Hi friends!  We hit 60 orders!  That means it's time to give away another signed copy of Shadow of the Owl!  

And the winner is...Chris Robinson!  Our own Ghosts of War author now has another (former) Inkshares book to put on his shelf!  Congrats Chris!

Also, I realize that I dropped absolutely zero hints about the game yesterday, and I can't expect people to play something they don't know about so...in the interest of getting people to have fun, I wrote a game this weekend!  It's set in the world of DHM and starts from the video that I posted yesterday!  My hope is that by playing it those that are following the book will fall so much in love with the game that they will preorder.  

And speaking of preorders, what should we do for our 70 backer raffle?  I will give you two choices: 

Option A: I post chapter 2

Option B: I raffle off another signed novel

Comment on the update (or you can tweet me @amandaorneck if that's easier) about which option you want!  It's all up to you!

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.

Season’s Greetings!

There might not be any snow on the ground (at least not for most of us), but the final days of December are, in fact, here. As of today, Seven Shards has exactly ONE month to finish funding. I’m pretty confident that we’ll make it. So confident, in fact, that I’m not even going to ask for your help.

...Aw, who am I kidding? I could always use some help! If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, please do! And if you haven’t given the book a shoutout on your favorite social platform yet, well now would be a great time to do so, please and thank you!

(Or if you’ve done both of these things already, please sit tight. I continue to be tremendously thankful and couldn’t possibly ask for anything more!)

So, onto updates! Let’s see…

This past Saturday was the Inkshares Review-a-Thon! Thanks to the enormous efforts of powerhouse A.C. Weston (author of She Is the End ), the event was a great big success. Ginormous, even!

I’d like to give a shout-out to each of the wonderful people that left me a review on Saturday! Thank You to:

• Peter Birdsall, author of Feyside, a character-driven fantasy adventure that combines the wonder of steampunk with the magic of fairies.

• S.M. Hillman, author of The Faceless, a sci-fi tale of revenge, discovery, and difficult choices.

• Stephen Carignan, author of both The Sleeping Man (an immersive and imaginative fantasy) and Labels and Jellyspoons (a collection of poetry). Both are in the ‘Draft’ stage and well-worth following!

• Alan Tucker, author of The Devil You Know, an apocalyptic sci-fi with a heavy dose of humor.

• Andrew Wood, author of Storm of Fury, an epic fantasy with a truly unique antagonist.

• Thomas J. Arnold, author of Exile, Magus, a true epic fantasy full of adventure and exotic dangers!

• Jamison Stone, author of Rune of the Apprentice, and action-packed epic fantasy that is already attracting a huge following.

and

• Deborah L. Smith, a great family-friend-aunt and all around wonderful person!

Many, many, maaaaannnny kind words were said and I'm still buzzing from it. And blushing. Lots of blushing.

A new Author Interview is up on Myths Mists & Musings, featuring Tony Valdez. I, of course, recommend giving it a read. 

And to those that occasionally check my blog, you may have noticed that I never posted a NaNoWriMo: Week 4 entry. Fret not! This doesn’t mean that I bailed on NaNoWriMo, it simply means that I haven’t gotten around to blogging about it. In case it ends up on the back burner indefinitely, let me say now that words were written and it was good.

And as of yesterday, I finished all of my Christmas shopping! Whew!

That’s all for now. I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday full of family, friends, warmth, and at least a few hours spent curled up with a book!