Matt Kaye liked an update for The Traveller’s Cup

QUILL ACHIEVED, SPACE CREW.

We hit 250 last night, which means this book is going to be published. Let’s take a moment to breathe. This was made possible by all of you (our relentless Crew), with the last Quill order going to our honourary Quill Captain, Micah Baker.

If you want to pick up his intriguing book, which is a sinister sort of space opera, you can do that here.

So What Happens Now?

First, the good.

Once the campaign ends I’ll be working with the crew at Inkshares to talk deadlines and a publishing schedule. This is happening!
I can now officially pledge funds to BuildOn, the literacy charity I’ve partnered with. They’ll be getting 25% of my profits.
Your prizes are guaranteed. All the prizes that don’t rely on numbers of pre-orders will be happening.

And the reality:

This is where we are right now. Yes, The Traveller’s Cup is getting published, but it’s not fully funded
Fully-funded means that Inkshares will take care of a lot of the publishing "dirty work". Editing, marketing, distribution, etc.

Since they’ll take on those services it frees me up to give more time to producing a solid book, and leaves me with more funds to give to prizes, and to increase my BuildOn donation from 25% to 50.

So while we hit a major milestone, you can’t expect the ship to stop here.

If you’re a member of this Crew, I need you to make it your personal responsibility to help me boost this to 750. Tell a friend. Order a copy for your mom. You can make a huge difference.

Your Cautiously Celebratory Space Captain,
-AC

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Matt Kaye liked the forum thread, How I got to 250 orders in 10 days

So I’ve gotten a ton of messages about how I got The Punch Escrow to "Quill" in 10 days. Hopefully this is useful to some of you. I think it basically boils down to: Treat it like a job. It’s your job to get your book sold. If you believe in what you’ve got, if you think you know the audience you wrote it for will love it, then invest your time, energy, and money in your project.

1. Get lucky. Luck is something you need to succeed. Luck is something you can actually control. If you don’t believe me, do the research. Having a lucky attitude makes a huge difference.

2. Move quickly! I learned this through a couple decades in marketing. When it comes to contests, creating a distance between you and anyone behind you pays back huge dividends. Once you’ve established yourself as the frontrunner, you gain the benefit of being perceived as the favored incumbent. It pays to burn through all of your promotional energy early. If you manage to grasp first place, trust me, you will find a second wind. If you don’t, then you’ll have a pretty good perspective of your likelihood of winning and you can make the call on how much energy to reinvest based on that analysis.

3. I steadfastly followed the advice given by previous Inkshares contests winners. I hustled really really hard and harassed everyone I knew through multiple channels: Texts, twitter, FB, WhatsApp, Snapchat, even LinkedIn. I would say personal contacts accounted for over 50% of the pre-ordered books. I injected a sense of urgency by explaining the contest, the timeline, and the ask: "I’m in a contest to publish my first book. If sci fi is your thing, you’re going to love it. Especially if you like hard sci fi, like The Martian. I need to get 250 pre-orders to get it published. Please click here to pre-order it."

4. Engage engage engage! Every single time someone bought my book I acknowledge and thank them. It makes them feel good and it encourages them to engage back with you and help promote the project. They’re part of the team now.

5. Get to know your fellow authors. Inkshares is an AMAZING community of readers and authors. I have yet to have a negative interaction with anyone here. I’ve joined three Syndicates and have interacted with countless authors. Everyone here has something valuable to pass on to you. It’s worth listening.

6. Promote and Invest! Remember when I said treat your book like your job? Well, you should also treat is like an investment. There’s a flywheel effect when people see you investing in your own work. It makes them feel like you really believe in it. I’ve been creating a ton of world-building content, videos, as well as taking advantage of every interview opportunity, promoted tweets, Facebook boosts, and such. If publishing this book is your dream, invest in making your dream come true.

So, these are the six steps I followed. Hopefully it’s useful to you. If you have more specific questions about those or the book itself, I’m at your service.

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In a world of emotionless AI, two cybernetic pals steal a pickup and take off on a cross-country roadtrip.

Matt Kaye liked an update for Pilot X

Halfway There. THANK YOU!

So we just hit the halfway mark on the way to full publishing of Pilot X. Cannot thank you enough. It’s incredibly humbling to see not only how many people are willing to take a flyer on this novel, but how many of you are going out on Twitter and Facebook and Snapchat and telling other folks about it.

Y’all are the best.

I want to put up another sample chapter for you to get a little more of a peek at the book but I’m curious what you might like to see.

More from the prologue? A page from the Encyclopedia Alenda describing some more about the races? The pinepapple planet?

Let me know!

And thanks again!

Tom

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