Hello!

It’s Sunday and we are at 199 orders. Unbelievable. Thank you all SO much. 

If any of you reading this plan on ordering Cape’s Side and haven’t yet (or you have some spare credits lying around!), I’d love to hit 200 by tomorrow!

This weekend has been a huge boost, and BIG shout out to Joni Dee for helping me out! It’s a long tough road and help & support from fellow inksharians is always nice! If you haven’t checked out his book, AND THE WOLF SHALL DWELL, you’re missing out!

The GEEK & SUNDRY contest in almost over! It’s been a heck of a month, if you haven’t backed a book yet you have a few more hours to do so!

The top 5 as of this writing are:

THE PUNCH ESCROW by TAL M. KLEIN

AFTER MAN by BRIAN GUTHRIE

THE PIRATES OF MONTANA by ERIN S. EVAN

WE CLOCKED THE T-REX by RONALD VALLE

TANTALUS DEPTHS by EVAN GRAHAM

It’s quite the race and can’t wait to see the outcome! Best of luck to you all!

Finally, I just want to say I cannot believe that this update is going out to 220 people! Thank you all so much for believing in me, this book, and your continued support. 

James

p.s SCRIBBLES by TABI CARD (who designed the Cape’s Side cover art) received an extension until Thursday! Help get SCRIBBLES: A COLLECTION OF WORDS to Quill!

Dear friends and followers,

As of this writing, we are at 246 pre-orders. That means we are just 4 orders away from Quill! 4 orders from certainty! And 4 orders away from the beginning of the Chez Doris donation drive....

Getting to Quill means certainty of publication (unless I throw a hissy fit and decline the Quill package) so let’s have a look at some of the characters you’ll be meeting within these pages, starting with the club president, Oscar Mainwaring:

In other news, it turns out that there actually did exist a Veterans’ Club in London back in 1924, though it changed its name in 1936 to the Victory Services Club. Well, that’s lovely. I certainly don’t want anyone mistaking the club in this book for that real-life one, so it looks as though I might have to change its name ... which means I might also have to change the title of the book. Anyone have any ideas?

All right. Let’s get on to what’s what on the bookshelves this week.

1) "Seven Days Dead", by Christopher Johnson. Apparently, the focus will be on the interaction of different faiths and cultures in this particular zombie apocalypse, which I’m not sure I’ve seen done before. Also, the action takes place in the Middle East, and Johnson seems to be putting a bit of effort into verisimilitude with place names and geography.

2) "The Battle Within", by Alastair Luft. This one is an exploration of PTSD and its effects on one veteran soldier’s personal life, and if it’s filed as "thriller and suspense", it’s because dealing with life when you’re in that headspace is bound to be a rollercoaster ride of questionable reality. Also, it’s Canadian.

3) "Mission 51", by Ferd Crotte. The captain of a spacefaring craft crashlands on his destination planet ... from the excerpts I’ve seen, it looks like our hero is one of the Roswell aliens, and the destination planet is Earth. It’s an interesting setup, and I wonder where Crotte is going with it.

And that’s it for now. See you next week, folks, when we shall hopefully be discussing the joys of being on the qualified side of Quill.

Thanks to you, it’s a BOOK!

I woke up this morning to the fantastic news that Pilot X smashed through the 750 preorder goal we needed to get fully published by Inkshares. That means this is a real book now with a real editing process about to start and real book marketing et cetera.

I know I’ve said this a lot but I cannot thank you enough. 

Pilot X thanks you too. He really has come a long way since we mistakenly thought he was a crashed airline pilot in the 1990s. Wow is he more than that. He’s not even human. And I can’t wait for all of you to get to know him and his world better. There’s a planet of monks who discover the Dimensional War, a small hut with three Pilot Xs working in it, and of course the Pineapple Planet. 

But all of that will come soon enough. For now you’ve made my year!!

Y’all rock.

Tom "Not even out of bed yet" Merritt

I sat down to write, with a fresh cup of coffee and a real desire to see what happens to Isidore next. Then I saw that we got another order (#265), and now I might be too happy to write. I mean, I will write, but as it stands I am in a good mood filled with good coffee with a lovely Spring afternoon tempting me to just run through the wildflowers outside. It’s hard to write about people in dire situations when you just want to twirl on a mountainside like Maria.

Upon the suggestion of Christopher Huang, the brilliant author of "Murder at the Veterans’ Club," I have edited the introductory text on Mission 51’s home page. It gives away a little bit more of the story, and hopefully piques your interest!

We’re down to 15 pre-orders left before we get published!!! As we get down to the last few copies I’ve decided to share some alternative concept art for our story that either didn’t make the cut or are really early versions of some of the final work. Enjoy!

...

...

...

...

I have essentially completed the chapter previously titled "Mat." The name of the chapter has now changed to "Mat and Dirk," though who knows, it may change again on a fickle whim. ;-)

The first two parts of the book serve to establish Mat’s "humanity." (Picture me doing big air quotes with my fingers.) It has been fun doing that, and I really want you to be able to read it some day. But I don’t think I will upload this chapter. In fact, from now on I may be just uploading excerpts instead of entire chapters, you know, to build  suspense/anticipation and stuff.

The fun really builds after the crash at the end of the second part of the story. That you really don’t want to miss, and I really won’t be uploading any more chapters from the third part of the book!

So just help ease my anxiety and place your pre-order, so the book sees the light of day, and you get to read about the crazy shit that happens to Mat!

If you have already pre-ordered, again I thank you, and ask you to:

• point a friend this way, or

• write a review, or

• make an Inkshares recommendation, or

• all of the above.
  

I do believe that together we can reach the 250 pre-order mark to get Mission 51 published.

Thank you, everyone!

Peace and love!

Ferd. :-) 

I interrupt the regularly scheduled writing frenzy to share with you, dear readers, this precious little bit of my real life.

No secret to those who know us, Princess Gail and I love birding. We spent most of this last week with old friends and new at the New River Birding and Nature Festival in the New River Gorge area of West Virginia. We are in the midst of the spring migration, and we were all there to see as many of our feathered friends as possible, as they make their way to their northern breeding habitats. Despite a few days of cold and wet weather, Gail and I managed to see 80 species. Our group as a whole saw 135 species, and we had a whole lotta fun before, during and after!

For me, the highlight of the trip was a prolonged view of the Swainson’s Warbler, one of the most secretive and elusive birds in all of North America. It was a special treat to see him in beautiful breeding plumage and singing loudly. I’ll remember those moments always! Here is a picture I took of this lovely individual, for your viewing pleasure.

I return you now, to your regularly scheduled frenzy!

Peace!

Ferd. :-)