IMPORTANT UPDATE!

It’s been almost a month since my last update on Human Resources, and I’m pleased to report that month has been productive. I have now completed the second draft of the novel and handed it over to Inkshares for editing.

Thanks to the support of my wife, I was able to take January off to focus on this process. There was a lot of work required to complete the second draft — every existing scene was re-written and thirty-one new scenes added, rounding out the story. The manuscript grew from approximately 58k words, to 70.3k words, then settled back to just under 70k.

This is a critical milestone. From here, the formal editing process begins. There are three stages of editing with Inkshares; developmental, copy, then proof-reading. 

The developmental edit is structural: 

• Is the pacing right? 
• Are there any plot holes? 
• Does this character make sense? 
• Does this sub-plot go anywhere interesting? 
  

The developmental edit should take about three months.

The copy edit is technical. It focuses primarily on grammar and spelling, helping make the writing as clean as possible. This edit takes about one month.

Proof reading is the final step, fresh eyes are given the completed manuscript to read cover to cover and provide feedback. When working on the previous two editing stages, you can lose perspective by spending so much time working on specific details. This stage helps make sure the novel "works." This stage takes about one month.

In parallel to the editing, the publisher will have designers working on cover designs etc. I’ve been told who will be working on Human Resources and I’m excited about it. I’m waiting for confirmation as to whether it is something I can announce — stay tuned...

If you would like more details about the publishing process with Inkshares, and what will happen at each stage, the company recently released a post about it here.

New Excerpts

The novel page on Inkshares has several excerpts available to read from the first part of the book. Their platform enables readers to highlight sections they like, and add comments to discuss with other readers and the author. Up until now, I’ve left these excerpts alone as much as possible. I’ve received some great engagement from the community, with a lot of comments and interactions on the excerpts. However, with the second draft finished, I needed to update these excerpts with newer versions. This is now done, so don’t be thrown if all the comments have disappeared. Hopefully, you’ll all agree the new versions are an improvement.

Mailing List

I’ve started an author mailing list and will be sending out a monthly newsletter to people who subscribe. There will be some overlap with my Human Resources updates, but the newsletter will be broader; it will include some of my short stories, blog articles on writing, and information on other projects I become involved in. You can sign up here (and obviously unsubscribe any time if you find it isn’t for you).

Other Projects

I wanted to take an opportunity to highlight some other interesting projects currently funding on Inkshares:  

• Arcadia, Andre Brun: Peter Pan meets The King in Yellow. Ten strangers must band together and find a way to defeat Suelitta before they lose what is left of their sanity (Horror).
• The Walls are Closing In, Jacqui Castle: Decades after The Seclusion, during which America constructed massive border walls and sealed itself off from the outside world, thirty-one year old Patricia Evans lives within the panoptic nightmare of a total surveillance state (Dystopian).
• How to Kiss Like a Movie Star, Leslie Nipkow: What happens when a real-size girl decides to become a movie star? How to Kiss Like a Movie Star is a love story: tragic, funny, unrequited, and occasionally illegal, about death, acting, boxing, breast cancer, secrets, and soap opera (Memoire).
• King’s Daughter, Julia Bobkoff: King’s Daughter brings to life the 10th century saga of the spirited Danish warrior princess Thyra Haraldsdatter and the man she loved and lost, Norway’s legendary maverick King Olaf Tryggvason—a tale of love, war, betrayal, and redemption (Historical Fiction).
• The Phantom Forest, Liz Kerin: In a war-torn tribal city inhabited by mystical spirits, a young woman named Seicha is ritually sacrificed to a demon and must navigate the dangers of the Underworld to protect the family she left behind from beyond the grave (Fantasy).

May I present you Maxan - former thief, city guard, “Shadow of Crosswall,” and the hero of my novel “The Animal in Man.” 

I tend to think of the creatures in Herbridia as having almost entirely animalistic features - fanned ears, fangs and claws, bushy tails, triple-jointed hindlegs, things like that - while the proportions of their bodies are almost entirely human - shoulders, waists, arms and legs, walking upright, the capacity for speech. There’s a reason this book isn’t 100% “Watership Down.” (Richard Adams, RIP.) There’s a reason that although the world and all its inhabitants appear as your typical ‘Fantasy’ expectations, the book is listed on inkshares as Science Fiction.

There’s always more than what there appears to be.

This brilliant work of concept art (the first entry in a series of visual aids I plan to flash in front of your eyes this year) was created by Paco Guidice. I’m so absolutely lucky to have stumbled across Paco’s work when I was searching for just the right artistic style to capture the vision I had in mind when I wrote The Animal in Man. I came across his portfolio site HERE. Fellow inkshares authors, you’d do yourself a favor to seek Paco out if you ever thought to commission art for your own project(s).

More art on the way, including everyone’s favorite Wolf Sorcerer Feyn (featured prominently in chapter one), and Hawk Knight Sarovek (also featured in chapter one, where she gets skewered on the serrated teeth of the hyena’s wicked sword).

Until next time, Animals.

