The Trekonomics New Year's Update
Dear readers, followers and friends of Trekonomics,
I am very happy to report that after two months of furious rewriting and editing, the final manuscript has been sent for copy-editing. We are on track for our late-spring 2016 release.
A lot of coordination is involved in producing a book. I am discovering the age-old process of designing a cover and gathering all the elements for the book's jacket as well the so-called "front matter" (that is, all the text and pages that are not part of the manuscript itself).
Speaking of the book's front matter, we are planning a neat little surprise. It will be revealed in time (and I will not say anything more lest I jinx it).
The cover is being designed by the incredibly talented Jennifer Bostic (http://www.paperplanestudio.com/) and John Powers (http://johnpowers.us/, as well his essential blog http://starwarsmodern.blogspot.com/). It is an awesome privilege to work with artists of their caliber. We will share the cover design and artwork with all of you as soon as it is blocked and finalized, within the next few weeks.
2016 will mark the 50th anniversary of Star Trek's first airing on NBC. The exact date is September 8 at 8:30PM Eastern Time. For that occasion, the US Postal Service will release a series of four commemorative stamps. Here they are in all their glory:
"Forever" means that they will be forever good for first-class letters, regardless of future price increases. Hopefully, we will be able to ship some of your pre-orders with these stamps on the envelopes.
As a final note, I am happy to announce that I am contributing to Fusion.net's Real Future on a regular basis. You can set your RSS readers to: http://fusion.net/author/manu-saadia/ or follow me on twitter (@trekonomics). My latest piece was on Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
We will be in touch very soon. In the meantime, a happy and felicitous New Year.
Live Long, and Prosper
Manu
Happy New Year, all.
Wishing you wonderful things ahead in 2016.
We’re nearly there! A third [and my wife hopes final?] raffle drawing will fire off when we reach 250 readers! I’d thought perhaps I would finish it all right there, but I’ve just now spontaneously decided to hold another drawing when we get to 300. That’s right, I’m hitting the reset button on this goal of mine and moving it back. Why not? (Please don't tell the wife!)
As lost as I’ve been in the campaign for “The Animal in Man,” I haven’t been able to take as much time to really dive into the wealth of great stories on display at inkshares.com. Until recently.
Jason Pomerance’s “Women Like Us” completely blew me away. Normally I stick to fantasy and sci-fi, but his writing truly drew me in and didn’t let go. I left a review and several comments on this amazing book. Worth your attention and your credits.
And while it’s only in a Draft phase of production, Peter Ryan’s “Sync City” has crashed through the windowpanes of my psyche and left itself in a bloody glorious post-apocalyptic Mad Max fuel for survival kind of mess on the floor of my brainpan, in the best way possible. I highly urge you visit his page and let Peter know you feel the same way I do, with less gore if you like.
And finally, my fellow Sword & Laser contestant Edmond J. Wedge has a very intriguing first book in a nine-part series he’s planned called “Ocean Black: The Noble Exiles.” I found his mix of genres and settings and atmospheres very engaging. I hope you’ll toss some of your money his way and help get his book published.
Look, everybody… Full disclosure, many who are receiving this update might only be following my book. It is to you - not the other inkshares authors - that I am sending this message. Inkshares has been good to me. It is good for me, for my dream of getting “The Animal in Man” into your hands. And these three gentlemen are just like myself in that regard. Do what you can to get their stories told. You will not be disappointed.
(Final shout out to Vincent Lim, author of “The Cora Chronicles”, for raffling off a sweet wall poster for his book, which I shall gratefully receive, sir. And to Byron Gillan, author of “The Children of the Forest”, which is hitting me in all my nostalgia and love for Final Fantasy, Princess Mononoke, and even The Banner Saga with that amazing artwork. To you, sir, I will have a full review of your chapter soon!)
Peace! (....I hope all these links work!)
Swag alert!!
Okay, now that I've got your attention, there's 122 orders to go by mid-February so if you're following and you haven't ordered "Women Like Us", now's a good time!! And, hey, even if you have pre-ordered, there's no harm in snagging one for a friend, or if you're a fellow Inkshares author and you have any spare credits laying around, by all means -- after all, two is often better than one, no?
Speaking of two, and here's where the potential swag comes in, I think it's time for a raffle, and the prize will be these two beautiful mugs you see here, courtesy of my friends at Osoporto (more on this in a moment). But take a look at the mugs! You want these, don't ya? The next 10 people to pre-order will be entered automatically into this raffle, and one random winner will be drawn from...a mug! So take a look.
Why these mugs? Well, water is actually a pretty prevalent theme in "Women Like Us". Henry's first memory of his grandmother Edith Vale, for example, is of her tossing him into her pool so that he can learn how to swim. Yeah, it's a little rough, but that's how Edith rolls. Both Henry and his father Andrew surf occasionally. And Mrs. Vale also owns a ramshackle cottage at Trancas, which is at the north end of Malibu and was, back in the day, a far scruffier place than it is today. Much like El Porto, which once was its own little town but now is part of Manhattan Beach (although many would glare at you if you mention this so maybe don't). Osoporto, which is where the mugs come from, is a site devoted to El Porto, and it features a whole line of cool clothing artwork and other goods. The mugs just seem like a good fit, and I love the way they look. If you'd like to know more about Osoporto, and its creator Jon Berry, hit this link:
So that's it for now. C'mon and get in on this raffle! And stay tuned because there's a Beagle Freedom-themed swag coming up too.