Important update:

Mission 51 family! This is a call to arms!

250 PRE-ORDERS!

Aloha All,

I’m very excited to announce my novel Lost in the Fog has received over 250 pre-orders (261 and counting) and will now be published by Inkshares!  Thank you so much for your support, and I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am!

I’m also thrilled to report this is (hopefully) just the first step for Lost in the Fog.  Inkshares is sponsoring their Launch Pad Contest, and I’m officially entered.  It started April 1st and goes until November 4th, and the top three books on the basis of unique pre-orders will be automatic winners.  For more on the contest, you can click here.

All Launch Pad winners will receive full marketing/promotion/editing, and their novels will be sold in brick-and-mortar bookstores!  With the 250 pre-orders, I’m only guaranteed Lost in the Fog will be published and available to purchase online, but without any promotion and only basic copy editing. That is cool in itself and a huge accomplishment, and I’m super happy to have reached that goal.

But being a Launch Pad Contest winner would be a dream come true!  Not only will Lost in the Fog get full publishing and promotion, there’s also top talent agencies  (including UTA & Paradigm) and production companies (such as Village Road Show & 3 Arts Entertainment) involved in the contest.   I’m currently in second place on the leaderboard out of 116 submissions.  That’s very exciting, but there’s still a long way to go.  

The goal now is for new readers to keep pre-ordering so I can cement Top 3!

You are all the absolute best, and thanks again from the bottom, top, and (gooey) center of my heart for your support!  If you think any of your family or friends or work colleagues would enjoy Lost in the Fog, I would be very grateful if you shared the link with them via email or text:

https://www.inkshares.com/books/lost-in-the-fog

With the first goal of 250 pre-orders complete, Top 3 in the Launch Pad Contest is in now in our sights!  Mahalo, mahalo, mahalo!!

Here’s a picture of me on Maui (on my birthday this past weekend) celebrating 250 pre-orders.  😊

Yes, I am still alive.  And yes, I am working on this project concurrently with the third book in the Rise series.  I had a mix-up in the process of transferring things between iPads and computers and lost most of what I had written.  I pretty much only had what was here on Inkshares.  So, I’ve taken advantage of it to rework the plot, add some elements, remove some others, and the result, I think, is a much tighter, better novel.  As a taste of what I’ve been working on, here’s a character bio for Casey Adler, detective.  I will be sharing more snippets like this on my Patreon page (found here https://www.patreon.com/brianguthrie sorry, iOS breaks the editor on Inkshares) where you can continue to support my writing as it expands beyond just the Rise series and After Man.  Enjoy! 

Casey Adler grew up with just an archaeologist mother, her geneticist mother who carried her having died when she was an infant to a work accident. She wants to know what actually happened to her mother, not the story the government put out. This desire is the most formative influence in her life, guiding her to choose a career investigating the all but extinct violent crimes. She’s convinced foul play was involved and that the center and government covered up what really happened to save face. Her mother never discouraged her from her pursuit of the truth, but also never encouraged it. Casey never needed encouraging when it came to finding the answers. Despite this, she doesn’t believe there is anything wrong with their society. The system works, but it has some rough edges. She joined INTERPOL’s Unique Crimes Division (UCD) to help protect civilization and smooth out the rough edges she sees, like the one that took her mother’s life. Her pet project becomes a bit of a White Whale for her, as she never really makes any progress on it. She continues to work on it, despite the efforts of her closest friend and colleague, Vee.

Hi, Mission 51 family!

I need your help! My work in the hospital is keeping me from making personal contact. 12-hour shifts plus 45-minute commutes does not leave much time left in the day.

Important update on the status of Mission 51 and the Nerdist Sci-Fi Contest.

We remain in 1st place, where we have been since day one, thanks to so many wonderful supporters. Thank you all so very much!

The contest is now in the final 5 days and our lead has significantly diminished. The contestants in 2nd through 5th place are all in a position to possibly take the lead. Needless to say, it is crucially important for us to keep pressing on with pre-orders if we hope to stay in the top three and win a coveted publishing contract with Inkshares!

Mission 51 now has 324 official followers. That’s amazing! Of those, 139 of you have helped with a pre-order. That means that 185 are still on the sidelines. If you are contemplating a pre-order at some point, this is the time! Your pre-order can truly make the difference between placing in the top three or not. Please, do not delay!

Again, I want to thank everyone for your support so far. If there is anyone in your life who you think would enjoy Mission 51, please pass on the link, or better yet, consider buying them a pre-order as a gift. Here is how you do it: Just sign out of your Inkshares login, then click the pre-order link, and enter your loved one’s email address when prompted for an email. You can then use your own credit card to check out. Every unique email counts towards the contest.

Five more days! Let’s do this!! :D

Peace and love, everyone!

Ferd 👽

https://www.inkshares.com/books/mission-51

Greetings followers of Crow’s Gambit! I’ve wanted to talk about this topic for several weeks and with the contest ending soon now is probably a good time. The topic is how I selected the book description of “The Day the Earth Stood Still in a Tom Clancy setting.” I’ll admit it was a tough decision and I’m still not completely satisfied with it. So let’s break it down.

Were there any runner up descriptions? Yes, War of the Worlds. Not the Tom Cruise remake but the 1953 classic. Aliens with technology far in advance of ours wipe aside our defenses in days. That kind of sounds like the Sylph. Except the Sylph never came down in landers and haven’t (as yet) tried to wipe out mankind.

Ok, we want advanced unstoppable aliens who really don’t care about us. How about The Day the Earth Stood Still? Not the Keanu Reeves remake but the 1951 classic. Klaatu comes to Earth and basically says they don’t care what we do to ourselves but if we try to spread our violence off the planet we’re done for. Ok, THAT sounds much more like the Sylph…except the Sylph haven’t even bothered to send a messenger down.

There’s something else about that movie that always struck a chord with me. After the saucer lands in D.C. everyone kind of goes about their business. I mean they just leave it sitting there with a couple guards on it. Proof of alien life in the universe but after the initial encounter everyone just goes home to take care of their lives. This is a lot like the world of Crow’s Gambit. Humans know they aren’t alone and they are outgunned technologically. A net of alien spheres surrounds the planet but after a time everyone gets on with their lives and just accepts it as the new reality. Except for a few people like Cassie and Darrow. 

And Tom Clancy? That one was a given. Besides political intrigue and competing personal agendas Tom Clancy novels are always steeped in advanced, if not exotic, science and technology. Clancy described himself as a storyteller, not a writer. Really that’s what I’d like to be. A storyteller. I’m trying to entertain you with a good story.

I can’t do this without you though. We are close to the end and locked in a back and forth for 3rd place. Don’t just share the book link…call a friend and ask them to Pre-Order. Don’t just click Like on this post…write a Recommendation on the book’s page. We can do this!

PT

Friends, Readers, and Sorcerers All,

 Dear Fans of the Assassin, Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads! 

Local ADK is a free magazine distributed primarily in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York.  It’s a beautiful magazine dedicated to high-quality photography and journalism.  Tears of the Assassin is featured on the summer issue’s "Bookshelf" page.