What would you do if your mind invited you to a place where you could escape the world around you? Would you be enticed? Would you trust it? At first, Ialu is a sanctuary for people who are overtaken by their mental illnesses. But how stable is it?
This is a short but very important update, so please take a moment to read it:
Because of some complications owing to particulars involving the unique glue required to bind the amazing foil cover we’ve designed for The Punch Escrow, I won’t be able to sign the books in time to get them to you before the July 25 publication date. So, I need to know if you guys would rather have the books early and unautographed or slightly late and autographed. By "slightly late" I mean I’ll be signing them on July 24th and Inkshares will ship them out that day, so you’ll still get your book on publication week, just not on publication day. But it’s up to you. And by "you" I mean the collective "yous." We’re going to make this democratic with a survey. You can fill out the survey here, and whatever the majority decides 24 hours from now will be the way we do things for everyone who pre-ordered the autographed books.
Here’s the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.de/r/ZBBDCQF
More news soon!
-Tal
Hi there friends,
Tony here. I know you haven’t heard from me in a good long while. You may have even completely forgot that you helped crowdfund a book nearly 2 years ago and have yet to see it. For that, I apologize. I assure you that these long delays have been out of my control. And more importantly, NO THIS BOOK HAS NOT BEEN ABANDONED, and YES, IT IS STILL COMING.
"Why the long silence, Tony?"
Well, frankly, I grew a bit tired and embarrassed of sending updates with no real news to speak of. I’m sure you may have grown tired of it as well, so I figured I’d lay low until I could come back with something real for you.
"Why the delays?"
Inkshares is a small publishing team with limited resources, and business decisions resulted in my book being put on the back burner for a very long time. It’s been unfortunate and frustrating, but there it is. The plus side is that I’ve had plenty of time to edit and revise. So the book you’ll be receiving is better than the book that would have been published a year ago.
"So what’s going on with the book now?"
As of a few weeks ago, I was assured by the Inkshares team that they should be able to get my book published and into your hands "by the end of summer". I have submitted the updated version of my manuscript to them and am currently waiting to hear back on the next steps of production. The book has been polished with the aid of beta readers, a professional dev editor, and my own neurotic nitpicking. I even added a bonus prequel short story while I waited. Inkshares will assist with copy editing (sentence structure, punctuation, making sure things make sense, etc), formatting, slapping on the cover art, and it’s off to the printers. Again, hopefully, in an expedited fashion from here on.
"So when exactly is the book coming?"
I wish I had an official date to give you rather than "by the end of summer", but that’s all I got for now. I will let you know as soon as I have more.
"How about that cover art?"
Not that anyone asked, but I am excited to say the final book artwork is in progress. And if the concepts I’ve seen are any indication, it’s going to be something special. So whether or not you enjoy my writing, you will at least have a very pretty book to display on your shelf. ;)
All right gang, that’s all for now. Thanks again for your patience. I hope to have an official date and/or some art to show next update. See ya!
-Tony V.
Dear sentient machines,
Did you guys know that my debut novel, The Life Engineered, prequel to Arch-Android, was recently nominated for a Kobo Emerging Writer Award? It was!
What’s better is that Kobo was awesome enough to send me a Kobo Aura reader. Just like that. But I already read all my ebooks on my iPad. So instead of letting this neat little device gather dust, I decided to give it to you fine creatures. (a 100$ value)
Well, one of you anyways.
So here’s how this is going to work. I will be raffling off the Aura to those who pre-order Arch-Android before the end of the funding campaign.
To make this prize even more unique, I will draw a Capek on the back of the device and sign it.
So if you haven’t pre-ordered Arch-Android already, maybe it’s time to get on that. Share your referral link with all your science-fiction loving friends too. Win that eReader!
Thank you my awesome friends,
JF
(here’s a Capek I drew. It’s Eremiel from The Life Engineered)
Brian and Michelle Guthrie
liked an update for Not Afraid of the Fall: 117 days through 38 cities in 15 countries.
Matthew Isaac Sobin
Hey! Long time no chit chat. I said I wouldn’t abuse this method of communication and I meant it. So, a short update.
For those that missed it, Rise is on Audible and you can get it at tiny.cc/risenovel . If you have it already, I hope you enjoy.
A lot of you have gotten back to me about reading it, but reviews are still a bit low. If you have the time for a short word to encourage people to (or discourage them from) reading the book, then please head over to that link above and leave a review on Amazon. If you have time beyond that, Goodreads could use it as well.
Last part. Fall is done. I’ve said that before. It needs edited, but it’s written. I’ve already started Shatter and am about 1/3 of the way through. If you want to read the sequel, you need to go follow it here tiny.cc/fallnovel and, when it goes live in the coming few months, preorder it. Why? Because you literally will be getting it sooner if you do. Remember, I don’t make a dime off of preorders. So, the more of you that order it to get it into production, the less I make. That’s not important. I want you to read it. And you will have the chance to make it happen.
