So, it's officially official of the officialness. (I'm a writer! I use words!) I have turned everything into Inkshares. Now I do the waiting game and see what the Girl Friday Productions team thinks of the manuscript and prep myself for editing. 

If anyone wants a copy of the manuscript I sent in, (since backers are totally able to get access to author drafts) just send me an email over to Crankybolt@gmail.com and I'll gladly share it with you. Maybe you can offer feedback as well before the final product. 

My next step is to start tackling the creation of a website, look into starting my own Inskhares Syndicate with some author friends and start emailing conventions about tablespace. 

Although, I secretly kinda just want to binge watch my guilty pleasure of iZombie and Gotham Season 2 for a day and feast upon the sweet smell of chilli being slow cooked today 10' away from me. 

It's kinda like torture actually. I'm going to start gnawing on human flesh I'm so damn hungry. 

They're here! My custom Dax Harrison coffee mugs have been delivered to my doorstep (finally), and a new giveaway video is live! Plus, a quick update on the book campaign. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

As always, thanks to everyone supporting the book. Keep spreading the word! You all rock my socks.

-Tony

You thought I died, didn't you? I think I died, too.

But somehow I'm still going to be at the Holiday Geek Expo tomorrow! Look at these nerd-tastic graphic things Leah made:

As you can see, I'm giving away some of my colored Ladies of Scifi postcards if people order my book right then and there. Come say hi, if you can!

Leah also made THIS for me to hand out at the expo (using a logo made by the fantastic Paul Robinson, author of Ghosts of War):




:)

If you can't come to the expo, you should definitely check out all the new books entering into the Sword & Laser Contest: Part Deux! I'm pretty excited. New authors are coming into the fold and we'll be here for them. Right? RIGHT?

The first book in the contest I ordered is The Last Machine in the Solar System by Matthew Isaac Sobin. Check it out!

And have a wonderful weekend!

Big news everyone!

I've entered the Sword and Laser Contest, with my entry The Darkest Places! Go check it out at https://www.inkshares.com/projects/the-darkest-places  and pre-order a copy! 

Back onto The Children of the Forest, I'm putting the final touches on the remaining sample chapters, which will be uploaded over the weekend. I am currently at 184(!!) sales, and nearing the Quill publishing option. To help reach my goal, I'm going to be creating incentives for the final stretch of sales.

These will be fleshed out in a weekend update, but will include various rewards and prizes, including the option of becoming a character in my story! 

~Until next time.

If someone offered you a $100 bill or the chance to keep everything you might find on a sunken treasure hunt, which would you choose?

ENHANCED finished 12th out of 335 in the Nerdist/Inkshares Contest, and we celebrated that achievement knowing we did so well because of you. Because our families and friends have generous spirits and a staunch belief in us and our book. Because total strangers -- many of them authors on Inkshares -- saw something worthwhile in our story and our writing.

Thanks to the author-friendly mission the Inkshares team promotes, we've even earned the right to Quill publication. We could put at least 315 copies of ENHANCED in our supporters' hands. On demand. Under a non-exclusive rights agreement.

Sounds like a golden opportunity, right?

But our favorite agent in the publishing industry informed us, "If the book is under contract with anyone, the agent will not represent it, unless it's self-published and selling really well."

So we had to choose between the $100 bill and the sunken treasure hunt.

What's life without risk and uncertainty? We're grabbing our scuba gear and heading for the Caribbean.

Three things before we go:

1. ENHANCED is currently being evaluated for its adaptability to film and television in the Book Pipeline Competition. The best part is that you don't have to do anything. But we hope you'll wish us well and follow our progress on Facebook  and Twitter.

2. Please support these worthwhile projects from the Nerdist/Inkshares Contest:

Single Version by Scott Barsotti -- so much more than just an extremely well-written Roach Punk story with an utterly original take and style.

Disintegration by Steve Soldwedel -- gritty and cinematic, diverse and multi-layered, with tyrannical aliens, never-say-die warriors, and spaceships. It's like old school scifi, but better. 

Ghosts of War by Paul Robinson -- fast-paced action + memorable characters + classic scifi dialog with a twist of now = an exciting story.

Presenting Complaints by Jamie Brindle -- a laugh-out-loud skewering of England's National Health Service, which Jamie just released on Amazon, iBooks, and Smashwords.

Current by Thomas A. Fowler -- reminiscent of Michael Crichton’s work, it promises tense adventure/mystery based on environmental progress. Fowler is currently querying agents.

