I won.

When you read that, how do you hear it? If it’s something in your mind like a soft, shocked whisper, the kind of sound you hear when someone speaks in the stillness of a slow snowfall, then you’re pretty close to how I’m hearing myself say it. I won. I won… I won? ...I WON!?! 

Whether it’s the Sword and Laser’s Tom and Veronica, journalist Alicia Smock, or other authors mentioning my name in their own reader updates or raffle videos, the experience of being exposed and showered with praise for my story has really validated all this hard work I’ve done.

And, …. wow… this campaign has been some hard work.

Somewhere in an article or something I said to somebody that I was back on what I call “The Skyrim Sleeping Schedule.” (I’m sure some former students of mine will recall EXACTLY how loopy I got soon after 11/11/11.) Basically 4 to 5 hours of fitful sleep every night for the past month has really racked my body. Even as I type this, my mind’s eye glances over its shoulder and sees my body tapping its watch, shaking its head. I hear it say “Joe, it’s time, man.” And I’m like, “Hey, wait! I got a raffle video to do! Six new winners, six more $20 giftcard giveaways, six titles gone from my priceless video game collection!” But in this vision, my body wraps its arm warmly around me and escorts me from the premises of health, and it says, “Maybe this weekend, pal.” So I’m about to give in and just get sick…

I am utterly exhausted. ...and I’m kind of numb. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m typing this all right now secretly from my work cubicle, clicking back to the work window whene….. …. …. …. ver someone walks by. But right at this moment, I can’t celebrate. I’m happy. I’m BEYOND EUPHORIA, in fact, but I can’t jump for joy just yet.

I haven’t yet mastered the art of embedding gifs or whatever the cool kids are doing these days - so this little graphic here will have to do to express my current state of existence:

(!!!!)

(What? I’m a man of letters, I tell ya!)

“Thank you all so much.” I know that track’s been on repeat for quite some time, but there’s no other phrase that can contain all of my feelings and gratitude toward your support. Thank you.

As promised, I recorded my raffle video late last night, when I was at 63 readers. I have since gained two more readers, so the two of you will be included in the next raffle when I hit 70.

Check it out to see if you've won:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cq3DmueyA4

I will contact the winner directly later to hammer out details. Congrats to that person!

Meanwhile, the Sword & Laser Contest wraps up in about two and a half hours. I mentioned a little bit about it in the raffle video, but I will send out a definitive post-contest update later when everything has officially ended.

As always, thanks for your support, and enjoy your Friday!

There are twenty one days left before my original original? funding date ends. For all those reading that are also sprites of inkshares, a lot of deadlines were extended with the whole credits system snafu. Right now, I would like to thank Janna Grace for the kind and empowering words.

And of course, there is her book, which I reviewed as well.

Now, back to this update. Yes, this very one. I am not close to my goal of 750 books, not by an expert marksman's long shot. I do believe I did make Quill's goal, which would mean light publishing, but also light editing. I feel my book needs a lot more than light in the dark forest of edits and context layout so that it can be properly enjoyed, but Quill may be the answer, or...

We can get this book to 750 in a record of 21 days. Can it be done? Of course, but how? Now with every single one of you reading this... "But I already ordered my copy and frankly I am getting sick of your e-mails, and Facebook posts, and enough with the Instagram. Make the book or don't damnit!" you say. A bit harsh, but how bout to spread the word? Tell one coworker, one family member, a neighbor, even a share of my page is a monumental source when it comes to lending a hand. One post by everyone causes a bit of a stir , as simple as turning around a single stirrer in a Venti Mocha, or me alone, which is better summarized as the gravity of the moon pulling at the waves of a turbulent ocean. I'd rather have coffee.

21 days. 479 copies to go. 245 of you that are possibly going to or have read this. Some of you have purchased multiple copies while some have subscribed and followed me with some interest. I thank you all, truly and from the bottom of my lonely heart as of late, so very very much for sitting in the cockpit with me as I take on this great epic adventure. To my family, my friends, my colleagues, my fellow inkshares, and most importantly to the ones who have doubted me and laid my book down and or ripped up my flyers over the year(s), you have given me the drive to prove you all that I have a story to tell and a damn good one at that. 

- Checkmate and Rummy my dear Gladiators

Tonight, and for one night only, I will be doing the unthinkable! I will not try to sell you my book or be promotional about it or myself in any way whatsoever, and instead will just let myself be entirely natural. I know I need the break, and the way I've been harping on ordering lately I suspect you all likely do as well. Mainly within the past few days I realized that this campaign is nearing both the 5 month mark and end date, and I've never really bothered to introduce myself or tell you about myself at all really, and that just feels a bit rude to me. I'll try to remedy my rudeness as quickly as possible with this update, though when being natural I tend to ramble so I apologize if I go overlong on this one.

