I’m sitting at my desk this lovely morning, watching the snow fall out the window of my mountainside home and feeling very grateful for all of you. This update is coming a little later than usual, and for that, I apologize. I was waiting to hear back on a few points so that this update could be a bit more substantial than the last few. And, it will be!

I have multiple exciting updates to share with you!

1) Developmental Edit Progress

Since my update at the end of October, I have concluded another round of developmental edit rewrites. The book is now back in the hands of my editor. He is going through one more time (he estimates this will take about two weeks), and then he plans to send the book to a beta-reader to get some third-party, objective feedback. We will then use that feedback to do one more pass before forwarding the book to a copy-editor.

2) Title change

While I like The Walls are Closing In (and we may still use it as a tagline for the book), we have decided that a different title is more marketable, provides a bit of mystery, and is catchier for the future selling of property rights (fingers crossed).

So, without further ado, the new title is:

The Seclusion

3) Genre Change

We are making a few changes to the plot and market the book as YA(Young Adult). This will only marginally change the story but will double the audience. It allows us to not only market the book to fans of books such as 1984, Fahrenheit 541, and The Handmaid’s Tale, but also to fans of books such as The Hunger Games and Divergent.

3) Release Date!

The book has been assigned a tentative release date and an ISBN number (this second part is probably not exciting to anyone but me).

The Seclusion is currently set to publish on:

October 2, 2018!

This is a bit later than I had hoped, but I am beyond thrilled that there is an official trajectory. Between now and then I will be doing everything in my power to ensure that the launch is a success.

One last note - the first two chapters on the book’s page have been updated to reflect the changes that we have been making. Feel free to check them out!

Until next time,

-Jacqui

Hello everyone, 

The year is almost over! This should be my last update for 2017 so I wanted to wish you all a happy holiday period and New Year. 

Things have been hectic in the world of Blood Capital. Inkshares and I are pushing hard to get the book ready for print, and it’s been all hands on deck. I’m still in edits, but things are getting pointy — the last week has seen long hours devoted to getting a sample of the book ready for sales reps from the major bookstore chains. There’s also been more progress on development of a final cover. As soon as I have that, I’ll be sending out a special update.

Everyone always asks how the book is going, and I love that people haven’t lost interest yet. I’m really excited by the way the story is developing with support from the Inkshares team and putting as much time and love into the project as I can. To keep me honest, and to keep you all in the loop, I’ve upped my game for tracking work on the novel. I’ve created a Tableau Public Dashboard which I update at the end of each writing session. Tracking of my hours is new, so there’s only three weeks of data for that, but hopefully it shows I haven’t been slacking. With a toddler and a demanding day job, it’s sometimes difficult to find the time. Thankfully, I love writing, so I’ve upped my coffee intake and am putting in the hours to get this done. Below is are some static screenshots of the dashboards, but if you follow this link you’ll get an interactive version.

PS: When I started the major rewrites as part of this developmental edit, I pulled most of the samples of the novel from the Inkshares website, as too many details were changing. Over the next month I plan to put a few new samples back up, so keep an eye out for a taste as to how the story as developed from those early days.

As always, thank you.

Robert

https://robertbatten.net

Hello friends and supporters.

Well, NaNoWriMo has come and gone. It was not an altogether unprofitable month, though it was not as profitable as it should have been. I’m not sure who got the idea that the national novel writing month should be smack in the middle of the holiday season, but it’s not the most conducive of times for reaching lofty goals.

As I said, though, it was not unprofitable. I managed to write two full, reasonably sizeable chapters in Proteus, for one. As far as Tantalus Depths goes, I’d say I’m approximately 50% done with the current draft’s revisions. By that, I mean about 50% done with the changes I plan to make before turning the whole thing back over to my editor to see what he thinks of it. It’s possible he’ll want me to make additional changes at that point before we move to the next stage in the production process, but this draft is the one where the biggest changes will happen.

My current goal is to have this draft 100% finished by the end of the year. I doubt my editor will want to work on it during the holidays, but if I have work left to do at that point, I’m going to do it anyway. I am so ready to move ahead in this process it’s not funny. I really want to get through the monotony and frustration of editing so I can get back to the excitement of actual writing, but one thing at a time.

Hopefully my next update will signal the triumphant wrapping-up of my current draft and the next phase of the process. Stay tuned!

