Three days left.
One thing I realized is that in my rush to send out the update yesterday, I neglected to thank my parents, who have watched me sweating bullets since this contest began and were quick with encouragement. During one especially stressful morning, my dad, Avi, took me aside, and with his heavy Hebrew accent said, "Tal. What are you worried about? You are my son. You will win." And my mom, Yona, who has the superpower of overhearing anything my dad says regardless of where he is, said, "Avi, you don’t know that he will win." To which my dad responded sternly, "Yes, Yona, I know." And that was it. The universe was compelled to act.
Since yesterday, I’ve received lots of emails, tweets, and messages from supporters and friends. This update will address the two most common questions:
1. When do I get my book?
The first draft of the manuscript was submitted to my developmental editor, Robert Kroese, before the contest began. He delivered a very thorough developmental edit from which I am now doing a COMPLETE rewrite of the book. In fact, I’ll be removing most of the chapters I posted to the Inkshares page because they are all very, very different now. So if you want to feel like a beta reader, get to it now because the MASS DELETION event happens soon. I’ll leave The Big Mac of Theseus chapter as-is, spelling and grammar errors and all as a memento of this campaign for the time being. I will deliver Inkshares a final draft by August 1. After that they’ll let me know more about the publication date, and rest assured I will share with you whatever information is at my disposal.
2. What about the MAJOR PRIZE raffle?
There were over 30 entries to our MAJOR PRIZE raffle, however, of those, only 8 got the International Transport slogan *exactly* right: "Departure, Journey, Arrival... Delight!" Yesterday, when the contest ended, I asked my daughter, Iris, to assist me in drawing the winner. We used Randompicker.com for the drawing. It’s a very cool site that uses hardware based randomization to ensure drawings are completely, well, random. Here we go:
Michael Haase (whose last name I butcher in the video) was the big winner! The universe decided another publishing contest winner should receive the box. I conducted this brief interview with Michael following Iris’ drawing:
TK: I think it’s very interesting that a fellow Inkshares author won this contest. I’d say the process of entering the contest was prohibitively semi-involved, but we still managed to get 34 entries. Of those, 8 were correct, and several were fellow Inkshares authors. I think that speaks well for the community, I’ve noticed that although Inkshares is a small ecosystem, it’s a very active one. How did you discover Inkshares, and what made you want to take the leap?
MH: My sister discovered Inkshares for me. I had no idea such a wonderful playground for authors existed. I have always been a writer in some form or another, and I certainly have forced plenty a story or poem upon friends and family. When my sister heard about the Nerdist Space Opera contest, she told me that I should enter because she thought I could win, even though I had not yet written a Space Opera. With that kind of endorsement in hand, I worked all day on February first and had a rough outline for Mr. Butler by the end of the day. I entered the story immediately, and have fallen head over heels over the Inkshares concept and community of authors ever since.
TK: Adding to the kismet of your win, you, yourself are also a contest winner. I know this contest was completely exhausting for me, could you share a bit about your publishing contest experience? What were the ups and downs, surprises, and so on?
MH: I think no one was happier that it was over than my wife. Participating in a contest requires a ton of dedication and time. From February 1st through March 15th I was networking, marketing, contacting every person I know and ever knew, learning how to market, trying not to back away slowly from marketing, checking my phone like a fiend, tearing up my workspace in my basement, outlining, writing, planning, scheming, making new author friends, reading other authors’ work, working full-time in an ER, raising a toddler, trying to the the best I could for my pregnant wife, and generally burning the candle at both ends until I dropped the candle on a powder keg. I’m surprised anyone still likes me after that contest. But if I had to do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat. I’ve made amazing friends with other authors all over the world, sold copies of my book on all continents except Antarctica (stupid penguins don’t read...), and renewed my confidence as an author. Probably the greatest surprise was the outpouring of support I received. Pat Edwards, who is an amazing author and another Nerdist winner with his book "Space Tripping," convinced me to literally contact every single person I knew. I decided to just go ahead and write every single friend I had on Facebook and Twitter to ask for their support. Almost every time I sent someone a message and thought to myself "Oh, they couldn’t possibly be interested in buying my book," I was wrong.
TK: Do you think the protagonist of your book, Mr. Butler would be up for teleporting somewhere if he knew that to teleport he’d have to be destroyed in one place while simultaneously being replicated in another? What would go through his mind in making that decision?
MH: Absolutely. He is a man desperate for science and fact beyond what is readily observable. On his planet, he is nearly alone in thinking that the universe is a puzzle to be solved. If he were approached with such an offer, he might question the implications of being destroyed and replicated somewhere else, but the need to embrace the science behind the travel, experience it for himself, and, ultimately, leave the wretched planet on which he lives would drive him to accept the offer to teleport with enthusiastic nods. He wouldn’t even care where he went, as long as it wasn’t to another place on his planet. Only in that scenario would he think twice.
TK: You are the winner of the MAJOR AWARD raffle. A mysterious box which I claim is from the future, which I also state is scientifically impossible. If you were creating a thematic mystery box for the Madness of Mr. Butler, what would be in it?
MH: A flask of hallucinogenic serum, an astronaut’s helmet, a journal, an 8-track player with several cassettes of rock music from the late 60’s and early 70’s, a noose, a large stick, a quill made from a fishbone, and a ghost.
Here are the complete results of the MAJOR PRIZE raffle:
Michael Haase - WINNER
Phillip Rendely, Sarra Lord, and Nicolas Coombs - 2nd prize: "TELEPORTING" PUNCH ESCROW COFFEE MUGS
At your service,
Tal
Hello all!
Another quick update. We passed 200 orders! Thank you all so very much! This is incredible, I’m still in disbelief. Long long way to go, but very happy at where we sit right now. You’re seriously all the best!
The Geek & Sundry contest is over. Congratulations to Tal M. Klein, Brian Guthrie, and Erin S. Evan! You can still check out and order their books, and be sure to check out the other books in the contest. There are some really great gems in there that can still use your support!
That’s all for me. Please, as always, share, recommend, review, pre-order, talk about, and let’s get Cape’s Side Bay to Quill (and possibly beyond?)!
I honestly didn’t think I would have a reader update so quickly, but here I am. In 24 hours, I’ve had 26 preorders and while it is upsetting I didn’t hit 250 immediately... THANK YOU!
I attempted to record a new video for TSM homepage on Inkshares, and, well, you should just see what I had to work with. In the video I attempt to tell people that I have already finished the book and am currently working on the second draft right now. That means when we hit the funding goal, the book will follow shortly after.
I’m planning to get this done before November 2016 because I will be stationed to a ship out of San Diego and deployed who-knows-where doing who-knows-what (I’m an IT Technician, so it will be a lot of, "Have you tried turning it off and back on again in a classified way?").
So many people have already recommended and shared on Twitter, Facebook, and Inkshares, it has made my day. I need everyone’s help getting the book out to the people I don’t know. For my part, I will continue to comb Inkshares, leave reviews, pre-order when I can, and keep working, but if the first 24 hours are any indication, this is going to be no problem.
Sweet Dreams,
Stephen Carignan
P.S. If you saw the video, Emma says hi.