BANE OF ALL THINGS, DEBUT NOVEL LAUNCH

Tuesday, Dec. 7 is launch day for Bane of All Things! I will be hosting a launch event on Zoom at 7 pm EST. Here is the link: https://bit.ly/3nZuswz So, mark your calendar!

Join me for a relaxed and casual hour (or more), in which this humble author will sport stylish new headwear and wield his pointy sword (within the constraints of his living room ceiling, of course).

We will have readings! You can quiz me about the book, about being an author and about what’s next. There will be refreshments of your choice … because it’s a virtual event, so drink’em if you’ve got’em.

AND … we will have prize draws for those who have correctly answered, IN ADVANCE, any or all the following questions:

LET’S PLAY JEOPARDY!

Please submit your answers to me BEFORE Dec. 7. I will then draw winners during the event.

Your questions in the form of an answer are:

·      >;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;; This European castle stands in for Dragon’s Claw Abbey – the “fictional” locale that is featured on the cover of Bane of All Things. 

·      >;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;; This recessed cupboard for storing sacred vessels in a Christian church inspired the last name of my heroine, Josalind Aumbrae.

·      >;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;; This is the title of Book 2 in the series (the answer is out there!)

Becoming a bona fide published author has been a looong time in coming, and I really look forward to celebrating it together with you on Dec. 7.

Cheers

Leo

Good day! Here we are—less than three weeks from Bane of All Things’ release on Dec. 7.

It’s been a heck of a ride to get here. The pandemic delayed BoAT’s publication date by about eight months, while my ongoing contest with cancer has added fresh twists since August.

Despite all these speed bumps, it’s onward and upward!

None of it would have been possible without your patience and support. Thank you again for going on this adventure with me.

Unboxing pending 

Before Dec. 7, I will receive a box of books from my publisher, Inkshares. It will be my first time seeing the final product in its physical form. My wife, Natalie, is intent on filming this “unboxing” so that I can share it on social media. So, stay tuned for that. 

Save the date! Virtual launch event on Dec. 7

I had hoped to have a live launch event at a local bookstore or a pub. But given the continued concerns with the pandemic (and my own health), I will be foregoing that. Instead, I will host an hour-long virtual event on YouTube, at 7 p.m. EST on Dec. 7.

This event will feature me reading from BoAT, drawing for some prizes, and taking comments and questions from attendees. Details will soon follow.

Book giveaways

If you are reading this, odds are you already pre-ordered BoAT many moons ago and will have a copy or copies soon coming your way. But just so you know, my publisher is currently running a Book Giveaway on Goodreads.com with AmazonKindle.

This Giveaway runs until Nov. 29 and is open only to U.S. residents. I will, however, be doing other giveaways for my  Canadian (and overseas) supporters (also as part of the Virtual Launch Event on Dec. 7). Please stand by for more details.

Making sure you receive your print copies

Again, if you did pre-order print copies of BoAT, it was many moons ago. If you have had any change of address in the past couple of years, please log into your Inkshares account to verify the mailing address you provided with your original pre-order is still current. This may require a password reset.

If you have any issues with account access or a password reset, please contact hello@inkshares.com. And if you aren’t sure what email address you have associated with your Inkshares account, let me know and I can quickly look it up for you.

My health

Just yesterday, I had the first of my tri-weekly immunotherapy treatments, which are intended to bolster my body’s ability to target and destroy cancer cells on its own. This comes after my radiation therapy three weeks ago and follows the surgery for tumor removal that took place at the beginning of October.

Other than experiencing the same kind of fever response you may get following a flu or COVID shot, I am so far handling the immunotherapy meds well. My recovery overall continues to move along.  

That’s all for now. Stay safe and keep reading!

Cheers

Leo

News! Good news, and not-so-good news.

