Hey everyone. Friendly helpful PSA time.

I ordered a physical book but was just told my ebook is ready to download. What happened? 

Don’t worry. If you backed These Are My Friends on Politics, you’ll either have received or soon will receive an email informing you your ebook download is ready. That’s not a goof — every physical book comes with a complimentary ebook version you can load onto your preferred e-reader of choice. So you’re getting that right now while the physical books are being prepared for shipment. If you ordered a physical book (or three, or ten), that package will be heading your way before long. This is just a pre-order bonus.

Sounds good. So what’s a .mobi file? 

If your experience with getting ebooks comes from buying them straight from Amazon’s or Apple’s store, you might be a little thrown by seeing two different formats presented for your consumption. The download page has all the instructions you’ll need, but here’s a bonus quick cheat sheet. 

ePub version: This is the .mp3 of ebooks, and it works on anything not called a Kindle. So if you’re using iBooks for iOS/Mac, Google Books for Android, or a Sony Reader/Nook/Kobo/basically any e-reader ever made that isn’t a Kindle, this is the format for you. 

Kindle (.mobi) version: This one is for anyone using a tablet made by Amazon -- be it a Kindle Fire, the regular monochrome Kindles (Paperwhite, whatever weird name that new one is called) or anything else that has the word "Kindle" stamped on it. It also will display nicely on the Kindle desktop app for PC and Mac. The one place it won’t load: the Kindle app for iOS, which uses a different file format that’s laden with DRM and requires purchase through Amazon’s own store to display books properly. Fortunately, if you’re an iOS person, the ePub version plays perfectly with iBooks. 

So should I read this ebook now or wait for the physical book if I ordered one of those? 

Honestly? If I’m being candid, I’d wait, because I think the physical book is the best experience. I love ebooks, but I don’t think heavily-illustrated books are best served by that format. I also hope this is the kind of book people open up and enjoy together, which is something the physical book better allows to happen. It’s up to you, of course, but if you’re waiting on a physical book and choose to ignore the email about the ebook as result, you’ll get no argument from me. 

This week something pretty amazing happened. Inkshares sent me the back cover text and author bio for The Punch Escrow. I was also given an official publication date, which is a lot further in the future than I originally imagined, but makes sense. The book will be released at San Diego Comic Con (July 19, 2017) and will be given a big promotional push by Geek & Sundry there. We haven’t even started coming up with what sort of pomp and circumstance we’ll do, but I’m sure it’ll be fun. Anyway, the rewrite is moving along swimmingly. Some days more swimming than others. Right now with around 35% of the rewrite complete, I can’t seem to get out of the limbo that exists between 28,000 and 29,000 words, but I’m very motivated by deadlines and I’ve committed to handing in the manuscript by November 1, so I’ll get there. For those curious about the back copy and author bio, here’s what they look like (some of you who have been with me since the beginning of this campaign will note that International Transport has gotten better at marketing, they’ve eliminated "Journey" from their slogan):

Back Cover Synopsis:

It’s the year 2471. Advancements in nanotechnology have enabled us to control aging. We’ve genetically engineered mosquitoes to feast on carbon fumes instead of blood, ending air pollution. And teleportation has become the ideal mode of transportation, offered exclusively by International Transport—a secretive firm headquartered in New York City. Their slogan: Departure... Arrival... Delight!

Joel Byram, our smartass protagonist, is an everyday twenty-fifth century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980’s synthpop—an extremely obscure genre, and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems—until he’s accidentally duplicated while teleporting.  

Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves in a world that now has two of him.

Author Biography Back Cover Version

Tal M. Klein was born in Israel, grew up in New York, and currently lives in Detroit with his wife and two daughters. When she was five years old, his daughter Iris wrote a book called I’m a Bunch of Dinosaurs that went on to become one of the most successful children’s book projects on Kickstarter —something that Tal explained to Iris by telling her, “your book made lots of kids happy.” Iris then asked Tal, "Daddy, why don’t you write a book that makes lots of grownups happy?" Tal mulled this over for a few years, and eventually wrote his first book, The Punch Escrow. It won the Inkshares Geek & Sundry Hard Science Fiction publishing contest, and will be the first book published on the Geek & Sundry imprint.

Friends