As always, thank you for the support. I've been building this world in my head for the better part of twelve years, and I'd love to see it fully come to life. What started as a bold epic of clear heroes and villains became, over time and like its author, jaded and cynical, but it never lost its heart. It simply traded self-righteousness for biting wit. The characters I wrote as a teenager and young adult, the world in which they live, have transformed into something new and fresh and cruel and ugly, and in my opinion, so very much better. Characters aren't fully humanized without their flaws.
As I turn in for the night, flipping through my pages to make last minute edits, I am down in this competition but not out. The response has been staggering. Not only from friends, family, and strangers who enjoy my sample enough to place $6 of faith in me, but also from fellow authors and erstwhile "competitors" in this contest.
I'll come once more to you with hat in hand, pleading to keep sharing my project with others in the hopes of publication, but I will also ask that you give a look to A.C. Weston's She Is The End and John Robin's Blood Dawn. There are other worthy authors who have pre-ordered The Defeated , and I encourage you to find them on my readers list and check them out as well.
Thank you for your support. Like I keep saying, whatever happens with this competition, I will get this damned thing published, and I'll make sure to contact each and every one of you if that's the way things turn out. I am currently losing, but I don't have to be. Keep sharing.
A huge thank you to everyone who pre-ordered today! The Defeated now has fifty-two readers and has pre-sold seventy-one copies! I've been hearing only good things from my first test reading group, I've finished the final edits and tweaks (for my part) on the manuscript, and I'm prepared to send that to another sample group of test readers. Thanks again to everyone who pre-ordered today, and to everyone who pre-ordered prior. Keep spreading the word to support the project, and bask in the glow of my immeasurable gratitude!