Let’s get the not-so-good news out of the way. I’ve received word that the release of Unnatural Ends might be delayed another two or three months, though nothing is confirmed yet. This is, apparently, down to some marketing strategy: Inkshares wants to put some extra effort into getting this book into the public eye, and there might be something to aiming for a release in the spring as opposed to the middle of winter. They’re weighing the pros and cons now, and I’m trusting them to do what’s best.

In much better news, we now have a cover!

Credit goes to Tim Barber of Dissect Designs, who’s done some amazing work on a number of other Inkshares titles. For Unnatural Ends, he’s taken the fractured family situation at the core of the story and expressed it as a jumble of mismatched pieces forced together. Brilliance, I think.

Now we just have to wait for Inkshares to work their marketing magic (consider telling your local library) and for the book to make its way to the bookstore shelves.

Hello, hello, hello!  

I am chug, chug, chugging along! I received my copy-edited manuscript back at the end of October. Then I spent a couple of weeks going through each note on every page. I submitted the reviewed copy edited manuscript on November 9th. Since I have never done this before, I was a little unsure of what to expect. 

As I did my initial graze through the whole document I was shocked at how thorough this copy editor person was. Shocked and delighted. The amount of time and care they took to fix emdashes, point out inconsistencies, and "just confirm this was what was intended" was a whole new level of oversight for me. And I was relieved. This is not just me throwing all of the words into a sentence and hoping my primitive knowledge of commas will get us to the end. A very smart stranger read 409 pages of something I wrote and then took the time to make notes. And not just vague notes, specific, granular notes.  

This must be how that shoemaker in the fairy tale felt when he woke up one morning and found that elves had made everything better in the night. I didn’t even know people like this existed, these copy editors. I believe they might be modern day elves. The next step will be to send this spiffed up manuscript to the typesetter to have it poured. Pouring is what makes it look like a real book. Again, kind of sounds like magic to me.

I hope you have a magical week. too.

Your friend,

Meghan Godwin  

Dear Supporters, Readers and Followers of Wild Conviction,

Great news! 

The Inkshares Publishing Operations Manager notified me today that the editorial team has finished reading the other two winners of the 2020 All-Genre Manuscript Contest and will begin reading Wild Conviction soon, most likely this week, and hope to have editorial notes to me by mid December.

                As you know — 

because many of you have read and commented on passages from Wild Conviction on the novel’s Inkshares page, or you have heard me read passages at my pre-order campaign launches, invitations to your events or classes, open mics, and my writing group, and a few of you have been beta readers — 

               I have worked long and hard crafting this story so that it is engaging,                     well-written, sensitive and significant to historical and current issues                   of human rights, equality and freedom.

I look forward to the editorial comments and am so excited that we are on the path to having the novel published and in your hands.

Thank you for all of your ongoing support and well-wishes! Wild Conviction being published by Inkshares could not have happened without you!

Best wishes to you!!
Mary

We have progress, ladies and gentlemen! Cat’s Paw has always been only a working title, one I’ve wanted to change for well over a year now. And we’ve come to a decision: the book formerly known as Cat’s Paw will be published as Unnatural Ends ... a far better title, mainly because it does not conjure up pictures of cute kittens when you run it through Google.

Which also means these updates will need a new header:

If you head over to Amazon, you’ll find we also have a cover, though my understanding is that this is not final. The cover artist is still working on something much better. Still, having even a placeholder cover brings home the idea that this is really happening after all. I’m sure that, given the time this has taken some of you must have begun to give up, or cease to believe ... I know there was a sense of unreality about the whole process for me as well, towards the end.

Meanwhile, the proofs have come and gone. I heard mention of printing at the beginning of the next month, though I’m assuming that’s about the Advanced Reader copies for reviews and the like before the actual release. As I said: we have progress.

I’ve been remiss in sending out updates as we worked on yet-another draft. But now, some news: The Man from Mittelwerk is finished (huzzah!) and slated for publication in the first half of 2022.

It only took three years, 13 drafts and several major rewrites. Nonetheless, the book went through final copyediting (2,600 changes, ulp!) which called out innumerable grammar and consistency issues. The editor also helped us strengthen the emotional impact in key scenes.  

