It has been a long time since our last update, but here we are! Beginning with the most exciting (to us) news since our last update, we reached our Quill goal, and A Friend for Otter will definitely be published! So THANK YOU for your support!

But back to the long time between updates. As you likely know, one of the key ideas animating our work on A Friend for Otter is the crazy idea that adults and young readers (often parents and their kids) can write books together. Crazier still, by using Inkshares as the vehicle for our storytelling, we set out to show that adult and kid coauthors can even sell their books together. These efforts take time—a lot of time. One of the central challenges of being a responsible coauthor with a young reader in your life is that you very likely have other responsibilities! In my case, I’m a junior associate in a large law firm, and if you know anything about the legal industry, you know this is a job that makes serious demands on your time. In other words, I can get really busy. And so you have my May. 

In May, I wasn’t able to pull my weight in promoting our book and updating you, our readers. But the bigger lesson is that Sylvia and I did not let this discourage us. When we decided to team up on a novel, we understood that real life might not always be the most cooperative setting in which to get things done. If you decide to write with a young reader in your life, you may at some point also find that getting your story out into the world is a real challenge. The important thing, though, is just to keep at it. So while we wish we could have been more engaged with our community about our story over the past month, we have not given up, and we still hope you can help us reach our final goal. Either way, thanks to your support, a signed copy of A Friend for Otter is now destined for your bookshelf, regardless of what happens next.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here are the actual updates.

First, we have decided to share Chapter 3 with you and the rest of the world! We had always planned to release four chapters for public consumption and save the remainder as something to look forward to when your copy arrives. That is still the plan. So we will also plan to release Chapter 4 in about a month. So please take a look at Chapter 3 and leave us your feedback in the comments.

Second, as you may have noticed, Sylvia and I have created a couple more videos since our last update. The first is a trailer for the book, and it appears on the front page of our campaign. We have also answered another question about our book, and we hope you’ll take a look. For both videos, we’d love to hear your feedback. In fact, the trailer was in response to reader feedback, and the question (naturally) was from a reader.

Finally, please, please, please, help us get the word out! We are counting on you to share our campaign with others who like a great story, but also with others who are inspired by our process. We also hope that you, as members of the Inkshares community, will take a few minutes to recommend A Friend for Otter to others through the site’s recommendations function. Because of the several weeks I took off from promoting A Friend for Otter, we have decided to extend the campaign until August 3. So you now have more time to help spread the word and to preorder your own copy (or copies!) of the book. 

Again, thank you to everyone who has been so supportive thus far. Your encouragement and feedback have meant an extraordinary amount to us.