Writer of COGNITION, a highly rated sci fi screenplay on the Black List website. I also edit SyFy ...
Okay, ladies and gentle men, time for an update on all things Ghost-y.
You may have noticed last time I said a thing about having the book done and submitted by the end of July. Well, that didn’t happen, but there are reasons, some good, some less so. Let’s begin.
I was talking to Inkshares around the time of the last update and mentioned my intention to submit at the end of July. Inkshares have a lot on their plate at the moment with a bunch of books in production and some behind the scenes changes, and they felt it would be in the best interests for my book if I took a bit more time to work on things, and not rush it so that when it came time to submit they could give it the appropriate attention.
So what this essentially means is the book is about 95% certain to not be coming out in 2016 which, while disappointing, is best for the books future. Rest assured though, it will be coming as soon as humanly possible in 2017.
One side effect of this "take your time" directive was that my brain went into "oh you can put this off for a while" mode (among many other unhelpful modes)...and here we are: three months later and no finished draft.
This is a problem. For me. For you. For Inkshares.
It is not, however, a problem without a solution and that solutions name is accountability. It’s all well and good to give myself deadlines, but if I’m the only one I’m beholden to, then I tend to fall between the cracks. So I figure having near on 400 people on my case should be a good motivator.
So, starting next Friday I’ll be sending out weekly updates that will include the daily word totals for the previous week. They’ll continue until the first draft is done (which is close mind you) and then I’ll reassess the schedule as things head into beta reading and revisions and such.
Current Stats
Word Count: 94,203
Chapters Finished: 27 of 32
What’s Left: 23, 26 & 30 need to be finished and I have yet to start on 31 & 32 (though they are fully outlined)
Estimated Final Word Count: somewhere around 110,000
I’ll see you all next week.
Hello dear readers,
If you preordered Sparked, we are so grateful to you and so excited for you to read it. In fact, we made a spooky new book trailer for you.
Check it out: www.sparkedbook.com
Or just go to our Inkshares page: https://www.inkshares.com/books/sparked
As you know, Sparked reached the initial goal we set and will be published by Inkshares in 2017. But being published is just the beginning. We also need Inkshares to put marketing muscle behind the book and to distribute it into bookstores. To get that, we need 750 preorders in total and we are well on our way, but we still need help.
We only need 189 more orders to cross the finish line.
To help us get Sparked into bookstores, then it would be fabulous if you could take a moment to do this:
Forward this email to one person who might be interested in Sparked.
That could be parents who have a teenager (a kid as young as 10 or 11 is fine, since the book won’t be out for a year). Or a young or old aspiring writer who could use our free coaching offer (transferable and non-expiring): http://www.bay-ata.com/sparked/free_coaching.php. Or an adult who loves reading young adult fiction.
We also have a special gift for anyone who orders 3 copies from now until the end of the campaign: a SPARKED tote bag, designed by Inkshares author Kaytalin Platt. It’s really cute, and who doesn’t love "merch" (or at least saying the word "merch"?) And we will send it to you ASAP-no thumb twiddling while you await that tote bag!
Thank you so much again!
Warmly,
Helena and Malena
Hello readers,
So...sorry for accidentally maintaining a radio silence for three months. I had meant to post an update on how the Remains is going and keep the good folks here up to date on these things. But I guess being bad at keeping up with self-made promises is one of the reasons I’m slightly overweight and are writing a novel instead being a blogger. Well...I’m not gonna make any promises here that I think I will accidentally break, so let’s move on.
The Remains is chugging along at a steady pace...and I shall now unveil The Remains of Civilization V2.0!
Here’s a slightly more typo-free, 200% more humorous, and punchier chapters of the book! I promise this time the revision I made to the chapter will make rereading them be like adding sprinkles on a vanilla-flavored ice-cream on a hot, sunny day instead of a reptitive task. I would be interested in hearing your feedback on the story so far and your opinions on it. The reader’s voice is essentially the lifeblood of writers, we REALLY can’t live without ’em.
Other than that, I can now also officially announce that I will finish this draft before or during NaNoWriMo and also had finished planning and writing down the ending for the story. Funny how the ending was almost completely different from how I had finished the first draft, but that was never meant to be the real ending anyway, the ending to the first draft served as a placeholder for when I thought of a better ending and a reminder that if you don’t plan...eh things can really become a mess really quickly. At the end, the current draft is more a rewrite than an edit, really.
Well, that’s unfortunately all. I’ll probably post another update next month. Until then.
-Yicheng Liu
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.
Dear Sweethearts,
Happy Tuesday! I am writing you from a very comfortable seat on an Amtrak train on my way from New York up to Boston. I was asked to speak at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, to college students about How to Get Run Over by a Truck and the importance of resiliency, and I have been staring out the window during this whole trip trying really hard not to cry. I am failing miserably.
I’m crying because I cannot believe that this is my life. Gratitude sometimes spills out of me via tears - which in this particular case makes people very unlikely to take the seat next to me!
Right now, some of you are already reading the ebook of this memoir, many of you will be receiving the hard copy of the book in a few days, in one week it will be in bookstores and in five days I will go with my family, my boyfriend and few friends to the corner where I was run over by a truck and I will drink champagne, I will cry, I will laugh and I will pour out some champagne for old Katie. Its going to be a full week :)
Thank you again for being a part of this process, and for joining me on this incredible journey. I cannot believe that just 9 months ago I went from being told that no one would be interested in reading this book, to having over 2,600 copies sold before its release date! You are the people who made this dream a reality. Without you, it would’ve stayed in the bottom drawer of my desk,collecting dust. You let it come into the light.
I hope that I will see many of you who are in the New York City area on October 4th at KGB Bar for the Book Launch party. I would love to hug you and thank you in person for believing in me and in this project!
I’ll be thinking of you on October 2nd, with gratitude in my heart, and champagne in my hand. Thank you for making my life a celebration.
Heart,
Katie
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.
This is a difference sort of update! :-)
Last week we traveled up to our Ohio homeland to participate in the mass-baptism of our 6 grandchildren! It is always great fun when the family can get together for any reason, and few are much better than a joyous occasion like this!
In the picture is the newest member of the family, baby Olivia, and me!
Life is great! :D
Friends