Big news! The Crow’s Gambit book trailer is now live!
Let me know what you think. The contest is still very tight and I need all of your support. Please share this link with others and encourage them to Pre-Order.
Now for upcoming events. This weekend I’ll be taping a Q&A session about the book and its characters. That means I need your questions. Email, DM, or post your questions to the Facebook page over the next few days. I’ll do my best to answer them and post the video the start of next week.
As always, thanks for your support.
PT
Just a quick update on the status of Mission 51. The novel continues to be #1 in the Nerdist Sci-Fi Contest on Inkshares! There are now over 150 contestants! I am thrilled!
But the contest has 18 days yet to go and the competition is really heating up. As I’m sure you know, contestants are ranked by the number of people who pre-order the book. Your pre-order would be a HUGE help and I would GREATLY appreciate it! The top three contestants win a full publication deal and you know how awesome that is!!!
If you can, please click on the green pre-order button below and help me get Mission 51 published!
Happy Wednesday afternoon!
The Nerdist Contest continues to roll on and we’re doing alright but (there’s always a but)…we’re closing in on the final two weeks when ANYTHING can happen. Now more than ever I need your support with Recommendations, Pre-Orders, and spreading the word about Crow’s Gambit.
For your entertainment today I thought I would explain how the original concept for Crow’s Gambit started. In 2001 I was living in New Jersey. If you have ever lived in that region you realize it is saturated with airports. Philadelphia, La Guardia, Newark, JFK, DC and Boston aren’t that far, regional airports, air strips in fields, and a few military bases. The point is there are ALWAYS several planes and contrails in the air.
Then on September 11th the World Trade Center was attacked and the FAA grounded all flights. And the skies were empty. It’s kind of a like a noise you don’t notice until it’s gone. I wouldn’t say it was eerie exactly, more unsettling. That was when I started to wonder, what would happen if the planes never flew again?
For several years I thought about it (I do that, I’m an engineer, I think about things for fun). How would society adapt? What new or old technologies would be called into play to fill the gaps? I started writing the resulting story for NanoWriMo in 2015 and here we are.
Thank you for following along and supporting the next phase of this story’s journey. Please let your friends know about the story and if you’d like to contribute a Recommendation it would mean a lot. More to come…
PT
We are still tied for third place in the Nerdist contest, which is GOOD.
One preorder will put us into third by ourselves. This is BETTER.
Five preorders will place Mutants: Uprising into second place. This is BEST.
If you have already preordered: Thank you! I have an additional favor to ask you. Spread the word about Mutants: Uprising to your friends and get them to preorder as well! Anyone who likes the X-Men movies, or superheroes in general, will enjoy this book.
As the contest draws closer to the end, the competition is heating up. I don’t need 750 preorders to get a full publishing contract from Inkshares and put this book in your hands, I only need to remain in the top 3 of the contest, and you can make this happen!
Thank you!
~~ Jane-Holly
What people are saying about Mutants: Uprising -
"Such a cool concept with unique execution, in 2nd person. Meissner is an engaging, creative author and I’ve no doubt that Mutants: Uprising will be a brilliant read." - J. Graham-Jones, author of 1000 Faces and Witherfist
"A brilliant concept promising inventive action, compelling characters and an exciting new world, with a unique 2nd-person narrative style. An automatic buy, for me." - Evan Graham, author of Proteus and Tantalus Depths
"X-Men is the obvious link, but the story also kind of strikes me as bring like a mutant version of True Blood. 2nd person POV is a novelty, and in this case well-written. Bought my copy, look forward to reading the finished piece." - Chris Picone, author of Kanimbla
"X-Men and Lovecraft. Two of my fave things in one book, also with a rather unique writing style, makind it stand out from other books I’ve read trying to do the same. Interesting and looking forward to seeing where this ends up!" - Anniken Haga, author of Artificial Generation
This update is about a part of Mission 51 that I did not anticipate when I first put "pencil to paper."
There came a moment during the writing of Mission 51 when I thought a real picture would be a fun way to describe a part of the story. I made a very brief effort to draw something on my own, but I quickly realized my drawing skills were not good enough. So I began to look elsewhere. My search for a compatible artist eventually took me to DeviantArt, where I proceeded to look at the work of hundreds of artists. I found two who I believed could interpret moments in Mission 51 in a way that would be compatible with the spirit of the story: Idan Carré and Chris Pyke. It has been a sheer pleasure working with these two talented individuals.
