Hey everyone. Friendly helpful PSA time.

I ordered a physical book but was just told my ebook is ready to download. What happened? 

Don’t worry. If you backed These Are My Friends on Politics, you’ll either have received or soon will receive an email informing you your ebook download is ready. That’s not a goof — every physical book comes with a complimentary ebook version you can load onto your preferred e-reader of choice. So you’re getting that right now while the physical books are being prepared for shipment. If you ordered a physical book (or three, or ten), that package will be heading your way before long. This is just a pre-order bonus.

Sounds good. So what’s a .mobi file? 

If your experience with getting ebooks comes from buying them straight from Amazon’s or Apple’s store, you might be a little thrown by seeing two different formats presented for your consumption. The download page has all the instructions you’ll need, but here’s a bonus quick cheat sheet. 

ePub version: This is the .mp3 of ebooks, and it works on anything not called a Kindle. So if you’re using iBooks for iOS/Mac, Google Books for Android, or a Sony Reader/Nook/Kobo/basically any e-reader ever made that isn’t a Kindle, this is the format for you. 

Kindle (.mobi) version: This one is for anyone using a tablet made by Amazon -- be it a Kindle Fire, the regular monochrome Kindles (Paperwhite, whatever weird name that new one is called) or anything else that has the word "Kindle" stamped on it. It also will display nicely on the Kindle desktop app for PC and Mac. The one place it won’t load: the Kindle app for iOS, which uses a different file format that’s laden with DRM and requires purchase through Amazon’s own store to display books properly. Fortunately, if you’re an iOS person, the ePub version plays perfectly with iBooks. 

So should I read this ebook now or wait for the physical book if I ordered one of those? 

Honestly? If I’m being candid, I’d wait, because I think the physical book is the best experience. I love ebooks, but I don’t think heavily-illustrated books are best served by that format. I also hope this is the kind of book people open up and enjoy together, which is something the physical book better allows to happen. It’s up to you, of course, but if you’re waiting on a physical book and choose to ignore the email about the ebook as result, you’ll get no argument from me. 

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present the ground floor plan for the Veterans’ Club.

Not shown: fireplaces. Yes, there are multiple fireplaces, because this place was built in a time before proper central heating. Possibly it has been renovated since, but there are still fireplaces. And if you’re wondering why a gentlemen’s club has what is clearly a ladies’ restroom: the gentlemen members do bring ladies in to dine from time to time, and may God have mercy on their souls if a lady has no place to powder her nose.

(I do invite comments and criticism on this plan. I confess that I have not actually made an in-depth study of the club building layouts around St James Place.)

Meanwhile! How are we doing? The third Peterkin Investigates game is still in production. I hope to have it out before Friday ... some of you may be aware that IFcomp 2016 begins on 01 October, and everyone who plays these things will be playing and judging the competition games. So I’d like to get my game out before that flood begins. I may have to make a rare mid-week update just to announce the game.

Watch this space, folks!

This week something pretty amazing happened. Inkshares sent me the back cover text and author bio for The Punch Escrow. I was also given an official publication date, which is a lot further in the future than I originally imagined, but makes sense. The book will be released at San Diego Comic Con (July 19, 2017) and will be given a big promotional push by Geek & Sundry there. We haven’t even started coming up with what sort of pomp and circumstance we’ll do, but I’m sure it’ll be fun. Anyway, the rewrite is moving along swimmingly. Some days more swimming than others. Right now with around 35% of the rewrite complete, I can’t seem to get out of the limbo that exists between 28,000 and 29,000 words, but I’m very motivated by deadlines and I’ve committed to handing in the manuscript by November 1, so I’ll get there. For those curious about the back copy and author bio, here’s what they look like (some of you who have been with me since the beginning of this campaign will note that International Transport has gotten better at marketing, they’ve eliminated "Journey" from their slogan):

Back Cover Synopsis:

It’s the year 2471. Advancements in nanotechnology have enabled us to control aging. We’ve genetically engineered mosquitoes to feast on carbon fumes instead of blood, ending air pollution. And teleportation has become the ideal mode of transportation, offered exclusively by International Transport—a secretive firm headquartered in New York City. Their slogan: Departure... Arrival... Delight!

Joel Byram, our smartass protagonist, is an everyday twenty-fifth century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980’s synthpop—an extremely obscure genre, and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems—until he’s accidentally duplicated while teleporting.  

Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves in a world that now has two of him.

Author Biography Back Cover Version

Tal M. Klein was born in Israel, grew up in New York, and currently lives in Detroit with his wife and two daughters. When she was five years old, his daughter Iris wrote a book called I’m a Bunch of Dinosaurs that went on to become one of the most successful children’s book projects on Kickstarter —something that Tal explained to Iris by telling her, “your book made lots of kids happy.” Iris then asked Tal, "Daddy, why don’t you write a book that makes lots of grownups happy?" Tal mulled this over for a few years, and eventually wrote his first book, The Punch Escrow. It won the Inkshares Geek & Sundry Hard Science Fiction publishing contest, and will be the first book published on the Geek & Sundry imprint.

Good morning all.

Just a quick update on the progress of the book campaign.  We have 57 days left until November 14, and we’re sitting at 169 orders of the necessary 250 to publish.  We’re ahead of pace to make our goal, which is the good news.  The slightly more nerve-wracking news is we’re ahead by one book.  So it looks like this is going to be a tight race.  If you haven’t ordered yet, or are interested in ordering a second copy, or want to donate an eBook preorder to help the book get published, I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate it.  But I’d try.

The book itself is in the middle of its seventh and hopefully final draft.  I’ve sent the manuscript out to a few fellow authors who have read it and said some very positive things about it.  I’m toying with an idea to make the story a little tighter, and hopefully once that’s in, I’ll be finished and the book will be ready for the long process of getting released via Inkshares.  And once it gets through that, it’ll be in all of your hands.

So thank you all for the support you’ve shown so far.  We’ve got a little less than two months to pull together and push to the end.  With the love you guys have shown so far, I don’t have any doubt it’s possible.  Only 81 to go.

Keep circulating the link.  http://www.inkshares.com/books/blue-water

If you haven’t yet, check out the first four chapters as well at bluewaternovel.com

Thank you all again.

Joseph

Everybody is sending out reader updates today and I don’t want to be left out!

Eric Landreneau (author of Beneath White Clouds) reviewed Monkey Business. So check that out here if you’re interested!

And if you guys would consider following my new project Black Cloud, I would be very grateful!

And now just for funsies here are some ridiculous Monkey Business videos. The prices are wrong but who cares? There are sock puppet monkeys. Happy Sunday!

In the mood for Hip Hop?

In the mood for something a little more Rockin’?

How about something Epic?

Or do you just wanna make love down by the fire?

 Bye bye!