All of you have received an email from Inkshares this week informing you of a refund for ILLEGAL. It was sent out in error. I’ve been struggling to figure out what is going on and how this will be fixed and I wish I could write and tell you what will happen but I can’t. Basically the Inkshares team says they don’t know what triggered the mass refund but they can recharge credit cards and get those orders back. However, they do not want to re-issue orders that used credits--when the campaign began the platform gave you credits to encourage participation and they have since discontinued that practice. This seems unfair to me and I’m trying to reach out to them to come up with a better resolution. I don’t know what that will be but I’m also not sure how long it will take to figure out and I know many people were confused and curious about what was happening and I wanted to be transparent and share all I know. As you can imagine this is a very frustrating situation for me and I appreciate your patience and support, probably more now than ever. 

Dear Friends and Family,

After holding a 3^rd place finish for over a week, I’ve dropped back to tied. I could seriously use your help with a pre-order today for as little as $10 for an e-book copy. $20 gets you a signed hard copy. Either gives you my eternal gratitude. If you’ve already ordered your copy, please try and get a friend or two to buy a copy by forwarding this message and link. I’m rapidly out of time, and if I’m not in the top 3 by the 31^st, I don’t get published. Here’s the link one more time:  https://www.inkshares.com/books/apex.

Thank you so much! Debbie

Today I want to give a shout out to my parents, Bob Dalrymple and Bonnie Bechtold. They’ve both done so much to make this book possible, and I (like most children) do not credit them enough.

My father has been the first line of defense against plot holes and grammatical errors since day one. Actually, even before day one-- he’s been reading every book and short story I’ve ever written since I could read. But for Faoii-- He listened to the idea long before I put pen to paper. He read the first chapter the morning after I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote it all down in one sitting. He was the first person to read the finished manuscript. The first one to offer advice and opinions. He read every rejection letter from every agent. He knows the inkshares process as well as I do now because he’s had to listen to me talk about each new step for several hours several times. This book exists, in large part, to him-- and its clean and polished edges are his doing as well.

My mother has shared EVERY SINGLE POST I’ve put up about The Last Faoii. Several times. And with more capitalization and exclamation points each time a new missive has gone out. She’s resilient and insistent and has more than earned her Faoii title. Half of you wouldn’t even know about this book if it wasn’t for her being my number one fan.

But even before The Last Faoii. Before the books, short stories, and poems. Before I could write or read... I grew up watching both of these people read every night. I listened as they read to me before bed. I learned to appreciate literature even before I knew the word. And that, I think, was the basis of all of this.

Thank you both. I love you. And I know I don’t say that enough, either.

Dearest Readers,

My sincerest thanks to all of you who have pre-ordered a copy of APEX and recommended to your friends to pre-order as well. I’m now within 6, yes SIX, pre-orders of 3rd place. Of course, the competition isn’t standing still, but with my new fantastic video trailer on YouTube and Inkshares found here: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNj-LN9ss0s 

created by the amazing Christopher Lee, author of The Lore of Aos Si (Check out his novel on Inkshares.com), I have a chance to push ahead.

Thank you so much for all of your continued support. Please help me make this last push to forge ahead in the contest so I can get my book published and into your hands!

Cheers, Debbie