What’s up fishes!
I literally had to pinch myself at 12:01 pm today. I’m so pleased to announce that Pirates of Montana placed 3rd in the Inkshares/Geek & Sundry contest, and will be fully published!!
On January 1st, 2016, after I kissed my family in celebration of the New Year, I turned to my husband and said that my New Years resolution for 2016 would be to write and publish my book. I’d been talking about it for several years, and knew that I’d probably go the self-publishing route. And when I saw Geek & Sundry’s post in early April, I knew I had to enter.
Crash forward to today, and its actually happening! By 12:30 pm today, I was banging my head with a book in disbelief (mostly due to my toddler’s antics, but events were coinciding).
Congratulations to Tal Klein (The Punch Escrow) and Brian Guthrie (After Man)!! You both ran fantastic campaigns!! I cannot wait to read your books!
A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone that pre-ordered the book. I am so fortunate, and it’s entirely because of you. Your support, your encouragement, your help, your tolerance with my dinosaur meme obsession -- you are my cheering squad, and I’m grateful for it.
A enormous THANK YOU to the Break the Bechdel of Strong Female Characters Syndicate. I was shocked to be nominated and felt exhilarated to win for the Month of May!!! Your support means the world, and I will do you proud! Molly Tanner will do you proud!
Words cannot express how thankful I am to find the community of Inkshares. Several of you have reached out to me for support and advice, and I’m grateful for it. I look forward to many more discussions!!
Thank you Mark Nassi, Tom Steele, Bryan Steele (my Quill purchaser!!), the Evan family, and my wonderful husband Adam. You are my biggest supporters, and I love you all.
I will be keeping you all posted on the book’s progress weekly, so stay tuned!!
Now, all we have to do is wait for Geek & Sundry’s decision on May 25!
It’s the final countdown!


Hello friend,
Sorry for the radio silence. I had forgotten how much work preparing a manuscript, even a fully written one, for the editorial process could be. The good news is; I’m but a few days away from handing in my manuscript for A God in the Shed. Even more good news is that once that’s done, I’ll be getting back to finishing off the first draft of Arch-Android, the sequel to The Life Engineered. In fact, you should probably follow the page for Arch-Android on Inkshares immediately as things will start happening there soon (like beta reader selection).
As things are progressing on my side that doesn’t mean I still don’t need your help. I’ve recently been able to witness first hand the impact getting to 100 reviews on Amazon does for a book and it’s impressive. As of this writing, we have 83 reviews. There is no rational reason we couldn’t get to 100 in a very short amount of time. So if you’ve read The Life Engineered, don’t waste another minute; go write a review. Doesn’t even need to be long or complex. "I liked it." is enough.
I’m also hoping for a nomination at the Dragon Awards, so if you haven’t done so yet, consider nominating The Life Engineered for Science Fiction Novel and perhaps some of my friends from Inkshares in some of the other categories (Ageless, Asteroid Made of Dragons, An Unattractive Vampire).
Finally, I want to share with you my updated writing schedule. What you see on the graphic above is the estimated release dates of my books. These only show books that I plan to fund on Inkshares along with the two books I’ll be writing for the Ed Greenwood Group. Obviously, this is subject to change. If books fund faster or slower than anticipated, or the production schedules don’t line up with my estimates, etc. However it gives you, and especially me, an idea of what I have to look forward to. Immediately when I look at it, I want to get a better distribution of publishing, but that’s something I can course correct on the way there.
I’m especially looking forward to some of the plans and ideas I have in store right now. A God in the Shed is planned as a trilogy so that will end with the third book, but The Life Engineered is more of an anthology format with recurring characters and an overarching story to tell, so I’m less sure how many books will be in that series. I have other ideas but they’re in the pre-planning stage so it’s hard to tell if they’ll be Inkshares projects or not.
As you can tell, I plan on this journey I’m taking with you to last for quite a while and I hope I’ll have your support for the duration. So far, it’s been a pleasure to travel with you and I see rough but exciting seas ahead of us. Stick around and gather your friends; the next leg of the odyssey begins soon.
Extra notes:
Thanks again,
JF

