Thanks again to everyone for your continued support! You're amazing, inspiring, and just plain awesome. It's been a pretty crazy week, but I have to say that having the Quill mark behind me has lifted quite a heavy load of stress off my shoulders. And as a result, my creativity is flowing like a river once again!

One of the things I've been toiling with these past few days is a new cover design. At some point I'll need to re-do the cover (with the appropriate font and image rights), so I figured I might as well get a head start now. Here's where I'm at so far:

My plan is to create some sort of symbol or simple illustration in the center. But before I get into that, does anyone have any input to share? Do you like the font and spacing? Have an idea for the symbol/illustration? Do you miss the triangles? Let me know!

Cheers and have a great week!

Weel it's been a rough start to the new year with lots of work and bills and the stunning realization that yes I did in fact buy that thing and yes my credit card is that high as a result... all of this of course made it into the new novel, but good god I still have the first book to get out there.  So hi!  I'm back, still staring down those deadlines that have been dogging me since December, while looking askance and in some cases pretending the non-existence of a few other commitments that I really wish I had looked at a little more carefully before agreeing to.

You guys know how it is, right? After all, we're all adults here and that credit card thing is a bit of a doozy.

I've been seeing the tremendous efforts of people like Tony Valdez out there pushing hard on his novel DAX HARRISON (you really gotta check it out because it's freaking awesome) and a lot of the other authors here on Inkshares and I've been willing myself to get involved more in the community, talk back more, give more updates. I've been a lot more active over on Wattpad and have been trying to get some of my followers to actually follow me over here to Inkshares since they like the book so much, but movement like that is hard as hell for even the most committed fans.

So this is the day I make the commitment to Inkshares since the Wattpadders aren't going anywhere and you guys here have yet to read the first book.  It's time to cycle up the Twitter and other social media engines and really push to get the word out about SO YOU MIGHT BE A VAMPIRE.

My dear Machiners, 

Where do I begin? I will start by saying that I have now had over 48 hours to decompress. I took some extra time before writing my post-Sword & Laser update. I just didn’t quite feel that I was coherent enough to write the update I wanted in the immediate aftermath. At this point, the fact that I can call myself a “soon to be published author” has not fully sunk in. That this story, which I poured myself into, will be in print and on a bookstore shelf is still hard to believe. When I do see it on that shelf, it will be serious reality check time. 

For now I must say Thank YOU. Thank you with all my heart. I cannot thank everybody enough. I want to stress and stress some more that this was an unbelievable team effort. I wrote the story but bringing it to a wider audience through crowdfunding on Inkshares was undeniably a group effort. And a tremendous one at that. Many, many people went above and beyond the call to bring new readers to our cause. 

To illustrate this unbelievable outreach, we can break the campaign into two chunks. There were the first 4.5 weeks of the campaign: We brought in 170 readers and this was phenomenal. We were in a strong 2nd place position and hoped it would be enough to stay in the top 3. Then there was the final 1.5 weeks of the contest - and we brought in 180 readers! In my wildest dreams I would never have expected to more than double what we did in over a month in just 10 days. Thank you for the incredible support to finish this race. I feel honored and humbled. I want all of you to feel that you had a hand in making this happen. Because it’s true. The eBook or paperback you receive is yours as much as it is mine, and far beyond the money you contributed. 

I must give a hearty salute to my co-winners Joseph Asphahani author of The Animal in Man and Craig Munro the author of The Bones of the Past. It was an absolute pleasure to compete against them. An experience that was full of camaraderie and goodwill. Their books are awesome and I look forward to receiving my copy of both. It is well worth your time to go check them out, and also the other excellent work by talented authors in the top 10 in the Sword & Laser contest. The contest was filled with wonderful creative work - those outside the top 10 also deserve your consideration. Here is the rest of the top 10:

Adam Greven and Matt Deller’s The Knight Proper 

Byron Gillian’s The Children of the Forest 

Amanda Ornekc’s Deus Hex Machina 

Andre Brun’s Lies and Deception 

Michael Sebby’s The Inhabitants: An Unremembered Life 

Alexander Barnes’s The Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising 

Edmond J. Wedge’s Ocean Black: The Noble Exiles

The journey is just beginning for The Last Machine in the Solar System. There will be future updates as we continue down the road toward publication. This is all new and exciting for me and I am sure I will learn something each day. I look forward to sharing that with you, my benefactors. Without you I would not be here, and neither would this story. 

Until next time, 

 -Matthew 

Thank You!!!

As of bedtime-o'clock last night, Seven Shards has hit the Quill funding goal! This means it will be published!!!!!!!!

The little bundle of nerves that has been sitting in the pit of my stomach since August has now transformed into a miniature fireworks show. And not one of those blink-and-you-miss-it fireworks shows, but a fully choreographed, big-budget fireworks extravaganza. Coffee? Haha, who needs it!

I must extend my deepest gratitude to the members of the CEO Syndicate and John Robin's Epic Fantasy Syndicate for pushing Seven Shards over the edge. You (you beautiful people, you) surprised me and humble me and basically make me much more than a little verklempt.

There's probably more I could say, but right now the bottom line is Thank YOU!