Happy Hump Day! In the spirit of distraction and fun, I'd like to share a couple of recommendations for other Inkshares projects that are currently funding. This may become a bi-monthly thing (two books, twice a month), provided I remember to continue doing it. ;)

BTW - If you haven't visited the site since ordering Seven Shards, I invite you to log back in and see if you have any free credits on your account. And if you do, I encourage you to spend them!

Onto the recommendations!

First up is Exile, Magus by Thomas J. Arnold. This is a true fantasy book for fantasy lovers. If you're at all intrigued, act fast because its funding window ends in two days! 

“First in a series following a dwarven magus entering a world he grew up only hearing of. As he strives to find a place amid countless dangers (and at least one too many gnomes) his naivete in life and love may bring more danger than any foe could.”

&

Women Like Us by Jason Pomerance, a fictional tale of family and food. Be sure to check out the recipes Jason's been sharing towards the bottom of his page!

“A down and dirty chef and her starchy ex-mother-in-law must bond when a crisis threatens a member of the family.”

That's it for January. More recommendations are due to land early next month!

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!

Today I want to announce something exciting for Blood Dawn!

I'm finally on Johnslist, thanks to Craig Monroe, author of The Bones of the Past and a winner of the recent Sword & Laser Contest 2.

So ... what's Johnslist?

Nothing at all like Craiglist, I promise. Johnslist is one of many ideas the Inkshares author community on Goodreads has come up with to help work together and promote other Inkshares books. The idea behind it is simple: one of the community members creates a thread encouraging other members to help a certain project get funded. An author cannot create a thread for themselves, because otherwise that's self-promotion. It has to genuinely be other members of the community. I was the first author to do this for Andrew Wood's great epic fantasy book, Storm of Fury, but then the trend continued, which is why the authors named it after me.

If you'd like to help Blood Dawn get fully funded, then you can join the efforts. First and most important, if you haven't bought the book yet, then let's rectifying that right now -- click here to order an ebook or print book of Blood Dawn.

All right, so for those who have ordered and really want to help get this book into bookstores everywhere, you can now join the team effort. Just follow this link to the thread:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/17978018-let-s-get-blood-dawn-fully-funded

If you're an author and you haven't heard of the Inkshares promotion group, then be sure to join up because you're missing out on an amazing wealth of knowledge on how to succeed with crowdfunding a book. Even if you're not an author, feel free to join our group if you are a passionate reader and would like to help or share ideas. The community is open to all. Plus, we'd all love to hear from some readers on exactly what interests them or turns them off when it comes to choosing new book projects to back.

The final 3 months is here, so lets work together and make this happen!

The 4th Raffle has arrived!

Here's the video for you to see if you've won:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYFe_mZ4MFQ

Congrats to the winner! The next drawing will happen when I reach 80 readers.

Wow, that was brief.

Hello, my dear animals! This will be the last update you’ll hear from me for a while, fortunately or unfortunately. I’ll be dialing down the frequency from twice a week to once a month. And this update in particular will go by fast, so don’t blink!

I shot (and heavily edited!) my last Reader-Raffle drawing earlier today. I got my kids to fill the starring roles again, and I could barely contain the chaos that ensued. I want you to know that after the 5 minute drawing, I had an extra minute in which I thank everyone one more time and then plug two inkshares books worth your time, attention, and money (including extra inkshares credits if you got ‘em!). They were “Deus Hex Machina” by Amanda Orneck - a book I have been really, really looking forward to since I first visited the website - and “Transilience” by Kevin Bragg - a book I just recently discovered and instantly fell in love with. 

Look, don’t let your purchase of “The Animal in Man” be the only interaction you have with Inkshares. Get back to the website and check in on the hundreds of other books they offer. Great books by great authors who have great stories to tell, who are working really hard to get published. I know a great majority of my followers probably still have credits attached to their inkshares accounts, credits still unclaimed in their emails, and more still potential credits to earn by signing in and clicking “Recommend via Inkshares.” Why the heck wouldn’t you want to spend free money?

Finally, I want you to know I’ve been busy this weekend. I had kind of like a nesting instinct. My baby’s going to be born soon, right, so I rearranged the basement, I dug out my outline document, revised it a bit, and made a poster. Hung up a poster, a calendar. Most importantly I taped my favorite fortune cookie on the wall, the one I’ve carried in my wallet for three years or more: “Do Not Fear Failure.” This is where The Animal in Man will be born. 

...also there’s a kid watching Frozen, again, in the background. Again. Please don’t think I’m staging that for cuteness’ sake. I’m really not. I. Am. In. Frozen. Hell. Writing this book might help me thaw my way out. Hopefully.

With less than a month to go and only 8 orders. I've decided on a different approach when I run the next pre-order for this novel. I plan on bundling all three novels in this trilogy so that if and when i do hit the 250 or even the 750 goal, the buyers will be ordering 3 books for the price of one. I would like some feedback on this from my wonderful followers. I'd love it if Inkshares could give the option of buying the whole trilogy, but then I thought that would be pointless if I try selling each one separately. I'd like some feedback on this move either here or email me at jdgriffith78@gmail.com. Wado!