Hello Treasure Hunters & Readers!  

I put the names of all the readers in a bowl and had my two kids alternate the 10 picks for Lucky Winners of the "Wings of the Pirate - Adventure Coloring Book".  Here are the winners in no particular order:

Nicola Sarjeant

Easton

Cardy O’Donnell

Jim Nichols

Tyrolin Puxty

David Von Ancken

Amanda Denise

Adam Mock

Michael B. Smith

Bonnie Dho

And ...  The Grand Prize winner of the hand-painted model Grumman Seaplane is: Larry Chillipepperkid Giles!!

All you special winners, please contact me at Leandogs@gmail.com with your best mailing address and I will ship your prize right out to you.

Congratulations to the winners and a huge Thank You to everyone who made the publication of "Wings of the Pirate" possible!  We still have a few more weeks in the preorder campaign (Nov. 20th), so continue spreading the word and keep the orders coming in.  We are one of the few books on Inkshares that made the publication preorder goal in the more expensive, quality hardcover version - Great Job!

Sincerely,

Eric H. Heisner

"Wings of the Pirate - Adventure Coloring Book":  https://www.amazon.com/Wings-Pirate-Adventure-Coloring-Book/dp/153972851X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478476380&sr=8-1&keywords=wings+of+the+pirate

Hello, all! Hope you’re having a fantastic weekend. It’s a gloomy Saturday here in the north of England - fantastic weather for getting stuck into a bit of writing! So far today, I’ve made just over 3,000 words of progress on Witherfist today, and will be looking to do the same tomorrow.

In terms of preorder stats, there isn’t much to update you on. Since the end of the contest, the number of new readers joining the campaign has been relatively small. Currently, it’s sitting at 195 copies ordered. 

There are now a whopping 241 of you following the book. To anyone who has yet to purchase their copy, please take a look at the sample chapters and consider making your preorder today. If you’re already ordered, I would be incredibly grateful if you could share your interest with this book with one of your friends or family members. We need to reach 250 preorders by December 31st to ensure that this book is published. 

I know that we can do this. Thanks for your support,

~ Jenny

The Geek & Sundry fantasy contest ends on November 1st. Eek! Though Witherfist is a good 100 readers shy of reaching the top 3 - and the prize of guaranteed full publication from Inkshares - I am so thrilled and humbled by the amount of support the book has received.  While the contest is active, I want to push the book as high as possible in the top 10.  At the time of writing, Witherfist is tantalisingly close to the number 7 spot in the top 10, thanks in part to all of the new readers who have joined the campaign this week.  

I shared in a previous update some work in progress art, and now I’m happy to present the finished piece. Here is Karaben the Imperial interogator in all her glory. 

~ Jenny

Hi all,

Some of you — those who follow me on Facebook — may already know this. Overnight Inkshares sent out an announcement to competitors in The Launchpad Manuscript Competition; they have extended the duration of the crowdfunding competition. Originally, this competition (one part of the overall competition process) was due to finish on 8 November (PST), just four short days away. It will now finish on 16 December — for those keeping track, that changes the duration from approx three weeks to eight. At the time I’m writing this, there has been no public announcement, but I’m assuming it isn’t far off. 

I’ve blogged about the date change on my website here: https://robertbatten.net/2016/11/05/the-launchpad-manuscript-competition-announcement-date-change/

TL;DR: I’m disappointed, as we were close to the finish line and in a good position. With an additional five weeks of campaigning, this becomes anyone’s game again.  

You have all been an important source of support through the campaign so far — and I don’t just mean pre-orders. The personal words of encouragement, the recommendations on Inkshares, and the wonderful posts on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for that, it has been overwhelming. Now, I will soldier on, keep campaigning, and — with your help — prove to be the little Tasmanian who could.

If you can keep working with me to see Human Resources published, it would be fantastic. We need to keep spreading the word to find new supporters!

Note: I try to limit myself to weekly updates so as not to become a nuisance, but I felt this announcement deserved to be sent out immediately.

