At ease, Faoii. This is a short update. But an exciting one!

We just hit 300 pre-orders!! 

If you haven’t yet, there’s still time to pre-order your copy, as well. You can do so through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Inkshares. For all those warriors out there who use paypal as their weapon of choice, here’s your chance to get in on the fight!

Also, if you haven’t yet, make sure you like The Last Faoii on Facebook. I update there WAY more often than here, because it facilitates conversation, and I’m constantly looking for feedback on design changes and little updates. You’ve been part of every single step in the war up until now, make sure you’re part of every battle from here until the end. I want your opinion, and I, as always, appreciate your support.

I just sent the final few changes to Inkshares a few minutes ago. Next step is the printer. I can hardly believe it myself. 

Shields up. Victory draws near.

Faoii-Tahani

August 28, 2017

The race is on -- this morning, the Inkshare’s portion of Launchpad 2017 kicked off, and "The Devil You Don’t" is open for pre-orders. Please check out "Devil’s" Inshares page... the new book trailer is up, and I’ve posted two sample chapters for your enjoyment. 

Of course, pre-orders are always wonderful but please also consider leaving a review and recommending the book to people in your networks!

All the best,
Susan

The first transport is away...

As promised, the manuscript is in. I still have to finish polishing up the summary that’s required for the editors, but everything that’s actually going to be content in the book has been handed over.

I think I might go watch that Game of Thrones finale again now...

Greetings Supporters of Crow’s Gambit! 

I’m past due to give an update and I’m getting some questions on the book, so today we’re doing a quick reset to get everyone on the same page. 

Did the book get published? Not yet. To get an automatic publishing deal we needed to finish in the top three of the Nerdist Sci-Fi Contest. We finished in a strong 5th place. And that was great, I am seriously proud of that accomplishment. 

Then what happens now? I’ve taken the option of trying to sell enough Pre-Orders to get a publishing deal anyway. While the contest was all about unique people ordering the goal is now about shear number of orders. If we can get to 250 the book gets a basic publishing deal. 

If you want people to Pre-Order why haven’t we heard from you? Well there’s this other thing called being a university professor. We just finished the first week of classes. The last two weeks of trying to resolve student and faculty issues has been chaos (I know some of you receiving this will understand). I’m also training to do a 100k (that’s 62 miles)…so there’s that little bit of insanity to deal with too. 

What has been happening with the book then? There are these things on Inkshares called Syndicates. Syndicates are groups of people that pool their money and support books focused on a common theme. During the summer Crow’s Gambit was selected as a pick by both the “Break the Bechdel with Strong Female Characters Syndicate” and the “Staff Syndicate”. This support really does mean a lot to me. 

So what do we need to do? As of today Crow’s Gambit has 178 Pre-Orders. We need 72 more to hit the Quill publishing goal. Tell your friends. Ask me for some book business cards to hand out. Post a Review of the book on Inkshares. Share the information with your friends on Facebook. Pledge to buy another copy if I finish the 100k? 

Anything else I should know? Yes. Don’t forget that part of the Crow’s Gambit proceeds will go to support the Le Sueur Public Library. For every order $1 will be donated. 

So there you go. Other questions, comments, or discussion on the book is always welcome. Stay tuned. 

PT 

Greetings Followers,

The Dark Mountain has broken into double-digits in the Horror Novel contest! Thanks to all who have placed pre-orders and to all those who said they would but haven’t yet but I’m sure will get to it real soon because you are awesome!

To celebrate, I’m doing a raffle!

$40 Amazon Gift Card @ 25 Readers

Everyone who has already ordered is eligible. All readers’ names will be placed into a randomizer online and one person will win the gift card. But the drawing won’t begin until The Dark Mountain reaches 25 readers. That’s only 15 more!

Promo Trailer

I’ve uploaded a cool, corny trailer to my project page. I figured I licensed the stock footage and music a while back so why not get some use out of it. Check it out!

A Brand-New Chapter 1

I’ve struggled for a while how to make my opening more mature and in line with the rest of the book. I finally figured out a compromise between Chapters 1 and 2, and combined them into a new opening. I deleted the awesome action-figure franchise I created, which was going to spin-off as a Saturday Morning cartoon, but oh, well. Must stay true to the story.

Beta-Reads

I’ve completed only 1 so far.

Battle Flag: The Road to Hell: Great world-building, and lots of imagination at work. Give it a try…

The offer still stands for other Inkshares writers: Post your first 3 chapters, give approval, and I’ll read/review them, and send you feedback via email, but only after you pre-order The Dark Mountain.

Nauselbaum,

M.R.R.

Hello beloved supporters of Kill Creek!

It’s been a long trip, but we are quickly approaching the exit that will take you from the safety of the highway and down the shadowy road that leads to the Finch house.  So I wanted to give you an update on a HUGE milestone: the final draft of the manuscript has been turned in, and just yesterday it was laid out so it, you know, looks like a book.  I can’t tell you how thrilling it is to finally see my Word doc turned into an honest-to-God novel.  There’s still proofing to do, but the heavy lifting is done and Kill Creek will be available for purchase on-line and in bookstores this Halloween!  Holy crap, that’s like two months away.  Okay, take a breath.  Be cool.  Be cool.

