I MADE A VIDEO! Starring me and my dog explaining CHAMPIONS OF THE THIRD PLANET in a little more detail than you’ve heard before, especially as it relates to my childhood obsession with STAR WARS. The video is up now on my page, I hope you’ll check it out.

Making the video took me away from the book and Inkshares for a couple of days, but now I’m back. I’m currently writing chapter 12 of the book -- Milo and the other kids are already dealing with some freaked-out aliens on a far-off planet where I am. Meanwhile, I don’t want to get stuck revising when I still have BLANK PAGES ahead of me but I wanted to jump back and clean up chapters 2 & 3 before I post. Also because I had a really cool idea for something that I’m guessing will happen around chapter 20 and need to set it up in the beginning of the book. 

Fun fact I’ve discovered: I’m bad with alien names. It takes a long time for me to come up with ones I like and then I have to brew on them for a while to see if they stick. I guess you can’t learn that about yourself until you start writing a book with a LOT of alien names.

I also have some pitches to catch up on -- sorry if you’re waiting for a response from me, I promise I haven’t forgotten! 

If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy of CHAMPIONS OF THE THIRD PLANET, please order one. It’s technically a middle grade novel, so it’s aimed first at kids 8-12, so if you know one of those, you should get it for him or her if you want to be considered a "cool" grownup.

But REALLY I’m really writing this book for me. I’d read this book and I’m a grown man!  I mean, I’m going to bow to STAR WARS again here -- George Lucas thought of STAR WARS as a kids’ movie (!) but grown-ups loved it just as much. In fact, most of my favorite movies appeal to everybody at any age: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, GHOSTBUSTERS, BACK TO THE FUTURE. So that’s what I’m aiming for.

Thanks, hope you enjoy the video!

--Chris

People have been sending me screenshots of their shipping information for The Life Engineered.

The backer copies are shipping.

I’ve also seen a few Amazon email confirmations with expected dates of delivery.

It’s a very humbling moment in the life cycle of this book. It feels very much like that moment when the wind picks up a little but everything feels more quiet and the smell of rain is in the air but the downpour is still a few hours away. It’s that second when the wave is cresting too high for it to roll back peacefully but not quite enough to break yet. It would be easy for me to sit back and look on in awe at the impending spectacle, but I can’t.

This is the time when I need to turn you, my awesome supporters, into an active militia once more. The gears of the machine must be brought to turn once again to offer one more shove. You’ve supported me so far and it feels demanding to ask for more, but I must.

What you can do:

1. Leave reviews. Whether it’s on Amazon or Goodreads or both, please leave a review of The Life Engineered. I want to know what you think of my story and good reviews help promote visibility.
2. Post pictures of the book. Take a photo of you copy of the book and Tweet it to @jfdubeau or post it on my Facebook page. I want to make an album. It’s one of the rare times I indulge in narcissism.
3. Share your copy. If you bought extra copies and don’t know what to do with them, give them to friends. Lend yours out. I want people to read and enjoy my story. It’s one of the joys of physical books that they can be shared. Take advantage.

As a parting note, I want to thank you all for your support. This is an incredible ride and I couldn’t have done it without you all. That’s why I thought it was worth flying out to San Francisco this past weekend to sign your copies of the book and just knowing that people appreciate that makes it all worthwhile.

(Find out more about my San Francisco trip here)

Cheers,

JF

Dear readers,

Today I want to tell you about a very special new book that’s funding here on Inkshares: my husband’s space opera novel, Infinity Mind -- a novel about a telepathic assassin on a future Mars colony who must break his conditioning before he murders his wife.

Here’s a video we did together to introduce his book and how you can help him reach his funding goal. (And also at long last: the secret of the science fiction book case in my office is revealed!)

Click the picture to be taken to Pat’s page where you can view the video (and pre-order a copy while you’re there):

Pat’s been watching me work hard on connecting to an audience for Blood Dawn here on Inkshares and he’s been lurking in the community for some time, but with the launch of the Nerdist space opera contest we both saw this as a great time for him to make his debut with Infinity Mind. That, and the fact that we both finished our manuscripts last December, so he’s now got his sights on publication.

It would mean so much to me if you could support him by pre-ordering a copy of his book. This book, originally called "Rebirth" when we met, was actually one thing that first brought us together. It was a stormy weekend in May back in 2011 (that weekend when the world was predicted to end) and we both trekked our way across Winnipeg to the Radisson hotel for the annual Keycon writing convention to learn about how to get our respective books published (at the time, I was writing a fantasy trilogy called "The Blood, The Sword, and the Shadow", my second novel). Neither of us found fame, but we found each other and soon we were critiquing each other’s work.

Eventually, we both shelved our work, deciding it wasn’t ripe yet, and we moved on to other things. But Pat always did intend to go back to his novel about Mars colony, its corrupt dictator and her power-hungry right-hand-man, and the mystery hiding far beneath the Martian soil -- and I was eager to find out more about where he was going with the big reveal at the end (no spoilers!). Finally,  last year, after seeing how beneficial the Author Accelerator program was for me, Pat decided to use it to rewrite "Rebirth". The result: Infinity Mind.

Again, the link to where you can view the video and pre-order a copy of his book: https://www.inkshares.com/books/infinity-mind

Thanks so much for all your support!

(And fans of Blood Dawn, boy have I got something cooking here for the final push -- reveal is coming sooooon!)