Greetings Jackolytes,

The final cover is upon us! The good people at Ebook Launch have done an awesome job of capturing the essence of Jack and his ride. Below is what those fine people buying paperbacks will receive. And if you still want to join this illustrious club and bag one of these paperback beauties, it’s available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Book Depository. Imagine how Sync City would look on your bookshelf!  

The ebook, with the striking front cover, is still available for the low, low price of $5.99 at Inkshares. 

Cheers,

Peter

Afternoon, everyone.  

The Walls are Closing In has received 200 preorders within the first three weeks. Thank you, thank you, thank you! And one more for good measure. Thank you!

First things first. I owe all of you a couple of things for helping me cross the 100 reader and the 200 order thresholds!

Using a random number generator and a spreadsheet of my first 100 readers, I have selected two winners to either have a minor character named after them or select the name for that character.

The winners are Robert Batten and K.L. Noon.

Congrats! Let me know what you would like to name your character!

As promised, I have also uploaded a mid-book excerpt to commemorate reaching 200 preorders. Experience Patricia and Rexx’s first steps into Zone 36, a town sealed off due to fracking-induced pollution and destruction, and meet my favorite character, Oliver.

The campaign, as it sits now, has a view of the full publishing contract with few obstacles in the way, but still has some hiking to do. If half of those who are following the book on Inkshares, but have not placed an order yet, order, then The Walls are Closing In will surpass the Quill light-publishing mark.

I have been working tirelessly to cross the Quill milestone early. It is important for a variety of reasons. It signifies that the book is happening! Though I am aiming for 750 preorders and a full publishing contract (think marketing, bookstore shelves, public book signing, cover design, and complete developmental edits), passing the Quill mark (think print-on-demand, ISBN, and Amazon listing) means that there will definitely be a book. Advanced promotion to reach outside of my already-tapped circle will then become much simpler, as those in the book-review world are understandably more willing to promote a sure-thing.

Thank you all again for rallying behind me and this book. A special thank you to both my grandfather Allen Ahearn and aunt Beth Fisher, of Quill and Brush, who shared The Walls are Closing In with their broad community of book lovers!

More milestone perks to come! At 300 orders I will release a new novel trailer with teasers.

-Jacqui

 There’s a long list of things I didn’t think would ever happen when I first decided that writing fiction was going to be ’my thing’. Obviously, getting one of my books optioned and meeting an academy award screenwriter weren’t on this list because I hadn’t even conceived of that possibility at the time. 

That being said, I’ve always wanted an audiobook of one of my projects. What would that sound like? How would my characters feel coming out of someone else’s mouth? And an audiobook felt out of reach but still within the realm of possibility. Something to hope for without ever planning for it to happen. 

Well, today is the launch of the Audiobook for The Life Engineered. Produced by Blackstone Audio, featuring the amazing voice of actress Amy Landon and available on Amazon, Audible and probably several other places where audiobooks are usually purchased. 

It feels weird guys. I’ve listened to the sample on Amazon but I haven’t taken the plunge yet. I’m nervous. I’m 100% confident in the work that Amy did on the book (she is a veteran of over 200 audiobooks) but this is a milestone. Do I listen to this casually in the car? Do I set aside some time and enjoy the over six hours of audio in the dark with my eyes close? Just drinking in every detail, good and bad? 

If you’re looking for a way to experience The Life Engineered anew, maybe learn how to pronounce some of those complex names I picked for the characters, then hop over to your favourite purveyor of audio literature and get yourself a copy. If you’ve never been on Audible, there are countless ways of getting your first book for free and frankly, that might not be a bad one to start with.

If you want to learn more about the audiobook making process, Paul Inman and I had Amy as a guest in our latest episode of WriteBrain and it was fantastic having her on.

As always, thanks for your support. None of this would have happened without you. 

JF

NOTE: I should really update the header with the new cover image...

43 orders in just over 24 hours! Thank you to everyone who has preordered so far!