Dear friends and followers,

It is now three weeks since we won the Full Publication deal with The List. The manuscript for "Murder at the Veterans’ Club" was submitted two weeks ago, and now it is a matter of waiting for an editor to be assigned to me. This could take a while; here’s the article about the publishing timeline, in case you missed the last update: I know there are a couple of new faces among you since then.

So, what lies ahead?

Well, I am currently halfway through working on a story-game project for Choice Of Games. I expect to see it come out some time in the latter half of this year. (I encourage everyone to check them out. I’ve enjoyed their stuff over the past few years, and I’m excited at the possibility of seeing myself in their lineup.)

There is also the matter of what to do with the Peterkin franchise. With the publishing timeline being somewhat longer than I expected, and with the additional time required to properly fund a campaign ... plus the sheer chutzpah it would require for me to begin asking for orders on a second book before the first book is even in anyone’s hands.... If I plan on getting the Full Publication deal on something, I should probably start the funding campaign after the launch of this current book, which means it could be two years or more in between books. That seems ... likely to result in an overall loss of interest.

So, I’m toying with a couple of ideas.

One: start a new campaign anyway, for the short story collection "Peterkin Investigates the Anthology"--but aim only for the 250 orders required for the Quill imprint. It won’t get all the services of the Full Publication deal, but then it isn’t a sequel and it isn’t a full-length novel, and it will be out there and available within a year after "Murder at the Veterans’ Club".

Two: take that collection apart and publish the stories individually via Kindle Direct; say, one every two months.

I haven’t quite researched these options yet, nor have I decided on a course of action. It seems the adventure is only just beginning....

What is this madness!! An update on Tuesday!!?

Why. Yes. It’s officially publication day!

Even the Audio Book is live today. It’s AWESOME! (might be biased). If Audiobooks are your jam, you can totally find it here: Seventh Age Audio Book

Also, if you can, please share that with other people who might like the Audio Book. 

In other news, on Launch Day I’ve got two great links! 

An amazing review of the book: Click Here

A feature article on Dread Central! Avalon over at Inkshares nailed the perfect place to feature the book. 

Just in case you DON’T have your book yet, and I know many of you still haven’t gotten them yet; (particularly super readers); You can always email Hello@Inkshares.com and double check that it was shipped. It should be any day now. 

So now... enjoy the read! Let me know what you think! I’ll be asking for reviews in a month or so. I’ll even do an entire update about the importance of them and why it’s critical that readers leave them. 

Otherwise.... maybe you can spot me, or the booth imp, at a con!

Hello everyone!

It has been a while since my last update, but today marks a special anniversary for me – exactly one year ago, The Bones of the Past won a publishing contract. This is going to be a long update, so bear with me!

There has been far more work involved in getting the book into shape for publishing than I ever expected – I’m just now working on my review of the last proofread – but it has been an amazing experience and the book has evolved into something I am extremely proud of.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you once again for your continued support and interest. I would never have made it this far without you!

Now, I do believe I owe you some news about the book including when and where you’ll finally be able to get your hands on it!

First of all, you’ll see in the attached picture that we have the back cover and spine of the book finalised and we’re just missing the “placeholder attributions”. These mini reviews are from authors who read the book in a raw form (still full of typos) and who had some positive things to say about it!

I’m very proud to say that I received some “cover blurbs” from three really amazing authors and I am truly humbled that people as talented as they are would have such positive things to say about my book.

Joseph Asphahani’s excellent SciFi/Fantasy novel - The Animal in Man - secured publishing through the same contest that I was in. His book isn’t out yet, but I’ve had the privilege of reading an early copy of it and I can’t recommend it highly enough. So, keep an eye out for it!

Rick Heinz’s The Seventh Age: Dawn is an incredibly exciting take on urban fantasy vampires and demons. It kept me up late on more than one occasion and is a book that anyone with even a passing interest in the genre should run out and buy right now!

Alan Campbell is the author of a number of bestselling novels. Most notable is his Deepgate Codex series. He does fantasy differently than any other author I’ve read and the result is something you won’t soon forget. I’ve been reading his books for at least ten years, so having him read mine (and like it!) is more than a little surreal. The Deepgate Codex is a trilogy that’s available in its entirety right now and should be on any fantasy fan’s ‘to read’ list.

So… what did they have to say about The Bones of the Past? I’ll share that closer to publication date or let you read the blurbs on the book for yourselves!

And so, we come to the publication date. The process is still on track for a May 30, 2017 publication. That means that you should get your copies a little bit before that if you ordered through Inkshares. If you haven’t or if you’d like to pick up a hardcopy, please go ahead and pre-order it through your local bookstore! That will make one store that’s more likely to keep my book in stock and on its shelves! All the major chains have it listed already, and most independent bookstores can get their hands on it easily enough :)

Book sales, and more specifically launches, are all about creating buzz. So more pre-orders and more attendees to the launch event go a long way toward making a book stand out and succeed (second only to reviews!).  The launch event will be held in Ottawa at a date somewhere around May 30th. Work has already started on nailing down exactly where and when. I’ll let you know as soon as I have something solid.

Thank you all yet again!!!