Hello, Shadow King readers!

Hope your December is going well. I wanted to send you all a quick update to let you know that the development edit is done, and I’ve turned the manuscript back in to Inkshares! I’m very, very happy with how it has turned out and can’t wait for everyone to get their hands on a copy.

I’m hoping to get an ETA on when my project will kick-off soon, but I don’t have a hard and fast date yet. But as soon as I do, I’ll be sure to share the good news and any kind of timeline.

In the meantime, I’m working on two other things:

First, my funding campaign for "The Devil You Don’t" will close at the end of this month, and I’m pretty darn close to reaching Quill funding again. Several syndicates have endorsed the book, so if you haven’t checked it out, please take a look. I need just under 40 pre-orders before 12/31/17 to make the threshold--please consider sharing info about Devil with your fellow readers (or order a copy for yourself, I’m confident you’ll enjoy it!)

Second, yes, I have started dabbling on Shadow King 2 (clearly a working title right now). I’m planning to get started on this in earnest over the next few weeks.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday and New Year, and I’ll update again soon.

All the best,
Susan

Greetings supporters of Crow’s Gambit!

Exciting news! My new author website is now live! Check out https://deborahmunroauthor.com to see all the great content.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been working with my web designer, Mary Ann Aschenbrenner of Waterlink Web to create a fabulous new website to promote my book, tell you more about me as a person, share my other publications, provide interesting and meaningful content on how to use social media for marketing, discuss science related to APEX (https://www.inkshares.com/books/apex), and provide a portal to connect with me on various social media platforms.

Dear all,

This is a short update about the publication of "Everything is Normal."

The book is fully finished. At this stage the publisher is reaching out to relevant authors for "blurbs" – quotes about the book to be printed on the front and the back covers. Here are a couple examples received:

“Like walking through the looking-glass into 1970s-80s Leningrad... funny, shocking and occasionally even tender... prepare to be transported back to the CCCP.” —Lisa Dickey, author of Bears in the Streets

“A rare glimpse of life in Soviet Russia before and during perestroika. Everything is Normal is the tender and often funny story of a personal journey paralleled by seismic changes in the country itself. A captivating read.” —Elena Gorokhova, author of Russian Tattoo

In January, the publisher will be sending electronic and physical copies of the book (first off-set print run) to various media players in the book world (editors at the NYT, WSJ, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, etc.), as well as to top influencers, book reviewers, librarians, etc.  Fingers crossed, it will generate good reviews and interest.

The book is already getting orders from small independent bookstores in the US  almost every day. This is pleasing. It is also already available for pre-orders on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc., and for reviews on Goodreads.

https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Normal-Life-Times-Soviet/dp/1942645902/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1511930598&sr=8-5&keywords=everything+is+normal

So, so far so good. It has been an interesting journey, which is now coming to its conclusion. Thank you very much again for your support, pre-orders and patience. As planned, you will be receiving the books in March.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy New Year, and Happy Festivus for the rest of us.

Cheers,

Sergey

Hey there, readers!

.

Despite my battling the start of a nasty head cold, yesterday’s signing event at Barnes & Noble went pretty damn good! I sold a decent stack of books, chatted with some cool people, and probably drank an unsafe-for-humans amount of coffee. Special thanks to everyone who came by, and to the awesome BN staff that let me set up shop for the day.

And of 16 names in the hat, the winner of the poster giveaway is... MAY KAYYALI! Thank you so much May for grabbing a copy of the book! I’ll be in touch with you soon.

And now to San Diego, AWAYYYY!

This coming Saturday, December 9th, I’ll be at the Mysterious Galaxy BookStore (hopefully minus head cold). Starting at 2PM, a handful of authors (including yours truly) will take turns getting on the mic and chatting about their books. Then we will split off into individual signing tables. Come join the fun! See the links below for more info:

Mysterious Galaxy Holiday Party (Facebook Event Page)
Mysterious Galaxy Website

ONE LAST THING! If you wish to buy a signed copy of the book, but you can’t make it out to these events, send me an email at rockhollywood8@gmail.com. I have about 20 copies on-hand that I need to sell. If you order directly from me, not only will you get a PERSONALLY SIGNED copy, but I’ll also send it out ASAP in time for Christmas. Got a friend or family member who might like a silly space adventure? Drop me a line!

-Tony