In the meantime, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at the fully-formatted first page of the prologue.  Thanks again to those of you who pre-ordered and supported me in this endeavor, although I probably should have warned you: the entity that dwells in Kill Creek has a way of finding you, no matter where you are.  So if you feel fingers grazing the back of your neck when no one else is around, or you see something out of the corner of your eye, a twisted, lurking thing that creeps closer and closer, just remember that your copy of the book is coming soon.  Maybe you’ll find answers there.  Maybe you’ll discover a way to stop it.

Then again, maybe nothing can stop it.

Scott 

45 days and counting.

I just finished up the new edit of Chapter 1 on Thursday and was going to post it and the new version of the Prologue right away but M. Robert Randolph offered to do a beta and critique read on my first three chapters, so with his input I’m going to take another look before I put them up for reading.

The revision was originally motivated by a massive info dump I had in Chapter 1. It was one of those whimsy things that, even as I wrote it those many years ago, I knew it was too damn much. Part of it was just amateurish desire to copyright as many things as I possibly could but I also just got totally lost in the visuals of it all and my world took me for a ride.

What I didn’t remember was that I had already gone through and eliminated the dump before I posted those chapters to Inkshares in the first place, so not a lot changed in the revision. But now I’ve got another point of view to take advice from and I want to take another look.

Thanks again to Mr. Randolph for the critique and you should probably go check out his book The Dark Mountain. I didn’t back it to trade preorders, I backed it because it sounds kind of unusual and I really want to see how it goes.

Talk to you later!

Greetings, adventurers! 

 Some bittersweet news: we are no longer in the running for the Launchpad contest, as we did not make the top 75. A HUGE congratulations to those who did make the cut! Now I get the opportunity to follow several more exciting up-and-coming books. All in all, it was a good experience. Thanks to Launchpad and Inkshares for the opportunity!

 So now, to the good news! It’s been another HUGE week, so I have lots to share. 

 This was another exciting week for the campaign, and another huge milestone! In fact… we hit TWO milestones. Firstly, on Sunday, we hit the 100 preorders mark. Considering we were barely over 50 preorders at the beginning of the month, this was a pretty exciting number to hit. Then, yesterday, we hit the halfway point of the campaign! 

 So, we’re now over 125 preorders, and we have less than that many to go with a little less than three weeks left. It’ll be tight, but I think we’ll be able to squeeze in the full 250. Thank you to everyone who has been preordering and spreading the word—there are a lot of you! 

 This week, I was featured on the front page of ThisWeek (see what I did there?), an arts-focused paper distributed weekly to my area. The multi-talented Margaret Eaton came by my house and interviewed me about my creative work, with a focus on Mushroom and Anchovy. Her article was very in-depth and I really couldn’t be happier. Thank you, Margaret! 

 On the same day Margaret came by, I recorded a little video to try and convince a few other people to preorder. It’s right here if you want to see me yelling about my book (because you haven’t seen that enough already).  

 I had a couple other points to make, friends, but this e-mail is long enough. I’m just happy I can present this much information for you, because it’s really exciting to me! I am 52% of the way to reaching my biggest goal for this year. Thanks for reading this far and joining me along the way. 

May your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting, 

 K. M. Cooper

Friends, Readers, and Sorcerers All,

Much has happened in the last month. We’re about six weeks away from publication, and the momentum is increasing. First, we’ve booked several more signing events in October. You can click on the links below to attend. It would be great to see as many of you in person as possible!

13 October, 2017 - Westlake, OH

14 October, 2017 - Oak Park, IL

18 October, 2017 - Redlands, CA

21 October, 2017 - Burbank, CA

30 October, 2017 - Pasadena, CA 

We will let you know as more events are added. If anyone knows people who work at bookstores, libraries, or middle schools, especially on the West Coast, please let us know. We’d love to set up as many events as possible to build buzz, and personal connections are incredibly helpful in such a crowded marketplace. 

Secondly, reviews have been coming in from early readers on Goodreads and NetGalley. Some highlights:

“Absolutely amazing! After reading this book, I didn’t want to put it down, even when I reached the last word.” (5 out of 5 stars)

“I could not put this book down … hopefully the author will expand on the universe.” (5 out of 5 stars)

“I loved the way the story was peppered with spells and footnotes…I can see this quickly becoming a cult classic and I hope this becomes a series with more volumes to follow!” (4 out of 5 stars)

“JK Rowling meets VE Schwab. Highly recommend!” (4 out of 5 stars)

It’s really humbling and awesome to see people we don’t know enjoying the book, especially since everyone involved worked so hard on it. And speaking of hard work…the final cover is FINISHED. I will be able to reveal that in about a week or so, but it looks really amazing and unique. My first thought when I saw it was, “If I found this in a bookstore when I was 10, it would have blown my mind.” 

And honestly, that’s my real hope with this book—that some kid I don’t know will pick it up and be as excited as I was to discover the Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark is Rising, or Harry Potter. (Not that I expect to sell anywhere near that many copies, I just want kids to enjoy it.) 

If you haven’t yet, please put Sorcery for Beginners on your wish lists at Amazon, Goodreads, Powell’s, Walmart, or wherever you buy books. It really helps us in terms of bookstore preorders. Thanks again for all the support, and we’ll have another update soon!

mh