(Long update ahead, bear with me)
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO PUBLISHING...
Greetings Hexers and Machina Riders:
Do we have some things to talk about! So much has happened in the last week my head is spinning. Let’s get right to it:
Extra Life Stream this Evening
I’ll be streaming Heroes of the Storm tonight for the Extra Life charity over on my Twitch channel, starting at 6 PM CST and running until midnight. Come cheer me on as I main Sylvanas and try to figure out if I can still snipe towers behind enemy gates. It should be fun times.
Donate to my Extra Life fund
If you watch (and even if you can’t) help me get to $100 by donating here. I have already raised $40 for kids in need, so I’m 1/3 of the way there. Woncha help out?
The List 2016 contest
This week Inkshares announced which books were selected for their end-of--the-year contest, and Deus Hex Machina is on The List! It’s a crazy big honor to be among such amazing books and their authors which leads me to my next item on the agenda:
A ton more Deus Hex Machina stuff is coming
A new contest means a new campaign, so I’ve been working in the last few days to shape what a second campaign for DHM would look like. Astute readers among you will already notice I’ve updated the book’s Inshares page, refereshed my cover concept, and put up a couple new character bios. In addition I have uploaded the revised first chapter from the 2nd draft -- I think you’ll be happy with the changes.
My edit is plugging right along, and won’t stop just because another contest has popped into my life. You don’t stop feeding your kids just because extended family dropped by unannounced. You pull up extra chairs and make more desserts.
And I plan on more desserts friends. I will try to keep the updates meaningful throughout this contest, but I do have a good amount of fun stuff planned, and I want to share it all with you.
My goal for this campaign will be to get to 400 readers. It’s a huge crazy unimaginable number, but I think we can do it. If you’re following the book but haven’t purchased, I’ll be reaching out to you personally in the coming weeks to ask for your order. If you have purchased the book, I’ll be reaching out to you personally to ask for your referral.
In exchange for your support of the book I have planned more goodies: live-edits, fan art contests, a contest for the ARG -- yes Qathren YOBIBYTE got the jump on you Sombra. You got nothin’ on a hexer from the future.
It’s gonna be a fun, weird ride, and I hope you’ll join me. I’ll see you tonight.
May the code replicate eternal.
Dear Sweethearts,
I hope that you are doing well and that you are having a lovely Tuesday! I wanted to reach out to you to give you a few updates and also to ask you for one small favor. So I want to share the coolest update first - we have sold over 3,000 copies of this book!! Can you believe it?! I know that I couldn’t! I sat staring at my computer blinking long and hard to make sure I was seeing the numbers correctly! You all made this possible, so thank you so much!
Recently “How to Get Run Over by a Truck" was reviewed by Her Agenda. The reviewer was kind enough to say: ”The memoir is beautiful—it’s shocking, heartbreaking, funny, dark, and brutally honest. It’s a must read for everyone.” Which was so incredible to hear! I also recently wrote an article for Amendo Magazine entitled “What Not to Say to Someone Who Has Been Through a Trauma", I was delighted that they asked me to write this piece, and I am so hopeful that it will be helpful for others when finding the right words can be really challenging.
In publishing news two awesome things have happened: the audiobook of “How to Get Run Over by a Truck” has just been published by Audible! I was so excited when I found out that they were going to let me be the voice actor for the audiobook, but I couldn’t have imagined what a meaningful experience it was going to be. Reading the entire memoir aloud made me relive the experience in a way that I didn’t when I just read in the book. While I was reading I was humbled by all of the love and support that had brought me to this beautiful and unlikely place. Here I was sitting in a recording studio, reading a book that I wrote, that only came into being because of all of your love and support! We had to stop the recording like 10 times because of my spontaneous weeping (I am the consummate professional!) You can listen to a snippet of it here, and if you are so inclined, you can buy it and hear me talk to you for over 8 hours ☺ The other awesome thing that has happened is that the short story that I wrote “The Gift of Hope” has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Angels and Miracles Edition, which is such an honor!