The process of creating the images in Mission 51 starts with countless emails back and forth. Chris lives in England, so there is also the matter of working around time zones. I takes a lot of planning and time to get the moment of the story, the important elements, the framing, the angle of view, the expressions, and the feeling just right. Idan and Chris have an amazing ability to capture those kinds of things in their painting and drawing.
By way of example, I’ll share this portrait of Dr. Linda Deltare, an important character in Mission 51. The time period would be in the late 1950s or early 1960s, so she appears much younger than the old lady who approaches me in the Preface of the book. In fact, at that time she was close in age to the story’s protagonist, Mat. Deltare has a PhD in linguistics. She is a crossdresser and a chain smoker. But most importantly, she was Mat’s best, and perhaps only friend during those early years. In this phenomenal pen and ink drawing, Chris Pyke has captured Deltare in her office in Area 51, right down the hall from Mat’s cell. Awesome detail!
A last step that I have added more recently is expert digital colorization by a young colorist in Israel. Lea is able to add color and life to these drawings without taking anything away. The subtle shading, the hash lines, everything in the original drawing is still there. Magical!
I am fortunate beyond words to have the chance to work with such talented people, and I cannot wait to share the rest of their work with you. Please help me make Mission 51 a reality. I need your pre-order to stay in the top three of the Nerdist contest. That will get the book published.
Thank you in advance for your kind consideration and support!
Peace!
Ferd
Today’s big announcement has almost nothing to do with Tantalus Depths, but it is still a very big announcement.
As many of you already know, Inkshares is teaming up with Nerdist right now to host a science fiction novel contest. The top three books at the end of the contest will win the full publishing treatment, the same deal we earned for Tantalus Depths last year, but without the agonizing process of having to round up 750 preorders first.
I deliberated for weeks about whether I should enter the contest or not. The book I wanted to enter is one of my boldest endeavors and I’m incredibly proud of it, but in many ways I feel like I’m still recovering from my last campaign, and I’m definitely not excited about taking that plunge once more. But ultimately the deciding factor that made me decide to go ahead and go for it was the competition. Right now, with just 20 days to go, the pre-order numbers on the current leaderboard are unusually low for a contest like this. At the time of writing this, I could make it to the top 3 with less than 50 pre-orders. That’s a far cry from 750, and I feel I must capitalize on this opportunity.
So I’ve entered the fray: my second full novel, Proteus, is now available for pre-order. It’s a sci-fi psychological thriller set in the same universe as Tantalus Depths, but featuring completely different characters and events. It’s ambitious to the point of impertinence, as it is a direct adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Richard III that also deals with themes of wartime PTSD, transhumanism, and the duality of man.
I can’t do anything halfway, it seems.
Here is the link, please check it out. There will be a wealth of new information coming every day for the duration of this intense but very short campaign. I wouldn’t have entered this contest yet if I didn’t think we could win it. The support we raised for Tantalus Depths was simply mind-blowing, and if we can recapture just one fifteenth of that miracle again, we’ll have not one but two books entering the production process. This could make the difference between me being an author as a hobby and me being an author as a career.
Before you go, I want to pre-emptively answer some questions I expect will be raised by this announcement:
Q: You jerk, I already ordered a book and I still don’t have it. WHERE’S MA BOOK???
A: It’s coming! I sent the manuscript in about a month ago. It takes months for a book to go through the production process, and that timer doesn’t begin until the manuscript is submitted. Tantalus Depths will probably not be released until the end of the year at the absolute earliest, more likely early next year. BUT anyone who’s ordered it and is particularly eager to get their hands on a copy and doesn’t want to wait until then, I will happily send you the current draft upon request. If you don’t mind reading an in-process manuscript, that is.
Q: What happens if you lose the contest?
A: You get your money back. If I fail to place in the top three, I could continue to campaign the normal way until I raise enough pre-orders (that’s exactly what happened with Tantalus Depths) but there’s no way I’m putting myself through that right now. I’ve set my campaign to only run one week past the end of the contest, at which point it will expire and anyone who ordered a copy will be immediately refunded. Either I win this contest, or nothing. Not until a future date when I’m more ready for it.
Q: How will this campaign affect the production of Tantalus Depths?
A: It won’t. Tantalus Depths is top priority. The only reason I have time to campaign right now is because I’m still waiting to be assigned a production team; at the moment, there’s nothing I can do for Tantalus. During the production process, there is a lot of going back and forth between me and my editor, so there will be patches of time when I will be working on Tantalus and when I won’t be. Any time I have to choose between working on Tantalus and working on Proteus, Tantalus will always take priority.
Any other questions or concerns, feel free to message me about them.
20 days remain to get 1000 Faces into the top 3 of the Nerdist contest
