Quick update…yes, the contest is over. No we didn’t win. Actually, I’m not even sure where we placed cause they pulled everything but the top 5 down…but with 30 minutes left in the contest we were at 16. That’s out of more than 355 entries…which is insane.
We’re now off to option 2…we need at least 750 books pre-ordered to get the ebook published (1,000 to do a physical book). So keep at it! Thank you all for your amazing support…this has been an incredible ride so far!
http://bit.ly/3p8novel
The moment of truth!
Tonight I put 100 names of those who pre-ordered copies 105-204 of Blood Dawn in a blue wizard's hat and drew one name from it. You can watch a short clip on Vine to see the process if you're curious:
You can't quite see the name (this was my second Vine video to date and I'm still trying to get the knack of balancing out 6 seconds of footage), so I hope you all trust me.
Nonetheless...
It was a DRAGON! Congratulations Lisa Hall, whose dragon name is Lahalazar.
Thank you again to everyone for believing in this book. Stay tuned for more to come, including an exciting announcement about another opportunity as we look ahead to the next milestone.
The Aftermath...
It took me a couple of hours to move from the corner of my couch where I usually sit when I am depressed. “One book, you lost by one book.” I kept telling myself while wondering whose fault that was. Was it me for not moving fast enough? For not asking enough people? For skipping doors in my neighborhood? Or was it that friend who said she was pre-ordering 3 weeks ago and after 5 reminders never did?
If I have learned anything from 50 years of Doctor Who, is that there are moments fixed in time that cannot be changed no matter what we do. I believe this was one of them. I was not meant to win The Nerdist contest, and I have to live with that.
Yesterday’s urgency and later on grief made me miss something magical happening around me. A chain of people from all over the world; from Eugene –Oregon- to Sydney; and from Hamden to the Chilean Atacama Desert, spent a day fighting shoulder to shoulder with me to help me win.
My phone was ringing the whole day with messages and texts from friends who decided to turn yesterday into a global “get out the vote” day for The Catcher’s Trap.
It certainly felt like an election day. By noon –Eastern Time- I knew it was going to come down to 1 or 2 books. I was hopeful, though; orders were pouring, and an entire contingency from the University of Utah had joined the campaign mid-morning. In the opposite side of the globe, my massive Chilean family worked as a team trying to figure out a website written in a language unfamiliar to them.
At 2:58 I knew I had fallen short. I watched the seconds fly away as a landslide of rage and sadness overcame me. For the next two hours, I obsessed over the failure.
Today I feel nothing but blessed. The universe decided that the best way to show me how many people care about me was making me lose one of the most important campaigns I’ve ever run. Well played universe; I get it, I totally get it.
The Catcher’s Trap will become a reality one day. I am not sure when, though. I am really close to the 750 copies needed for an electronic run of the book, but I am not sure I will go that road. I need an actual book, one that I can sign and personally deliver to that core group of people who yesterday put their lives on hold, just to support a friend’s silly dream.
Thank you all for your support. I promise I’ll be in touch.
Friends! Thank you so much for all your wonderful support throughout the Nerdist Sci-Fi/Fantasy contest. At the end of the day, The Fable Hunt came in 9th with 367 individual readers pre-ordering a copy, and you are one of the great people who helped me get there.
The next step is a bit more daunting, but I'm feeling motivated again now that this deadline has passed. I have until November 17th to presell 505 more copies of the book to guarantee publication.
You'll hear from me less frequently now as I'm going to be focusing on writing and advertising via social media rather than updating all the time through Inkshares, but I promise to keep you up to date on milestone!
And the basic ask remains - if you know someone super passionate about books, nerdy stuff or crowdfunding, definitely tell them to come order a copy of The Fable Hunt. I'm pretty darn proud to be the only girl in the Top 10 of the contest, and now I'm going to focus on actually pre-selling enough copies to make this book a real physical thing you can hold in your hands.
In closing, check out the awesome drawing of Learid that my friend Jay Lugo created. I love getting a chance to see what my friends absorb from the words I write.
Peace out awesome folks. I'm back to writing!
Rachael
It's a bittersweet day.
To cheer myself up a little, I went out today and got my hair chopped off so I can donate it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. The stylist got 6 ponytails off my head, which is what it takes to make a full wig for a woman battling cancer.
It’s bittersweet because the Nerdist contest has ended and my book SINGLE VERSION was not successful. That’s the bitter part. The sweetness comes from the tremendous amount of support that came my way over the course of the last six weeks. My wife is the most devoted partner anyone could hope for. I have a wonderful family who backs everything I do. I have inspiring friends who go to bat for me without so much as blinking. And of course there are the many orders that came from friends of friends or complete strangers who just wanted to lend a hand or liked the sample chapters. It’s a truly amazing feeling. I finished the Nerdist contest selling 538 copies to 458 readers in six weeks. And just typing out those numbers makes my chest feel a little tight. Have I said thank you enough? I haven’t. I couldn’t.
And I’ve been so touched by the amount of support I’ve gotten from other authors in the competition as well, especially after announcing the birth of Beatty. Special shout-out to S.T. Ranscht (https://www.inkshares.com/projects/enhanced) and Steve Soldwedel (https://www.inkshares.com/projects/disintegration) for their continued support and promotion of SINGLE VERSION to their Inkshares readership. I’ve pre-ordered both of their books myself and I hope you will too.
It’s an understatement to say that I’m lucky. It’s an inadequate word. But it’s the word I have. I’m lucky to have so many people who are ready to rally around me and a project I’m trying to bring to the world.
