the trailer is put on hold this week.

The good news is, the extra time at home resting has also given me opportunities to write and polish my work, and I’ve posted, not one but, two new chapters in a week!

I’d appreciate any comments and feedback. Also, if you haven’t preordered yet, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks so much.

Happy reading!

Last week I fought dragons.

 

And we will always fight them. It doesn’t matter how well you plan, or how much you;ve organized yourself, a dragon will always rise. The dragon might be a massive creature, casting a shadow that devours all light. The dragons might be tiny, fearsome beasts, nipping and snarling as they clutter around your path. There will always be dragons, and we will always fight them.

Last week I fought dragons. I knew they were coming; that their approach was only a matter of time. I felt them out there, looming where the light ends. I know my dragons well, after all, that’s a big reason why I write humor. For now the dragons are gone, and though I am a little wearier, I will continue to push forward. A Beast Requires lives, and so do I.

Hey there, readers!

My TimeHop app on my phone just informed me that today marks two anniversaries...

1) Today is one year to the day since I joined Inkshares and started my book campaign.
2) 26 years since the classic Disney cartoon TaleSpin premiered in 1990.

Anyone around my age probably has the theme song stuck in their head now. You’re welcome. (If not, here you go)

They really just don’t make them like they used to. Seriously though, bush pilots and air pirates in 1930s-40s style serial adventures? This is the kind of stuff that fuels me. Granted, Dax takes place in the far future, but the spirit is the same.

Speaking of which, I hope you all are enjoying the early ebook! I am both excited and terrified to hear your reviews. :) In the meantime, I’m continuing to occupy myself with a few things on my to-do list.

1) A proper book trailer
2) Scraping together all my notes and carving out an outline for Dax 2. Ooooh I want to talk about it so bad but I don’t want to spoil anything!

I’ve also updated the synopsis on the book project page to better reflect what I think might be the back cover copy. Again, I’ll keep you all posted on the publishing date.

Until next time!

Okay so 3 orders almost a third of the campaign doesn’t seem hugely promising, but I hope that can change. If not I fully intend to get my book published whatever way possible, but for the time being I’m begging anyone interested in my book to check out-maybe leave a review-anything. I know it’s a lot to ask to purchase a book but even a recommendation could make later attempts much easier. That’s all I really have to say today and is all I’ve really been saying for a while.

So for the time being have a great day. I hope all your projects meet with far more success than mine.

I want to do something a little different this week for my reader updates.
I’ve been slaving away at this campaign for five whole months now, with more than another whole month to go. It’s been exhausting, at times very discouraging, and always very stressful. I’ve been hit with huge obstacles that threatened to bring the whole campaign down, and yet in spite of all that, I’ve come really far. This campaign has grown and become something I honestly never really believed it could. We are, in spite of it all, well on our way to full funding, and I do believe we’ll get there.
I’ve worked my butt off to get here, and you’ve all been immensely supportive. That, honestly, is where the real credit goes. No matter how much time and effort I put into this campaign, it couldn’t have gone anywhere at all without the incredible support from friends and strangers alike.

But not everyone on Inkshares gets that kind of response to their projects.

An unfortunate but inevitable aspect of the Inkshares platform is that, just by nature of how crowdfunding works, it isn’t strictly a meritocracy. People who are good at campaigning stand a better chance of hitting their publication goals than people who are good at writing. I, for one, freely admit that I am terrible at campaigning. I’ve gotten this far as much from luck as anything else. But not everyone here is lucky. I’ve seen so many promising books fail to hit their goals simply because they could not find their audience.

Well...I have an audience. I’ve amassed a surprisingly decent-sized following. Obviously I still need that following to grow larger before Tantalus Depths will be able to get fully funded, but I’m getting there, and I have time. 

So this is what I’m doing this week: for this week, I’m taking a break from actively campaigning Tantalus Depths (at least as far as my reader updates go) and I’m going to spend it trying to bring projects to my supporters’ attention. Each day, until the end of the week, I’m going to highlight a different book that I think really deserves at least as much attention as mine. Please check them out, and seriously consider supporting these projects. Each of them is extremely promising and fully deserves your notice.

I’m kicking this week of recommendations off with One of the tenacious top 3 books in Geek and Sundry’s Fantasy Contest: Storm Song

(This awesome cover was made by another Fantasy Contest top-ten placeholder, Kaytalin Platt, author of The Living God. Check her out too.)

Storm Song forgoes the obvious Tolkeinesque high-fantasy route favored by so many of the fantasy contest’s less original and distinctive entrants in favor of a much simpler, yet endlessly promising premise. This is a story of adventure on the high seas: a true tale of swashbucklery.

It’s a tale of luck (good and bad), of discovery, of danger, daring, and dark magic. The book reads like an old salt’s tall tales in a seaside tavern; Allison’s writing has an effortless flow that almost makes you hear the deck boards creak beneath you, feel the roll of the waves and smell the salt in the air. Storm Song may very well have been transcribed directly from some old forgotten sea shanty and set down expertly in narrative form for our enjoyment. Reading the sample chapters is enrapturing: you’ll finish reading her excerpts before you fully realize you’ve begun.

If you’re interested in an epic tale of seaborne wonder and adventure, place a pre-order for Storm Song. You’ll never regret it.

 Well my friends, we did not win a Dragon Award. I was however at the ceremony and must say, it’s a privilege to have been nominated in the first year. There was a level of class (though some tremendous mispronunciation of my name) in these proceedings.

The Dragon Awards, if the they follow this course, may just be the classy award for fan favourite media that we’ve been hoping for. Not that other awards aren’t great, but Dragon Con has always been ’the people’s con’ and having been there myself, I can see why. So it makes sense that their award would follow that ideology.

In other news, I have to apologize. I had grandiose plans to have the campaign for Arch-Android, the sequel to The Life Engineered, ready for this coming weekend. I can’t say that this will be possible. Other obligations have piled up and I have to postpone. Worry not, the campaign is coming and the book will be in the spirit of the first one.

Thanks again for your continued support. Next year... we’ll get that award next year.

JF

Hello my Knightmares!

I have something special to announce. As of last Wednesday, we officially hit 250! So in visual hyperbole, here’s a 250 point font of the number 250 for your viewing pleasure!

The Knightmares will officially be made into a book for everyone to read. This is the benchmark I needed to hit, and I couldn’t be happier that we made it. 

Thanks to everyone who has bought a copy, those of you who promoted me for the sake of friendship, or just because you’re an awesome person and wanted to see my dream become a reality. You’re all awesome in my book (Ha, book! Get it?).

A special shout out to Jamison Stone (buy his book here!) for helping me to grab several extra orders last week. And another special shout out to Lisa Van Brunt, who nabbed the 250th order to put me over the top.

As the last 24 days run down, please grab an extra copy for a friend, or if you’re one of those people who waits until the last moment to jump on the bandwagon, do it now! Let’s run this up as close to 300 as possible, if not more!

Thanks again, and stay tuned for more updates to come!

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Here is an awesome picture by Phil Rood to celebrate a day off work, some tasty demon hearts, and the workers that brought us this holiday!