Hello Readers and Followers!

We are in the last month of my funding campaign for Fae Child. This has been a great journey - not that it’s been easy, or even fun at times - but it’s been a time of stretching who I am as a person and learning what I really want out of all this.

Obviously publication is still my goal. Fae Child will be published, I promise you that. With 93 copies left to sell and 24 days in which do to it, my confidence that Inkshares is the place where this will happen is waning. If you have been waiting to swoop in and order at the last second, like Gandalf the White riding in to Helm’s Deep to save the day, then now is the time! Preorder your copy!

I will remind you that Fae Child has been backed by three syndicates here on Inkshares. The last thing I want is to fail in the face of such support. Your personal recommendations are worth their weight in gold to me, and I am incredibly grateful for (and a little in awe of) all the reviews and recommendations Fae Child has already gotten. Thank you.

If you haven’t ordered yet, please consider doing so! The campaign will end on Feb 28th and refunds will be going out in March if we do not hit at least 250 orders before then.

Thank you again, for all your support. I can’t do this, and couldn’t have come this far, without you.

Jane-Holly

Welcome to February everyone! By now, hopefully everyone has gotten their books. Some of you, may have started reading by now. So I’ve come to bring you artwork;

This is an image of a hairless squirrel cat rodent rat demon thingy that steals tacos and eats pizza. His name is Sparkles. 

Say Hello. Brandwyn did this wonderful little critter, and is working on another demon that will be revealed later. You can find more of her artwork here. 

Now this brings us to reviews! If you’ve read the book (liked or disliked) I would very much appreciate it if you left me a review. Rankings, Algorithms, Search Engines, are all based on reaching bench-marks of reviews--so the more reviews I get, the better chances the book has out in the wild. 

Audible: (For those Audio Folks:): Click Here

Amazon: Click Here. 

GoodReads: Click Here

Barnes and Noble: Click Here. 

Pick your flavor of website. Hell, pick all of them if you really are feeling ambitious. 

Finally, I just want to say thank you to everyone for all the support. The book is finally out! From here on out, I’ll be posting updates through here maybe once a month. Based on new artwork, con news, or other progress updates on the sequel. I’ve also got a short story about Akira I’ll be bringing out this year as well. 

Gah! ~Rick. 

1. School Visit # 1
   
2. I have a $10 Inkshares coupon burning a hole through my pocket and don’t know how to spend it?
3. In production
4. NEXT ISSUE...

1.) School Visit #1

Thanks to a KOD backer and parent, I was lucky enough to have a school visit in early January at the impressive ACE Academy in Austin, Texas. If you’re ever in need of a healthy dose of self-morale and an unbelievably energetic hour--no espresso needed--, visit a school! 

I gave out a ton of illustrated bookmarks and they asked excellent questions the entire session. I look forward to my return visit in the Spring for a creative writing project! I promise I’ll bring a box of actual books down the road...

When I told them my first significant piece of writing was for an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons module, they all chanted "D&D! D&D!" How cool is that?

They had no trouble spotting the "Easter Eggs" in my illustrations without any prompting whatsoever. 

A future author! 

2.) I have a $10 Inkshares coupon burning a hole through my pocket and don’t know how to spend it?

I’ve been getting this question recently. You supported our project, and Inkshares sent you a $10 coupon to support another project. Now perhaps time is running out or you don’t know what to do with it, or what to spend it on? 

Never fear. Open the mail with your Inkshares coupon. Go to Inkshares through the link in that message. You should see a $10 credit applied to your account. As time permits, I’ll be recommending projects that I think worthy of your support. 

Here’s the first one:

Fae Child by Jane-Holly Meissner. Like our project, it’s a fantasy intended for young adults. To quote the author: "A child slips through a portal into the land of the Fae and traverses the Otherworld with the help of a young elf, while her parents are left to deal with the changeling that was left in her place. ALICE IN WONDERLAND meets TAKEN"

Perhaps you’ll never read this or any other project that you select on Inkshares, but know this: Don’t waste your coupon! And coupon or not, at the other end is a hopeful author that will be VERY appreciative of your support. This site can make dreams come true. 

3.) In production...

So things are moving along, but before I speed it up to ludicrous speed and involve a professional editor and get to finishing the illustrations, I wanted to get some meaningful feedback on the first few chapters. I think the prologue is covered, but please feel free to let me know what you like or don’t like about the new Chapter 1 I sent yesterday. Pretty please? You can leave comments, highlight certain sections, etc. Again, you can find Chapter 1 here.

I’ve decided to post one more chapter in the villain’s voice to make sure we’re on target with tone, but then: it’s some quick editing and off to the races!

4.) NEXT ISSUE...

I grew up collecting comics, and one of the things I loved was to immediately flip to the back and preview the NEXT ISSUE page to see what might be coming. Sacrilege to some of you, I know. But hey, I had to walk a mile to the nearest 7-Eleven across a busy intersection to get my beloved comics. It was worth the peak in the store in case something happened on the way back! 

So coming up: I have a long awaited blog forthcoming. A pretty crazy casting call, and well... I’ll save the other news for down the road and not get too far ahead of myself. 

Thanks everyone. Stay well, and continue to tell new backers about our project!

Best,

Kevin

Hello everyone!