That project is not a reality yet. SINGLE VERSION came in 7th place in the Nerdist contest. Out of the top 5. Not one of the winners, and so it’s not guaranteed publication just yet. I competed in this contest specifically because I thought Inkshares sounded like a really cool and necessary enterprise, so I dove in. Not to mention the prospect of having a book backed by the Nerdist was too golden. I can still get SINGLE VERSION published in Inkshares’ standard way by garnering 1,000 total orders by November 15. That’s 462 more than I currently have. A lot, but not impossible—after all I’m more than halfway there already. Difficult, though, considering I’ve already appealed to my entire network. But say I get to 1,000. Perfect! The book is published, it just took some extra doing. If not that, there’s traditional publishing, self-publishing, or doing some kind of serial, maybe an audiobook…who knows? I don’t know what’s next. I’m going to take tonight to shrug and mope a little and then tomorrow will be tomorrow.
When I was in college, I ran track. I was a sprinter and jumper, and ran the relays. In those days I was an all-around athlete: strong pound-for-pound, quick, and agile. So, for our conference championship one year, my coaches flagged me to be the kid on the team they’d train for the decathlon. I was so flattered that they thought I could do it and so excited by the challenge that I said HELL YEAH and started working right away. There were things I could already do well. The 100m dash. The long jump. I busted my ass to improve in the high jump, javelin, and pole vault—for that last one I had to overcome a neurosis about flipping upside down I didn’t even realize I had. The shot put and the discus were rough for me but I tried my best. But the insurmountable obstacle in the decathlon was the hurdles. At a short-legged 5’7”, the high hurdles came to above my waist, making it physically impossible for me to properly hurdle them. I had to jump over each one, which crushed my time. No matter what I did, I couldn’t gracefully get over those hurdles, and I had many many falls, with the bruises and abrasions to show for it. Overall, my event scores were all over the place but I was getting better every week. The championship meet was held at the College of Wooster that year, and the decathlon ran over the course of two days prior to the rest of the meet. My coach and I drove out on the morning of the first day, ready and hopeful. I did well in the things I expected to do well in, and even surprised myself in some of my weaker events—though I was still laughably awful at the shot put and discus. The final event on the second day was the 1500m run. Not my strong suit, middle distance, but I knew I could do it. I ran a good race, fighting fatigue and a cramp, dry lungs heaving, straining as I lowered my head and charged for the finish, my coach yelling “Time! Time!” from the sideline, reminding me that I was not racing my competitors, I was only racing myself, trying to put up the absolute best time I could. I crossed the finish line and collapsed after two days of brutal competition and months and months of hard training. In our conference meets, anyone who placed in the top 8 of an event scored points for their team. Moments after finishing the race, my coach came up to me as I lay on the ground trying to catch my breath, seeing stars from the exhaustion. He said, “You came in 9th place, Scott. Thanks for your hard work.” When we got back to our home campus, after a long and quiet car ride, my teammates were supportive and upbeat, albeit undoubtedly disappointed that I didn’t manage, after all of that time and effort, to score a single point.
Today feels a bit like that. I'm crestfallen but deeply grateful.
It’s not over for me or for SINGLE VERSION. This is just one of those high hurdles that I couldn’t quite clear yet.
Thank you for believing in me.
Scott
Going to take a break from talking about my book in order to congratulate the top 5 in the Nerdist contest. If you haven't checked out any/all of these books already, then I've went ahead and embedded the links in the titles, so click away and enjoy.
Zachary Tyler Linville("Welcome to Deadland"), Brian Guthrie("Rise"), Richard Heinz("The Seventh Age: Dawn"), Andrew J. Ainsworth("These Old Bones"), and Dave Barrett("It's All Fun and Games"), congratulations on great work at both writing and marketing. Keep it up.
And the remainder of the top ten all deserve your and my praise and attention as well, links also embedded for ease of checking out. Good job to Ricardo Henriquez("The Catcher's Trap"), Scott T. Barsotti("Single Version"), Robert Wren("Ophelia, Doll"), Rachael Berkey("The Fable Hunt"), and last in this listing but most certainly not least Jamison Stone("Rune of the Apprentice").
Again, if you haven't already taken the time to check out their books, then do yourself a favor and do so now.
That's all I've got for today, but more news of myself is somewhere on the horizon.
WOOT! We made it! I am so grateful to all of you who have helped me bring It's All Fun and Games to life. I have to say the last hours of the contest were nerve-wracking, but now that it's all over I'm heaving a great big sigh of relief.
I've been informed that we've reached the print publication goal, and that's all the info I've got so far. As I learn more about the process of bringing the book through editing, etc., I'll be sure to keep you updated. While there's still a little spit and polish to do, the book is probably 95% complete, so hopefully we'll be able to move into production soonish.
Now I have one more favor to ask of you. If you shared my book and earned some referral credits, consider tossing them at The Catcher's Trap. Ricardo's book came in 6th place, falling just 3 supporters short of me. What I've read of his book so far is excellent, and he deserves to bring this baby to print. There are 48 days left in the funding window, which is plenty of time to get the remaining 360 or so book sales to hit 1000 (or at the very least 130 to get to ebook). I, for one, will be buying another 9 copies for myself with my own credits. Let's get Ricardo published!
That's all for now! Thank you again!
...Any positive brainwaves you can spare toward Dax Harrison are likewise much appreciated. *humble bow* :)