I suppose I'll start with one of the chief elements which led my brain to the above thought, that being the number of times I've recently seen/heard remarks about how odd it is that there is such a significant difference between the number of followers for Exile, Magus and the number of orders placed for it. I'd thought the same myself at first, but I pretty quickly came to what I at least think is the answer: that I'm horrible at sales/marketing/promotion. This isn't a new revelation to me as I have pretty much always been my own worst advocate, and beyond that almost entirely incapable of creating anything resembling a sales pitch. This means that plenty of people think it sounds interesting enough to eventually check out so they follow, but then my lack of promotional ability ensures that I fail to draw them back to actually check out the project while also not driving them away and thus my follower count stays high without a proportional increase in sales. At least that's my theory, but I could be wrong.

With that being said, I have actually done far better than I ever expected to despite of my poor promotional skills. Admittedly, I have perhaps an overabundance of self-doubt so I may have not given myself enough credit going into this. Beyond my perceived promotional inability, I also saw my years of putting off even attempting a start at platform-building and my own somewhat extreme introversion to be insurmountable obstacles as well. I suppose to best illustrate the introversion I should point out that of my preorders only 7 have come from my own familial/social network, the rest have come entirely through pitching on Inkshares. With these thoughts in mind it may seem odd that I would launch the campaign to begin with but the reason for that is simple: I needed something to kick me out of a seemingly endless cycle(at that point it had been going on for 5 years since the completion of Exile, Magus' rough draft) of revisions(often very nitpicky & unnecessary ones), writing books further in the series, and writing then scrapping a now untold number of query letters without ever mailing a single one.

I'm sure at this point its likely seeming like this is intended as a negative/moody update, but that's not actually the point. Really the point of this update(and my own convoluted train of thought) comes down to a key point of the previous paragraph: all but a very small portion of the orders I've gotten for Exile, Magus have come from people who were complete strangers to me before I stumbled on Inkshares through the Nerdist contest this past August. Beyond that, of these strangers who I've gotten to communicate with many of them have shown what certainly feels to me to be quite a bit of faith in Exile, Magus, even going above and beyond anything I would ever ask/expect of them by reaching out to their own networks on my behalf. I feel a bit bad about not naming names here, but I'm trying for as much brevity as possible here and the list has grown quite large at this point. You all know who you are though, and if you read this know that your support and belief have been both humbling and heartwarming and I cannot thank you enough.

To come to a conclusion, and the full point of this update. It was only about 6-7 months ago when I was completing the most recent revision of Exile, Magus in preparation for writing a new round of query letters that I finally reached a point where I truly accepted what my primary beta reader had been trying to get across to me for years: this book is worthy of being published. Even with that realization I was still left with the doubt that there would be much of an audience for my peculiar tale - one which a person could describe as a mixture of teenage angst, human loneliness and the desperation it brings forth in a person, and the hopefully temporary and often unnoticed madness brought on by loss and survivor's guilt wrapped up and made palatable by the guise of high fantasy with an almost comic book style approach to action. Sure, it was perfected suited for me what with my own oddly nebulous points of interest/fandoms, but I felt certain that there could not be more than a dozen, maybe two dozen others the world over who would actually be interested in that sort of thing.

Well, now thanks to this experience and the people I have encountered(albeit only online) through it I realize that there is a larger audience out there. I've found far more of you than I ever expected to in a relatively short period of time, and this lets me know that I must continue digging to find even more like you. It won't be an easy task, especially since I will have to fight my own social anxieties every step of the way, but it will be worth every bit of exertion. It will continue to stretch my abilities and self in ways I hadn't before thought possible. Example: I'm not far from completing my first short story(kind of). Before they had always expanding out of control to be anything but short. Hopefully I can continue to create short fiction and maybe even write a non-rambling article or few to post on my blog and/or try to get published on other blogs/publications.

In conclusion, regardless of the outcome of this campaign, I couldn't be happier that I made the rather rash decision to jump into this Inkshares thing during the Nerdist contest. It was exactly what I needed when I needed it. And, at least as important, maybe more important, I can't thank you all enough for your time and support. Enough of this emotionalism though, I'm signing off here now. I'll see you all here again Saturday when I returning to my shameless attempts to get everyone to buy my book. Until then, be good, be safe, but most importantly – have fun!