It took several late nights of bleary-eyed Track Changes editing to work through the easy edits. Then I passed it to my brother and co-author to deal with the harder issues, while I was out cycling in the rain for a week. He got through it, undid many of my changes, and handed it back to me. I undid only a few of his changes, finished some items he didn’t want to touch and voila, a finished manuscript. 

The next step is for the text to be laid out in a proper design, followed by a final round of proofreading and getting a cover designed. Since we’re done with the writing, I built a web site with some mocked-up covers, created in homage to a few authors you might know.

I’m really proud of the what we’ve written. It’s been a lengthy process, but the book is all the better for all the revisions. I shared a copy with another tech industry author, Eric Maikranz and he said:

“The Man from Mittelwerk is a mind-bending thriller that will keep you turning pages.”
– D. Eric Maikranz, author of The Reincarnationist Papers

So not too shabby.

If you haven’t read Eric’s book I highly recommend it. It’s a fascinating exploration of reincarnation and what happens if you remember your past lives. His book was the basis for the Mark Wahlberg time-travel CGI extravaganza Infinity. (Spoiler alert: The book is better!)

As always, thank you for your support of this long-suffering project. Let me know what you think of the fake covers below, what you’re reading and how you survived quarantine. But don’t hit reply to this email. Instead email me at ZUrlocker@hotmail.com.

Cheers!
--Zack

Friends:

If you’re hungry for a strange, twisted Southern gothic tale, a pre-order now means that apatite will be filled in a few weeks. Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or of course right here on Inkshares. Click over at least to look at the amazing cover art. Trust me, the inside of the book is just as beautifully designed. 

Dear readers,

I hope you have not forgotten me. It has been quite a while, and I admit that things have progressed far slower than I’d hoped. I feel that much of that is my own fault, and that has made me reluctant to post any updates. However, it looks like we’re finally over the slump, and have something real to report.

The book went into copy edits just last month, and should be moving on to the next step within the next week or so. Apparently we have a publication date set for February 2022, so here’s hoping things go according to schedule.

As I’m writing this, the International Agatha Christie Festival is just entering its last day. I was invited to say a little something about Christie’s post-WW1 world, though the ongoing plague means my contribution has had to be online only. Rather a shame not to be there in person, but being "online only" means the video is now available on YouTube. Check it out here: Agatha Christie: Clues to the Post-War World. While you’re there, why not check out some of the other online talks and events for the festival?

Cheers to everyone; stay healthy, and happy reading.

Hello Friends! 

It has been a good long while since I sent out an update but, finally, I have some news! 

Inkshares is planning on a Spring/Summer 2022 release for Eudaimonia! 

In October it will have been 4 years since you helped me get this thing in production. Without your help it would have never stood a chance. So, again, thank you. We are getting there! 

Recently, I had to spend some time on a plane. I knew that I would be stuck for multiple hours with little to do. So, I uploaded the most recent draft of Eudaimonia (this makes 4, I think) to my Kindle. Everything inside of me cringed as I started on page one. 

I think when you create something and refine it over, and over, and over all you really see is what is wrong with it. That’s all you are focused on. Why is this terrible and how do I fix it? The decent parts you disregard because they don’t need attention. Hours are spent hunched over sections dickering around with the way a sentance sounds. And you are never reading it as a whole piece of work. Never. Throw in the insecurity of never having done this before and the doubt that it will ever get better, argh. 

This is what prompted the dread when I opened that Kindle thousands of feet above the ground. I didn’t want to, yet again, face all the rough and ugly parts of this book and all of my shortcomings as an amateur. Atrocious, right? Plus, it was impossible to correct anything on a Kindle in an airplane. So, as I read, imagine my suprise when I thought to myself, "I don’t hate this." 

That may not sound like a ringing endorsement to you, for me, that is progress. 

I hope you are having a wonderful summer, 

Your friend, 

Meghan Godwin