And maybe most important,

3. Thank you, Inkshares for the possibilities you offer and the lessons you provide about marketing, competing with class, and how to persevere. Your entire team is a bright light showing aspiring authors hope and how to make it real. Special thanks to Avalon. What would we have done without you? You're warm, patient, knowledgeable, and encouraging -- the best kind of human being. We'll keep coming back to our Inkshares family to discover new authors and new favorite books. And who knows? Maybe we'll present something new of our own right here to see how the world feels about it.

With my new work schedule I've been a bit short on time, which has kept me away far longer than I would have liked.  After much (over)thinking, I have finally come up with an update schedule which should be workable in what little free time I have.

Tuesdays:  blog posts.  Hopefully setting a specific day each week will make it easier for me to maintain my oft-neglected blog.  I'll post mini-updates and links here on Inkshares each time a new post goes up.

Thursdays: full Inkshares update starting with this one.

Saturdays:  new chapter upload if applicable.  I'm also going to start posting up chapter sections of Book 2 as a new draft on those Saturdays when the threshold is not met for new Book 1 chapters are going up.  I'd debated whether or not to do so since there are some potential spoilers, but ultimately decided it would be a good thing to give people a chance to peek ahead if desired.  I don't plan to post more than chapter 1 at this time, and that will be divided between that chapter's sections.

Sundays:  I will recommend 2-3 other funding books in mini-updates on Inkshares that I enjoy enough to think that they also deserve your support.  I'm a bit slower at typing and reading than I would like though, so that may end up shortening to 1-2 some weeks.

I've also revised the order thresholds for new chapters to also take account for the number of followers.  The current goal we're shooting for is 100 orders or 250 followers in order to get Chapter 6 posted up.

Other than that there have been two big announcements Inkshares-wide:  Syndicates and the Review-a-thon.

First follow the Syndicates link for full details on them.  In particular I already found two I wanted to join:  John Robin's Epic Fantasy Syndicate and C. Brenneke's SnarkyDarkSy.  As those of you who've read all the chapters I've posted so far may have guessed, I'm a big fan of both epic and dark fantasy to the extend that I try to blend them in my own works.  Ultimately for budget reasons I decided to only join John's syndicate for the time being, though if my finances improve I'm definitely joining C. Brenneke's next.  This way though I can also continue to independently support 1 - 2 books of my own choosing each month.  I'm considering forming my own syndicate but haven't decided yet.  I tend to think on a move far too long before making it.

As for the Review-a-thon, I can't describe it any better than A.C. Weston herself, so I'll just copy and paste her words:

"On December 19th, all authors and readers are invited to leave reviews on currently funding Inkshares books using the Inkshares "leave a review" option.

Throughout the day we'll be hanging out on Twitter in the#InksharesReviews tag as we share our favorite book projects, answer author Q&As, debate the merits of astronauts with swords versus cavemen with lasers, and more!

Then, from 6 - 8pm ET, JF Dubeau and Paul Inman of the WriteBrain Podcast will be hosting a video livestream filled with author interviews, review readings, and live announcements of prize winners!

Prizes?!?!

Everyone who leaves a review on December 19th by 6pm ET will be eligible to win one of our fantastic general prizes:

• Sword & Laser Contest Winners Package - print copies of the six winning books from the Sword & Laser Inkshares contest!

• Nerdist Contest Winners Package - print copies of the five winning books from the Nerdist Inkshares contest!

• An immediate pre-order of the book of their choice for five winners!

• $30 in Inkshares credits!

Readers: Peruse the "currently funding" books on Inkshares and leave as many reviews as you want on Dec 19th. You could even start up a "must-have" list of books to order in case you win a free pre-order or the $30 in credits!

Authors: Join our review exchange to leave three reviews in exchange for two guaranteed reviews on your Inkshares project and a chance at author-exclusive prizes! Email me at cara.c.weston@gmail.com to learn more and get on the list.

(And authors, if you're in, please copy the message above and include it in your next update!)

It's gonna be fun."

Now though, its finally time for me to discuss the status of my own project.  I'm still getting followers and preorders which is a good thing, but I'll be the first to admit that its at a far slower rate than it needs to be in order to reach even the lighter Quill goal of 250.  Currently we're at 61 orders, so 189 more are needed in 50 days to achieve that(or 689 to achieve the full funding goal for more intensive edit/publishing of 750).  That being said, we're at 240 followers according to the top of my update page, so if every follower who hasn't ordered yet were to we would be almost to the Quill goal already.  Hopefully I can convince those of you currently on the fence to go ahead and place that order sometime within the next 7 weeks.

That's all I've got for this week though, just remember that if you want to get in touch with me at anytime the best ways to do so are on Twitter or on my Facebook page.  Thanks for all of  your support!  (And don't forget to click on the horde of links I embedded in this update, good stuff.)