A Swashbuckling Novella of Black Hearts, Black Humor, and Floppy Black Hats. A besieged band of refugees has only one hope: A morally off-center Robin Hood pathologically obsessed with the look of his own arse.
My dear Machiners,
Where do I begin? I will start by saying that I have now had over 48 hours to decompress. I took some extra time before writing my post-Sword & Laser update. I just didn’t quite feel that I was coherent enough to write the update I wanted in the immediate aftermath. At this point, the fact that I can call myself a “soon to be published author” has not fully sunk in. That this story, which I poured myself into, will be in print and on a bookstore shelf is still hard to believe. When I do see it on that shelf, it will be serious reality check time.
For now I must say Thank YOU. Thank you with all my heart. I cannot thank everybody enough. I want to stress and stress some more that this was an unbelievable team effort. I wrote the story but bringing it to a wider audience through crowdfunding on Inkshares was undeniably a group effort. And a tremendous one at that. Many, many people went above and beyond the call to bring new readers to our cause.
To illustrate this unbelievable outreach, we can break the campaign into two chunks. There were the first 4.5 weeks of the campaign: We brought in 170 readers and this was phenomenal. We were in a strong 2nd place position and hoped it would be enough to stay in the top 3. Then there was the final 1.5 weeks of the contest - and we brought in 180 readers! In my wildest dreams I would never have expected to more than double what we did in over a month in just 10 days. Thank you for the incredible support to finish this race. I feel honored and humbled. I want all of you to feel that you had a hand in making this happen. Because it’s true. The eBook or paperback you receive is yours as much as it is mine, and far beyond the money you contributed.
I must give a hearty salute to my co-winners Joseph Asphahani author of The Animal in Man and Craig Munro the author of The Bones of the Past. It was an absolute pleasure to compete against them. An experience that was full of camaraderie and goodwill. Their books are awesome and I look forward to receiving my copy of both. It is well worth your time to go check them out, and also the other excellent work by talented authors in the top 10 in the Sword & Laser contest. The contest was filled with wonderful creative work - those outside the top 10 also deserve your consideration. Here is the rest of the top 10:
Adam Greven and Matt Deller’s The Knight Proper
Byron Gillian’s The Children of the Forest
Amanda Ornekc’s Deus Hex Machina
Andre Brun’s Lies and Deception
Michael Sebby’s The Inhabitants: An Unremembered Life
Alexander Barnes’s The Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising
Edmond J. Wedge’s Ocean Black: The Noble Exiles
The journey is just beginning for The Last Machine in the Solar System. There will be future updates as we continue down the road toward publication. This is all new and exciting for me and I am sure I will learn something each day. I look forward to sharing that with you, my benefactors. Without you I would not be here, and neither would this story.
Until next time,
-Matthew
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.
Hello humans,
Just a quick update - I'm still very much a corporeal being in this reality, rumors of my untimely dematerialization have been greatly exaggerated.
So, I've finished revising character sheets, which can be fun and a chore at the same time (especially when you just want to get stuck back into the writing). No only do I better understand my characters, I also know a lot more about the world/galaxy/universe I'm building (sci-fi is BIG). As a result, I have begun tweaking Genesis to include these new developments, which I think will make the story more interesting.
Those of you with writing experience know that this is the reverse method, especially for someone who had very little exposure to fiction writing. My consolation is that I didn't succumb to world-builder's disease. Haha. Anyway, I've begun first pass author-edits on Chapters 3 and beyond and hope to get a second pass editing soon after.
To those of you who have $5 credit from pre-ordering before the 31st Oct 2015, here's how you can further assit me by pre-ordering the e-book for FREE:
Live long and prosper!
P/S: Congratulations to the winners of the Sword & Laser sequel contest! Matt, I knew you could do it! Well done!