Hello followers and beautiful contributors,

I'm not saying that those of you who are still on the fence about pre-ordering The Life Engineered aren't beautiful; I know you are. However, the act of placing a pre-order means you are a supporter of the arts and that gives you a 10 to 12% bonus to good looks. It's just science. In fact, "I support independent, aspiring authors." is rated as one of the top three most effective pick-up lines in libraries. Just below "Hi, I'm Neil Gaiman."

Kidding aside, I had this awesome update prepared where I would debate my book trailer and show it off to you guys but as it happens, making a book trailer that isn't objectively terrible and makes the world just a little bit worst simply by existing is kind of hard. So instead of releasing a sub-par video I decided to hold back, rethink my approach and come up with a more palatable book trailer.

I still wanted to touch base with you and since I don't have a book trailer, I figured I could give you guys a little something extra for taking the time to keep up with me. One of the challenges in promoting The Life Engineered has always been what to say and what to keep secret to avoid spoilers. There are a lot of neat plot devices that are more fun to discover while reading the book but they would also make great hooks since they tend to set the story and world apart. Well, if you click here, you'll be able to read Chapter 1 of The World Engineered which should give you a little bit more context regarding the sample already available.

It should tide you over until I get that book trailer done and maybe convince those who are still hesitating to take the plunge and pre-order their copy(ies).

With gratitude,

JFDubeau

P.S.: Have a robot

Hello,

It's me again. Don't worry, I don't plan on making this a daily thing. The last thing I want is to be remembered as a spammer. I just have a quick, dumb gift for you guys.

This campaign is very stressful. Most of you have probably already heard me bellyache about how bad I am at self-promotion and how I don't handle the pressure and competitive nature of this particular effort with much grace. While I was undergoing a routine panic attack, one of my friends said something that I thought should be a poster. Wanting to take my mind off of things and having some illustration I'd worked on that would be acceptable for the purpose, I made the poster and now I'm making it available to you. Click here and you'll find what is becoming a fleshed out 'extra content page' for The Life Engineered.

I hope you like it and again, always, thank you for your support.

JFDubeau

Hello readers, whether you are human, android or sophisticated computer AIs.

Let me begin my extending my thanks for your interest in The Life Engineered. It's been a stressful couple of weeks getting to understand how this crowdfunding thing works and how to grab people's interest without pestering them too much. This campaign is a work in progress as I try to add incentives and benefits to backing my book while keeping up with the demands of finding new readers and grabbing their attention.

However I don't want to forget those who've already committed to the cause or who are keeping an eye on my progress for now. As I currently work to add a book trailer to the campaign page, I find myself sketching out several robots in order to have a few visuals in the video. One of these seemed pleasing enough to my friends and I ended up making an iPhone wallpaper from the illustration. You can find versions for iPhone 5, 6 and 6+ by clicking here. I will be looking at adding Android versions in the future.

Again; thank you for your support. If you haven't pre-ordered yet, please consider doing so soon and if you know anyone for whom a book about sentient robots fighting to protect their civilization from slipping into civil was would be interesting, please point them in my direction.

Regards,

JFDubeau