I also have a small favor to ask you all – so many of you have been kind enough to reach out and let me know your thoughts about the book, what you liked, what made you laugh, what made you cry – and it has been one of the best experiences of my life to know that something I wrote made you feel something! I was wondering if I could ask you to take that feedback one step further, and write a short review on Amazon. I currently have about 34 reviews, which is awesome! But I recently learned that if I was able to get over 100 reviews of “How to Get Run Over by a Truck”, it would increase the visibility of the book on the site dramatically, and bring more potential readers to the book! Which would be so amazing. It doesn’t have to be a super long review, just a few sentences would be so helpful! And a huge thank you to those of you who have already written reviews – you are wonderful!
Also, if you are in the New York City area and are free on Monday night, I am going to be doing a book event for "How to Get Run Over by a Truck" on Monday November 21 at the Cobra Club in Brooklyn! All of the information you’ll need is here. I would love to see you there for hugs, a reading, some storytelling and also Q & A where I would be happy to answer any questions you might have! I hope to see you there!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and for being incredible people. I am so grateful for you!
Heart,
Katie
So I have some news.
Update time!
As you can see, things were a bit disrupted again this week, but I solved a few logic problems with Ghosts that I’m really happy about. The thing with this read-through stage is that it doesn’t generate a lot of words. I’ve identified a few areas that need expanding, so words will come then, but for now it’s just tightening everything up.
You might have noticed the big blob of words for LandFall today. Well there’s a reason for that:
http://blog.inkshares.com/post/153308043055/the-2016-list
LandFall has been nominated for ’The 2016 List’, which is Inkshares’ new (and inaugural)end-of-year contest to highlight ’the top-voted projects that haven’t reached full Inkshares’. What that means is that, should I enter (which I probably will), I’ll be starting a funding campaign up for that in the coming days.
What it also means, is that I have to do a lot of work fairly quickly. I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t expecting this, like, at all, and Ghosts will still be the primary focus until it’s done. So I’m taking the next couple of days to focus on LandFall and get it set up and then once that’s settled in, it’ll be back to editing Ghosts.
If you want to follow along on the development of LandFall, you follow it at the link below:
https://www.inkshares.com/books/landfall
Oh! Before I go, I found a new thing hidden in the analytics that Inkshares gives us: It’s a heat map showing all of Ghosts of War’s readers. This really is a global book now, thanks to all of you.
Until next time.
Dear Inkshares Community,
We’re excited to announce what we hope will become an annual Inkshares tradition.
Each year in Hollywood, industry insiders vote for the best unproduced screenplays of the year. The list of nominees forms The Blacklist, which was originally established (and is still operated) by Franklin Leonard. Past nominees include Argo, Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, Juno, Spotlight, and The Revenant, just to name a few.
Revisiting amazing stories that may have gotten lost in the melee is important to Inkshares. Accordingly, we’re excited to announce our own version of The Blacklist—simply The List, because we couldn’t decide on a color.
The 2016 List will form the basis for the final contest of the year, focused on the top-voted projects that haven’t reached full Inkshares. This includes: drafts that have not yet gone into funding; Quill projects that haven’t reached 750 and also haven’t gone into production; and still-funding projects. As it’s the final contest of the year, projects that are funding in another contest are eligible as well.
We collected and tabulated votes from funded authors, producers, and the Inkshares staff. The nominations are in, and we’ll be announcing the 25 nominees for The 2016 List tomorrow at 5 pm PT. And to add an additional level of excitement, there will be three Guest Judges, to be announced on December 1st.
Yes, really. Each of these judges will be able to select a book for publication—including a book outside the top 3, so as many as six books may end up being selected. We know, it has us too all like:
Jokes aside, this has been an amazing year at Inkshares, with strong successes—from starred reviews to six-figure TV and film deals—for new author voices. We’re excited about The List as an amazing way to work hard in the last six weeks of the year.
Cheers,
-The Inkshares Team