I’d like for you all to meet my editor, Matt Harry. He has been amazing in the journey toward getting The Madness of Mr. Butler published. As I’ve said, it is a long process, but that process is all in the best interests of the story, and in your best interests as my readers, investors, and friends. This man is doing great things to help make Mr. Butler a great story. He is challenging me and pushing toward making the final product the absolute best it can be. He is behind the greatest successes at Inkshares, and Inkshares decided that my little book deserves the attention of an incredible editor. Please enjoy the blog entry and video regarding one of his recent releases, "A God in the Shed" by J.F. Dubeau, here: http://blog.inkshares.com/post/162717697220/it-all-comes-back-to-story

As for Mr. Butler, great things are happening, and I appreciate your patience as everything remains under construction. We are still looking at an early 2018 release date.

Any questions? Please don’t hesitate to email me at info@talltalestold.com

Why the new email address? Because I am running an internet thing called "Tall Tales Told" now. It’s a home for everything I’m writing and thinking. I’m featuring music, stories of both fiction and nonfiction, and illustrated poetry. Please take a moment and visit if you haven’t already. You can visit by clicking here.

Thanks again for your support and patience. 

Love always, 

Michael.

Dear Readers,

Updates, Faoii! Listen up!

We’ve done so much and gotten so far during this war, Faoii, I can’t even begin to tell you how proud I am.  This book is going to become a real thing, and I have YOU to thank. You’re the ones that brought us to the top of this hill, and you’re the ones who deserve the spoils at the end of it all. I could not have asked for a better army.

Updates on our progress: This week I finished up the final round of edits with Reedsy and I am SO pleased with the changes made. This was a much more thorough edit than I expected (since it was a copy edit rather than a developmental one) and The Last Faoii is a much stronger book for having seen it through.  After that was finished, Inkshares took The Last Faoii back to begin its pour (this is where they develop the layout for the finished product). Our finest victory to date is on the horizon!

Also, this last, frantic charge up the hill brought on some really amazing changes for The Last Faoii’s look. Thank you to everyone who joined in the small skirmish on my Facebook Page to decide on a new cover. With your ideas and with the help of the incredibly talented Evan Graham (Author of Tantalus Depths and Proteus, both of which you should check out) we now have this beautiful new image to represent our army:

Is that not both fierce and beautiful? Is that not worthy of the Faoii name? I hope that that is the cover of a book you’d be proud to show your friends, because the time is coming when we will have better chances and stronger allies in our fight to make The Last Faoii known. Soon I will call on you again to spread the word that we have taken the first hill, but we are not through. The world will know us, Faoii. Let me hear your battle cry! 

Shields up.

Faoii-Tahani

Dear sentient machines,

Did you guys know that my debut novel, The Life Engineered, prequel to Arch-Android, was recently nominated for a Kobo Emerging Writer Award? It was!

What’s better is that Kobo was awesome enough to send me a Kobo Aura reader. Just like that. But I already read all my ebooks on my iPad. So instead of letting this neat little device gather dust, I decided to give it to you fine creatures. (a 100$ value)

Well, one of you anyways.

So here’s how this is going to work. I will be raffling off the Aura to those who pre-order Arch-Android before the end of the funding campaign.

• Each pre-order at the ’ROBOT’ and ’CAPEK’ levels gets you one ’ticket’.
  
• Pre-orders at the ’ARCH-ANDROID’ (3 copies) level gets you four ’tickets’.
• Every pre-order of any level that is a result of a reference you made gets you one more ’ticket’.

To make this prize even more unique, I will draw a Capek on the back of the device and sign it.

So if you haven’t pre-ordered Arch-Android already, maybe it’s time to get on that. Share your referral link with all your science-fiction loving friends too. Win that eReader!

Thank you my awesome friends,

JF

(here’s a Capek I drew. It’s Eremiel from The Life Engineered)

Hi there friends,

Tony here. I know you haven’t heard from me in a good long while. You may have even completely forgot that you helped crowdfund a book nearly 2 years ago and have yet to see it. For that, I apologize. I assure you that these long delays have been out of my control. And more importantly, NO THIS BOOK HAS NOT BEEN ABANDONED, and YES, IT IS STILL COMING.

"Why the long silence, Tony?"

Well, frankly, I grew a bit tired and embarrassed of sending updates with no real news to speak of. I’m sure you may have grown tired of it as well, so I figured I’d lay low until I could come back with something real for you.

"Why the delays?"

Inkshares is a small publishing team with limited resources, and business decisions resulted in my book being put on the back burner for a very long time. It’s been unfortunate and frustrating, but there it is. The plus side is that I’ve had plenty of time to edit and revise. So the book you’ll be receiving is better than the book that would have been published a year ago.

"So what’s going on with the book now?"

As of a few weeks ago, I was assured by the Inkshares team that they should be able to get my book published and into your hands "by the end of summer". I have submitted the updated version of my manuscript to them and am currently waiting to hear back on the next steps of production. The book has been polished with the aid of beta readers, a professional dev editor, and my own neurotic nitpicking. I even added  a bonus prequel short story while I waited. Inkshares will assist with copy editing (sentence structure, punctuation, making sure things make sense, etc), formatting, slapping on the cover art, and it’s off to the printers. Again, hopefully, in an expedited fashion from here on.

"So when exactly is the book coming?"

I wish I had an official date to give you rather than "by the end of summer", but that’s all I got for now. I will let you know as soon as I have more.

"How about that cover art?"

Not that anyone asked, but I am excited to say the final book artwork is in progress. And if the concepts I’ve seen are any indication, it’s going to be something special. So whether or not you enjoy my writing, you will at least have a very pretty book to display on your shelf. ;)

All right gang, that’s all for now. Thanks again for your patience. I hope to have an official date and/or some art to show next update. See ya!

-Tony V.

I hope June has been good to all of you. In Australia, the end of this month marks the end of our Financial Year, so the joys of tax time commence! /faceplant.

The past month has been another busy one, but the statistics won’t reflect that this time — I haven’t completed any more scenes and my word count hasn’t increased. Instead, the time has been spent digging deeper into the world building with my editing team, making sure everything we include (or exclude) is rock solid. 

Coming out of this round of workshops, we have deeper science, more detailed history, and a path forward that will (hopefully) deliver something fresh to the genre.

Looking ahead, there’s still some work to complete before diving back into the rewrite again, but we’re close, and I can’t wait to get more of this to (digital) paper.

As always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions. If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to jump on Facebook and give my author page a like, or sign up to my author newsletter (covers broader content than just this novel).


The following is a special sneak peek from a revamped prologue I’m looking forward to sharing the full thing:

Six letters ended the world. We didn’t realize it at the time — swept away by the excitement of advancing technology and endless possibilities. We failed to predict the chain of events which would follow, but in hindsight they appear inevitable. Sooner or later, someone was bound to be tempted as we were. Perhaps they wouldn’t have made the same mistakes. Perhaps they would have been more cautious. Perhaps not. History cares not for your regrets, pays no heed to your guilt. It will not change regardless how often or fervently you pray. History’s purpose is not the past, but the future. If we are lucky, we learn, move on, and build a better tomorrow. If we don’t, I fear we are all doomed...