Cheers, fellow readers and authors!

This is how I look now. This is the Madness of Mr. Haase. I am getting up far too early for my own good in order to finish and polish Mr. Butler, update Mr. Butler’s diary, and try to learn how to market and network (both actions bring me waaaay outside of my comfort zone). 

Why am I bugging you with another update? To say thank you. Cheers! (Just clink your coffee or other spirit-enhancing drink against your screen and cheers with me.) I am honored to be a part of such a unique and wonderful event such as this contest. I am getting up in the wee hours of the morning while my wife and daughter are still dreaming their own original tales and tapping away at my keyboard in order to update content for you...more chapters, more diary entries, and more interaction coming your way soon. I hope you enjoy it all. 

Don’t be afraid  to contact me for any reason. I love the potential inkshares provides for connecting with one another. 

And if you’re an author on here looking for another reader, give me a holler at madmrbutler@gmail.com and I’d be happy to arrange a pre-order trade. Or just pitch me your book...or just chat with me. You can also find me on twitter @sleepyheadwilly.

I hope everyone has a great day, or at least a better hair-day than me.

Love to all,

-Michael.

Dear Sentients,

The rollercoaster rides on.

We are a little over a week from the official launch date for The Life Engineered. Already, many of you are receiving your copies and a few of you have already devoured the book. I’m seeing so many photos of my book in your hands and receiving so many positive comments that I’m at a loss for words. Which is a terrible predicament for an author.

As we get every closer to the launch date for The Life Engineered there are a few points I want to address with you, my friends:

1. If you’ve received and read your copy of The Life Engineered and you enjoyed it (I know you did), take a trip down to Amazon and leave a review. If you’re on Goodreads, leave a review there too. Reviews are crucial to rankings and rankings are important to sales and sales are what allow me to publish a sequel.
2. I’m still working on preparing a launch party. If you’re local to Montreal, stay tuned. The moment I have a venue confirmed, I will be making an announcement. I’d love to see as many of you there as possible. I have a mailing list! Because not every one of my readers are on Inkshares, I’ve started an independent mailing list. You can sign up here. If you’d rather just receive these updates however, don’t worry, all information about The Life Engineered and it’s sequels will be posted on Inkshares too.
3. I’m going on a trip! I’m not bragging, I’m just pointing it out because I might be difficult to reach for the next week. I’ll try to receive my emails and respond as best as I can but I’ll be on a boat, so internet access will be difficult.

These are exciting times my friends and none of it would be possible without you.

As always: Thank you so much for your support. I hope you’ll stay with me for the duration of this ride. There’s some cool stuff on the way.

JF

Computer issue update #2—

As it’s very unlikely I’ll get my computer back anytime soon, and even more unlikely its contents will be intact when it does arrive, I’ve begun writing once more on my much older and slower backup computer. I’ll also be taking the sound advice to keep all of my notes and chapters backed up to the cloud to avoid this issue in the future. Rewriting my pages of notes has forced me to think about the story, and I feel as though some of my rewrites are even more detailed and better than the originals. So in a way, some good came from this after all. 

Anyway, I’ll soon be back to my old pace of a couple thousand words every few days. Look for Chapter 3 (hopefully) this weekend, as Ben Starr closes the gap between himself and Cassie even farther. All that stands between them are a mysterious set of directions and a calendar from the 1950’s.

Thank you all so much for your support! Regards,

—Jason C. 

Hey everyone,

There’s been a bit of a break between updates, but things are sort of at a point where weekly updates don’t really make sense anymore. So from now on they’ll be going out when there’s actually something to update you all about.

This is one of those times.

Some of you may have noticed that there’s a new cover. If not, well, there’s a new cover. 

Since Ghosts is being published under Quill, cover design isn’t something that’s......covered. 

To use my existing concept, I would have had to probably re-draw/paint the whole thing from scratch since it was just a cobbled together, photoshop thing. I wasn’t wholly confident in my ability to produce something publishable in that style, so I decided to try out some simpler designs.

What I’ve settled on is something that’s a bit more traditional, and feels like a more polished version of the very first cover I ever did for Ghosts. I’m pretty happy with it and I hope you all like it as well.

When I finished the cover I was in a bit of a creative groove, and in a move that’s part ’getting ahead of myself’, and part ’being prepared’ I did up some covers for the 2 sequels to Ghosts.

Here’s all three together:

What’s a Kylgor? Why does it have a shadow? And what’s in that shadow?

You’ll just have to wait until later in the year to find out...

Oh! I almost forgot... Writing is chugging along. Think of me like a duck on the water: Calm on the surface. Furiously flapping my feet at a keyboard beneath it. 

I will leave you with that image.

Until next time...

Fans of "The Children of the Forest" will no doubt be excited to see activity on the page once again. Yes, there is still life in this project, despite my extended break from Inkshares. I apologize for the long drought of inactivity, but other projects have taken my attention away from updating readers and followers like I would have otherwise liked to continue doing. 

That being said, the wait was almost certainly worth it. In your inbox, readers will find 5 new chapters available for their consumption. A lot of serious development has been occurring behind the scenes on the book. I’d like to suggest that current backers along with all of my many followers who’ve yet to pre-order a copy, head over to the book’s page and check out all of my changes and updates. There are new rewards for current and future backers, which includes collectible art and pins, booklets, and more! 

Finally, the bell is tolling for the funding campaign. While the book is still some ways away from Quill, I do believe that with one serious rally, the book could very well reach its funding goal. I’ve managed to accrue a considerable amount of credits as well, so I’m more than happy to trade pre-orders with anyone currently working on getting their own work funded. 

So go over to the book’s page, check out the new synopsis, chapters, and purchase-rewards, and then grab yourself a copy of this book! I’ve also taken the liberty of adding one of the reward pieces that come with pre-ordering the book, hope everyone enjoys ~

- Artwork of Queen Regnant Silas Des’tra. 

P.S. 

A welcome to all the new authors currently embroiled in their battle for the newest contest, Inkshare’s "Space Opera" venture! I’ve loved a lot of what I’ve glimpsed so far, and I can’t wait to back a few of the projects!