Cheers,

Robert

https://www.inkshares.com/books/human-resources

Hello, 

As you all know the contest has come to an end and today my campaign ends. Although I didn’t get a lot of orders the support and encouragement that I got was amazing. Those of you who actually did order a copy I cant express what that means even though I didn’t make it. This contest was full of amazing stories and I was glad to be a part of it. Admittedly, I wasn’t ready for it but it was certainly a learning experience I will use in the future. So what does this mean for me and my book? Only that my dream will take a little longer. I’m going to keep writing this story and when I believe I’m ready I’ll try again. Shadow demons aren’t the only thing that can return with a vengeance. Sorry....lame joke  :P

So whats next then? I’m going to focus on finishing the book. Occasionally, I’ll still post here and give you all an update of what I’m doing (next week I’m thinking about making a post of the Qivar hierarchy). What a great month to make some progress too right? I didn’t know about NaNoWriMo but I’m doing my best to catch up for my late start. Also as my small social circle didn’t yield anything and my attempts of advertising outside of it didn’t do much, i’ll be trying to figure out a plan on how to spread the word better. If anyone has any options or advice on that they’d like to share please let me know. 

 Once again thank you everyone. I hope you’ll all continue to stay with me and we can rally again to make some magic happen in the future.
-jacob

I am atwitter with excitement to be sharing the new cover of Overture!  In keeping with the crowdsourcing/crowdfunding tradition, I headed on out to designcrowd.com and ran a challenge for a new cover design.  The winner is this beautiful piece from freelance artist Diana Buidoso.  It captures the feel of the book so well, and I’m over the moon.  Thank you Diana and Designcrowd!

Hey everyone,

A quick update of where our project stands and its immediate future:

1.      Contest Over
2.     Campaign NOT Over Until 12/31/2016!
3.     Raffle Winners
4.     NANOWRIMO/Book Update

1. Contest Over

So after a brutal 3 months, the Geek & Sundry fantasy contest is over. First off, congrats to the winners and other participants that also receive these updates. Contest highlights:

• We finished tied for 12th out of 406 entries in the official results. Thanks so much for everyone’s support for a respectable showing. Not too shabby, but there’s still work to do.

• In total pre-sales, we finished in 10th place at 179 pre-sales. A very cool stat as it means most of my backers are ordering multiple copies of my book. Without you, there’s zilcho chance of being published! 

• I didn’t jump off a bridge after not finishing in the top 3. Here’s a link to the final standings for visual learners like myself. 

2. Campaign NOT Over Until 12/31/2016!

So my campaign will now run until 12/31/2016. While we are edging close to the 200 pre-order mark, 250 pre-orders is still the magic number to hit. We are 71 orders away from Kingdom of Dreams becoming a reality. Please help me flip over any rocks you can to find new backers and if you have another pre-order planned, please do so. I’ve officially fired myself as campaign manager and appointed my tenacious family members to help get this thing across the finish line. My family and friends have been amazing during this process.

3. Raffle Winners

Will be drawn this week. We’ve had a sick baby, family events and a couple of conferences to deal with, including more this week. Thank you for your patience. In fact, the next update will be dedicated to the raffle. 

4. NANOWRIMO/Book Update

National novel writing month started yesterday. Why bring this up, other than the obvious? One fascinating thing I’ve learned in working on the illustrations for this book is they have unintentionally changed the tone of the original novel. (And for the better, I have some exciting new spices to add!) I was fine for the most part with the happenings in the story, but the tone itself no longer matched up with the illustrations. So other than Dromon the Recurring Nightmare’s chapters, I’m going to rework the other chapters and use NANOWRIMO as my fuel this month. I’ll be posting some chapters and excerpts as I go along. 

So to recap: I appreciate the contest and the activity it allowed to happen. But I’m thankful it’s over and now we can focus full-time on getting published! 

Pleasant dreams,

Kevin

8th place! I’m absolutely chuffed with that, dear readers. 

To have placed in the top 10 of a contest full of wonderful stories and equally wonderful authors is a real honour. 

Though Witherfist didn’t place high enough to win the contest, the book’s funding campaign continues. The funding period for Witherfist ends on December 31st, so I will be doing everything I can until that date to ensure that the book reaches at least 250 preorders. I would love to hit the full publication threshold of 750 preorders, but to reach that level, I’d need a lot of help from all of you fantastic people who make Inkshares such an incredible, supportive community. 

I hope to have a book trailer video to share with you soon, but in the meanwhile - please continue to share Witherfist with anyone that you think might be interested in preordering. 

~ Jenny

PS. There’s one other contest I haven’t fogotten about! I’ve contacted the two winners of the Amazon voucher giveaway and am just waiting on confirmation of their details, to send out the vouchers.