News news news! 

It’s much sooner than I expected, but I’m ready to rock your world with an amazing update. 

As many of you know, the hardest part of this whole funding campaign has been, well, asking for help. I’ve often said that I wish this had nothing to do with money, because the monetary value is of little significance to me. Yet it feels a bit like asking for handouts when I’m trying to gather support. 

So, after talking with the crew at Inkshares and a lot of research and pitching, I’ve got great news. 

Proceeds from The Traveller’s Cup will now be going to BuildOn—a charity that focuses on education and world literacy. 

I’ve partnered with BuildOn’s adult literacy program, which helps adults in developing countries learn to read and write. We as avid readers often take the skills we have for granted. But imagine what your life would look like if you couldn’t decipher words, or even letters—if you were never expected to learn something our society considers essential. BuildOn is working to change that, and it’s a movement I want to be a part of. 

Once the Quill goal is met (250 pre-orders) 25% of the proceeds that would normally go to me will be given to them. At 750 orders I’ll increase that number to 50%. The reason for the different scale is because until I get to 750 orders I am responsible for my own editing and marketing, and there are fees associated with that to make sure you readers get something of quality. 

Funding on Inkshares to me was never about the money—it was about making sure this book gets into as many hands as possible. By partnering with BuildOn we’ll be able to do something good with these funds and make that happen sooner.

If you’d like to find out more about BuildOn, their website has information on their various programs.

And remember, every order counts. Your bulk orders will have a huge impact. 

Thanks for being a crew I can count on.  

Your Elatedly Eager and Enthusiastic Captain,
-AC 

Happy Weekend, Space Crew!

I’ve kept the airwaves quiet this week, but it wouldn’t be very Captainly of me not to connect again with a crew who’s gotten me this far. 

Since the Nerdist contest closed I’ve done the following:

•  Recovered from the flu
  
  
• Taken a much-needed period of time to sleep regular hours and occasionally leave my house for reasons other than work
  
  
• Come up with what I think are some fairly exciting ways to boost this campaign

I see the rest of this funding campaign going a bit differently than it did during the Nerdist contest, primarily because I don’t have 700 friends in my crew...yet.

Of course, I am still counting on you. We have until May 5 to get to 547 more orders, and every single one of those will count. Please keep spreading the word. I’m working on getting new referral prize packages ready among other, err, things that I hope I can update you on in the next week. 

Note that pre-orders no longer need to be unique. This means that if you’re someone who likes to share, feel free to pile them on. Also note that the ultimate package—the "Fleet Commander"—will get you three books at once, and could save you and your friends on shipping costs. 

I’d also like to take this time to draw your attention to a couple other funding books. 

Christopher Huang’s Murder at the Veteran’s Club just went live today! Chris is a writerly friend of mine and knows how to craft a mystery. If you like historical period pieces and love mystery even more, this is probably the book for you!

If you’d like to delve into something a little more on the horror side, check out JF Dubeau’s A God in the Shed. This is his second Inkshares success-to-be, and everything about this story has me excited to read it. It’s already passed the Quill goal, so it’s definitely coming out, but you can help push his orders off the tracker. 

That’s it for today. When my campaign ideas start to become a real thing I’ll reveal all the secrets. Until then, please keep being part of my crew. May seems far away, but I assure you we’ll need all the time we can get to make this book boom. 

Your Supremely-Secretive-Scheming-Space Captain,
-AC

Top of the Evening to You, Space Crew!

First, a humungous congratulations to those who won the Nerdist contest. That would be Christopher Leone, Michael Haase, and Patrick Edwards. These guys not only have great-sounding stories, but they put in countless hours of marketing and pitching to get their books where they are today. Please consider supporting them if you haven’t already, because their books will definitely be released in the near future.

Where does that leave us? Let me break it down for you. 

First of all, thank you for being the most amazing space crew that’s ever existed. I hope to get around to thanking each of you personally once I’ve had a bit of time to recover from this chaos, but for every one of you who ordered, who pitched to your friends and family, who gave me encouragement along the way—thank you so much. You just may have been a glimmer of hope on a bad day or one of many reasons to smile on a great one. 

In the end we finished 6th. Which, out of  96 entries isn’t too shabby at all! I was extremely focused on the contest throughout this campaign, so I failed to explain the alternative routes. I’ll do that now. First, let’s feel good about how much we accomplished for a moment.

Now we go back to being regular Inkshares book-funders. Let me try to explain this as simply and eloquently as I can.

All the orders we’ve accumulated are going to stick around until May 5. On that date the total orders will be counted and one of three things will happen:

At 750 total orders (note: these do not have to be unique orders), the book will get the same fabulous treatment as the Nerdist contest would have provided. Full service editing, marketing, publishing, and distribution from Inkshares. This is the dream.

At 250 total orders (we’re extremely close already), we reach the "Quill goal". The book will be published via Inkshares with fewer of these fancy services. 

At less than 250 total orders we won’t be published on Inkshares and you’ll all be refunded. That doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road, but that we’ll need to look at alternate routes to get my writing into your hands. That said, I believe this to be a highly unlikely scenario. 

You can check the progress bar on the book page to see how we’re doing. This is us right now, at 199 total orders:

So what should you expect next? I’m gonna cut back on the daily spam until we get closer to the May deadline. It’s a bit much for me to keep up, and I have some "bigger picture" ideas of how to pull more people into the project. 

In the meantime you can definitely keep sharing The Traveller’s Cup with your friends, since reaching 750 won’t be easy. If you use the recommendation links on the book page you’ll earn Inkshares credits too, which will let you pick up other people’s books.

Our ship hasn’t quite reached its destination yet, but that’s okay. We’re still a crew. And thanks to your support in this contest, we’re several pixels closer to our goal. 

Heading into overdrive. Man your stations. And...we’re off!

Your-Inarticulately-Indebted-Space-Captain,
-AC