Oh hi, how you doing? Feeling good? Having a good spring? Do you even have spring where you live?
Here in Alabama the flowers are in bloom, the trees are green again, and the pollen plague is in full effect. I’ve been nose down in writing projects, but none of them have been the Circuit sequel because alas they’re for my day job. But hey, we got our first game launched, so that feels good.
This week I negotiated terms for the Sister of the Circuit audiobook. I’m happy to announce that the amazing Jill Crenshaw will be narrating for Isidore, Dax, and CRI-LUX. I could NOT be more excited. I can’t wait to hear this story with her incredible acting ability. All is lined up to have the audiobook launched the same time as the other formats, so July is going to be a BIG month.
Have I mentioned the launch team to ya’ll? I’m pre-building the book launch team now, you know, reviews and such, but I am giving away mugs, bookmarks, shirts, and a huge prize at the end for one lucky member. Want to be part of this? Head on over and sign up!
Greetings, Faoii! It’s been another month, and this one has been our best one to date! Look at what we’ve done, my warriors!
Do you see that? 345 copies in one month. For every one of you that spread the word and left a review-- I thank you. This is your doing, and thus I raise my mug.
Actually, if you’d like to raise a mug or drinking horn with me in person, consider coming to The Montana Renaissance Festival in Billings on June 2 and 3rd. It’s at Zoo Montana, and I’ll be there with books, a booth, a quill, and a brand new set of armor. I would love to meet some of you in person, Faoii. Put a face to the warriors that have carried us so far. 
One more thing: If you haven’t already followed Faoii Betrayer do so now! We’re going to make this sequel real one way or another. But sequels only matter if people know the original book is out there. Keep shouting your battle-cry, Faoii. Tell the world! Rate, review, share! Ask your local library if they can get a copy in. Give The Last Faoii as gifts. Faoii Betrayer will never become real if people aren’t excited, but we know that they should be excited. You’ve seen Faoii-Kaiya’s journey. You know she’s worthy of your support. Keep pushing. Let me hear your battle-cry!
And, as always-- Keep those shields up.
Faoii-Tahani
Friends, we have an update!
Two days ago, I received my editor’s notes for my second draft of Tantalus Depths. He was impressed! The story is making serious progress toward genuine greatness. He said it will likely only take one more round of development edits before it’s ready to go to the copy-editing stage.
The last round of development edits I made took way too long. It took me months to get things just the way I felt they needed to be, and by the end of it I kind of just wanted to swan dive into a woodchipper. Fortunately, though, this next round of development edits won’t take long at all. I’ve gone through all of Matt’s notes a couple times now. There are way fewer of them than last time, and most of them are very simple fixes. With this last draft I had to fully rewrite four or five chapters from the ground up and ended up adding about 20k words to the manuscript as a whole. This next round of edits should be little more than tweaking sentences here and there, trimming a few out or adding a few in. I anticipate no significant multi-page rewrites for this one, so it should go a whole lot faster.
In fact *knocks on wood with all the might of Mjolnir* my goal is to finish this round of edits by the end of this week. I’m hesitant to put definitive timers on things these days, since every single step of this editing process has taken me WAY longer to do than I thought it would, but now that I have a better handle on how long it takes me to do this kind of work and knowing that the overall workload for this draft is way lighter than the last, I think one week is quite attainable.
Of course, there’s another reason to try and get this done that fast. As most all of you should know by now, I’m still trying to get Proteus funded. We’ve made slow but steady progress with that campaign, and as of right now it’s hovering at just a bit over 340 orders. We’ve almost reached the halfway mark with two more months to fund it.
Tantalus Depths comes first, though. That’s the book I started first, that’s the book that the most people have supported, and it’s the book people have already waited altogether too long for. So I’m taking a break from campaigning Proteus until I finish this draft of Tantalus Depths and send it in. Obviously I don’t want to lose more campaign time than necessary for Proteus, so hopefully that deadline helps keep me focused on getting this draft done quickly.
It’s going to be a busy week! I’m honestly looking forward to working on this draft, since I’ve already got some interesting new ideas to implement. I’ll send another update as soon as I’ve finished this draft and sent it in, so hopefully you’ll hear from me again really soon!
By the way…since I’m not going to be actively campaigning Proteus much this week, I’d be extra-extra grateful if a few more of you could support that book by giving it a pre-order or two while I edit Tantalus Depths. We can double our productivity that way and I’ll be at least a little less stressed out!
But not that much less stressed out. My body consumes stress for nourishment at this point.
Hello Adventure Readers!
The hardcover books have been autographed and the preorder copies have been packaged up and shipped out of Oakland CA! In the next few days you should be receiving you copies (ebook version coming soon). It has been a long endeavor, but a wonderful experience at the homestretch of this journey to publication. Wings of the Pirate will be released worldwide May 29th so be sure to tell your friends and family if you enjoy the story. If you would like further updates on the book promotions and other upcoming releases, please sign on to my Lean Dog Prods newsletter at: www.leandogproductions.com. All you early supporters have made this book possible so raise a glass and toast to our success!
Sincerely, your aviation enthusiast author,
Eric H. Heisner
www.leandogproductions.com
Hello Friends!
I know that it has been a minute since my last update. I just wanted to let you know that I am A) still alive B) still typing away.
The first few months of the year are very busy at my job, so there is a direct correlation to how much work gets done versus how much writing gets done. I have created a somewhat crude diagram to illustrate this. (All figures are exaggerated to make a point)
As you may remember I received developmental edit notes/suggestions for the manuscript in February. I did attempt to work on them in February & March, albeit very slowly. April is looking up and I should feel like I’m making real progress in May & June.
Back to work,
Meghan Godwin
Hey all,
My birthday is Saturday, and you can give me a present that will cost you nothing. It would be awesome if we could get both my AMAZON and GOODREADS reviews passed 100! We are so close. If you haven’t read the book, READ IT, you bought it. When you’re finished, please rate/review!
Thanks so much!
Kyle T. Cowan
Dear friends and followers,
It has been a rather intense two months. February and March were both spent going over the book with a fine-toothed comb and rewriting significant parts of it. Streamlining. After spending two months doing absolutely nothing except This Book, it feels more than a little strange to suddenly not be working on it. The pretty-much-final document was sent in to design last week, and now it’s out of my hands.
For now, Inkshares is sending it around to various people and places to get blurbs and reviews--I wouldn’t know where to begin, personally. I’ve heard that some really nice things have been said, and it’s all very exciting.
For you, though, you’re probably wondering when you’re going to finally get your hands on the finished product. Near as I can tell, we’re looking at an official publication date of 31 July 2018. Now that all the vagaries of writing and editing are over, I doubt if there’ll be anything to change the date again.
The question now is, who should I kill next?