Wanted to send out a quick update. There are just about two weeks left in the funding window for "Shadow King!"

So that means there is still an opportunity for new readers to pre-order their very own copy at a discounted price (and signed to boot if you order a paperback!). It would be a great pre-Valentine’s Day gift to see that order number start to tick up.

And the manuscript received a lovely review from J.T.R. Russell as well (thank you, sir!). Reviews from readers are extremely important, so if you’ve read the sample chapters, please take 5 minutes out of your day and leave a review.

So what’s next? 

I’m going to get back to a bit more promotion in the next two weeks. Lately I’ve been pushing to incorporate feedback from the Launchpad judges into the manuscript so that it is in the best possible shape when I turn it in to Inkshares. (And I’m very happy with how it is turning out!)

I’ll keep you all posted as we start the countdown to the close of the funding window!

Take care,

Susan

Hello Adventure Readers!

Quick bit of news - If you’re a Western Fan, there is a BookBub promotion going on for the ebook version of my 2nd Western Novel "T.H. Elkman".  Get it on Amazon and other online retailers for $1.99 for a limited time.  I am usually notified of these promotions beforehand, but yesterday I checked out the title on Amazon and the book had shot up in ranking to #109 out of over a million books.  Not bad for a Cowboy writer with a passion for seaplanes!

https://www.amazon.com/T-H-Elkman-Western-Novel/dp/1510711864/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485622097&sr=8-1&keywords=th+elkman

No release schedule update for "Wings of the Pirate" yet.  The small dedicated staff of Inkshares has us on the radar and will be moving it forward as soon as they can. 

More info as I get it ...

Sincerely,

Eric H. Heisner

www.leandogproductions.com

It’s been almost a month since my last update on Human Resources, and I’m pleased to report that month has been productive. I have now completed the second draft of the novel and handed it over to Inkshares for editing.

Thanks to the support of my wife, I was able to take January off to focus on this process. There was a lot of work required to complete the second draft — every existing scene was re-written and thirty-one new scenes added, rounding out the story. The manuscript grew from approximately 58k words, to 70.3k words, then settled back to just under 70k.

This is a critical milestone. From here, the formal editing process begins. There are three stages of editing with Inkshares; developmental, copy, then proof-reading. 

The developmental edit is structural: 

• Is the pacing right? 
• Are there any plot holes? 
• Does this character make sense? 
• Does this sub-plot go anywhere interesting? 
  

The developmental edit should take about three months.

The copy edit is technical. It focuses primarily on grammar and spelling, helping make the writing as clean as possible. This edit takes about one month.

Proof reading is the final step, fresh eyes are given the completed manuscript to read cover to cover and provide feedback. When working on the previous two editing stages, you can lose perspective by spending so much time working on specific details. This stage helps make sure the novel "works." This stage takes about one month.

In parallel to the editing, the publisher will have designers working on cover designs etc. I’ve been told who will be working on Human Resources and I’m excited about it. I’m waiting for confirmation as to whether it is something I can announce — stay tuned...

If you would like more details about the publishing process with Inkshares, and what will happen at each stage, the company recently released a post about it here.

New Excerpts

The novel page on Inkshares has several excerpts available to read from the first part of the book. Their platform enables readers to highlight sections they like, and add comments to discuss with other readers and the author. Up until now, I’ve left these excerpts alone as much as possible. I’ve received some great engagement from the community, with a lot of comments and interactions on the excerpts. However, with the second draft finished, I needed to update these excerpts with newer versions. This is now done, so don’t be thrown if all the comments have disappeared. Hopefully, you’ll all agree the new versions are an improvement.

Mailing List

I’ve started an author mailing list and will be sending out a monthly newsletter to people who subscribe. There will be some overlap with my Human Resources updates, but the newsletter will be broader; it will include some of my short stories, blog articles on writing, and information on other projects I become involved in. You can sign up here (and obviously unsubscribe any time if you find it isn’t for you).

Other Projects

I wanted to take an opportunity to highlight some other interesting projects currently funding on Inkshares:  

• Arcadia, Andre Brun: Peter Pan meets The King in Yellow. Ten strangers must band together and find a way to defeat Suelitta before they lose what is left of their sanity (Horror).
• The Walls are Closing In, Jacqui Castle: Decades after The Seclusion, during which America constructed massive border walls and sealed itself off from the outside world, thirty-one year old Patricia Evans lives within the panoptic nightmare of a total surveillance state (Dystopian).
• How to Kiss Like a Movie Star, Leslie Nipkow: What happens when a real-size girl decides to become a movie star? How to Kiss Like a Movie Star is a love story: tragic, funny, unrequited, and occasionally illegal, about death, acting, boxing, breast cancer, secrets, and soap opera (Memoire).
• King’s Daughter, Julia Bobkoff: King’s Daughter brings to life the 10th century saga of the spirited Danish warrior princess Thyra Haraldsdatter and the man she loved and lost, Norway’s legendary maverick King Olaf Tryggvason—a tale of love, war, betrayal, and redemption (Historical Fiction).
• The Phantom Forest, Liz Kerin: In a war-torn tribal city inhabited by mystical spirits, a young woman named Seicha is ritually sacrificed to a demon and must navigate the dangers of the Underworld to protect the family she left behind from beyond the grave (Fantasy).