Greetings again sentients!
Sorry for the radio silence. I don’t want to brag but I’ve been busy. I don’t know why that would qualify as bragging but it certainly has been taking away from my slumber. The good news, if you’re into the Horror/Fantasy genre, is that I’m but a few days away from handing in my manuscript for A God in the Shed. Even if you’re not into that genre and you’re right this moment screaming into your monitor "Make with the robots Dubeau!" then you’ll be happy to know that as soon as A God in the Shed is in the magical hands of editors I will be going back to finishing the first draft of Arch-Android. In fact, you should probably follow the page for Arch-Android on Inkshares immediately as things will start happening there soon (like beta reader selection).
As things are progressing on my side that doesn’t mean I still don’t need your help. I’ve recently been able to witness first hand the impact getting to 100 reviews on Amazon does for a book and it’s impressive. As of this writing, we have 83 reviews. There is no rational reason we couldn’t get to 100 in a very short amount of time. So if you’ve read The Life Engineered, don’t waste another minute; go write a review. Doesn’t even need to be long or complex. "I liked it." is enough.
I’m also hoping for a nomination at the Dragon Awards, so if you haven’t done so yet, consider nominating The Life Engineered for Science Fiction Novel and perhaps some of my friends from Inkshares in some of the other categories (Ageless, Asteroid Made of Dragons, An Unattractive Vampire).
Finally, I want to share with you my updated writing schedule. What you see on the graphic above is the estimated release dates of my books. These only show books that I plan to fund on Inkshares along with the two books I’ll be writing for the Ed Greenwood Group. Obviously, this is subject to change. If books fund faster or slower than anticipated, or the production schedules don’t line up with my estimates, etc. However it gives you, and especially me, an idea of what I have to look forward to. Immediately when I look at it, I want to get a better distribution of publishing, but that’s something I can course correct on the way there.
I’m especially looking forward to some of the plans and ideas I have in store right now. A God in the Shed is planned as a trilogy so that will end with the third book, but The Life Engineered is more of an anthology format with recurring characters and an overarching story to tell, so I’m less sure how many books will be in that series. I have other ideas but they’re in the pre-planning stage so it’s hard to tell if they’ll be Inkshares projects or not.
As you can tell, I plan on this journey I’m taking with you to last for quite a while and I hope I’ll have your support for the duration. So far, it’s been a pleasure to travel with you and I see rough but exciting seas ahead of us. Stick around and gather your friends; the next leg of the odyssey begins soon.
Extra notes:
Thanks again,
JF
WE’RE ONLY 4 PRE-ORDERS AWAY!!! :D :D :D
Here is the concept art for our characters "Cade" and "Torque". They were both Lambda operatives stationed aboard the evil United Planets of Earth ship - Enigma.
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The Geek and Sundry Hard Science Contest is over and I want to send HIGH FIVES and "YEAH MAN!s" to winners Tal Klein for The Punch Escrow, Brian Guthrie for After Man, and Erin S. Evan for The Pirates of Montana. Each of you offered beautiful, polished work. You set a fine example and a high bar for the rest of us. A big congratulations from the bottom of my heart!
I also want to thank Jeremy Thomas and the Inkshares team for organizing these contests. I see them as a win-win-win all the way around! We are truly fortunate to share this space with the likes of Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist and Felicia Day’s Geek and Sundry. These awesome people help open this platform to the movers and shakers of popular culture. I’m impressed!
Peace to all!
Ferd. :-)
Deus Hex Machina was just chosen to be part of the illustrious Sword & Laser Collection here on Inkshares. I would write more about this, but I’m too busy shaking with gratitude.

Hello all!
Another quick update. We passed 200 orders! Thank you all so very much! This is incredible, I’m still in disbelief. Long long way to go, but very happy at where we sit right now. You’re seriously all the best!
The Geek & Sundry contest is over. Congratulations to Tal M. Klein, Brian Guthrie, and Erin S. Evan! You can still check out and order their books, and be sure to check out the other books in the contest. There are some really great gems in there that can still use your support!
That’s all for me. Please, as always, share, recommend, review, pre-order, talk about, and let’s get Cape’s Side Bay to Quill (and possibly beyond?)!