Thank you. Thank you all so much for your support from the bottom of my bursting heart. Because of you, Flames in the Dark has rushed to the top of the Leaderboard today. I am over the moon excited to see such interest in my work. I hope we can keep up this momentum as we move on in the contest. I’m sure it will move around as the weeks pass, but my dream is a lot closer to reality. Thank you for your faith in me.
Good evening, everyone! I’ve got a couple quick updates and a request for you tonight.
Update the First: We just hit 50 pre orders! I’m floored! Blown away! Dumbfounded, really! In less than a week, you have all shown me so much love and support. I really can’t thank you enough.
Update the Second: Some of you already know I was at GenCon this weekend- a gaming convention with a crowd who would be right in my target audience. I struck up a couple conversations with folks who I thought might be interested in the book. One of them? Just happens to be a graphic designer! What this means is that I’m going to be in contact with him over the next few days to discuss the possibility of having an actual cover image created for Storm Song! Get excited! I sure am!
A Humble Request: 50 pre orders is huge, guys- but I’ve got a long way to go to catch up to the folks in the lead of this thing. But if each of you who have pre ordered can reach out to one person that you think would be interested in supporting my endeavors here, we can double that number in record time.
As incentive, once we hit 100 pre orders, I’ll update this page with two more chapters. Curious to see more of Thoster’s adventure unfold? Well, it’s all in your hands how quick you can get it!
For those of you that are following, but haven’t pre ordered? I’m asking that you take another look and consider it. Reach out to me if you have any questions! I’m always happy to ramble about my story with anyone who will let me! My email is asgriner6587@gmail.com - open for any discussions pertaining to the book and this project!
Thanks again for your support, everyone! I adore you all!
- Allison
Small update. First editing session now over. This will soon be off to the team at inkshares for the various stages before publication. Now can I ask a small money free favour? I’d like all my 250 followers to "follow" me over at the follow up site BRUGES BLOOD --- the next Chandler Travis and Duke Lanoix mystery. All you have to do is click the link and FOLLOW me.
Here’s the link BRUGES BLOOD thank you all so much for getting LOUISIANA BLOOD published! And here’s the cover for the next mystery.
Well, friends, the campaign has ended and we didn’t meet our goals. If you pre-ordered a copy you should be receiving a refund shortly.
It is with a heavy heart that I write this update, but I am proud of what has been accomplished since this started way back in February.
I’ve written short stories, poetry and songs for nearly as long as I could write and even before I knew how to play an instrument. I have always wanted to write novels, but wasn’t sure I could pull it off and was always afraid of failing. I finally put aside that fear earlier this year and decided to try and take one of the plethora of the novel ideas bouncing around in my skull and make it into a reality. I attribute a lot of that courage from my incredibly supportive spouse and a couple of mentors in the English department at school who pushed me to reach for something more. What I began working on was a fantasy novel, but I quickly switched gears when the Nerdist Space Opera contest began. I took a character I had made up when I was in high school and was enamored with Emma Peel, James Bond and retro-science fiction serials and put her center stage.
When the contest began I had a rough idea of the story and all of its beats, but barely enough to make a full novel. I asked one of my best friends, a professional graphic designer, if she could create a cover for me and I began the truthfully draining process of trying to promote a book I hadn’t really finished yet. This was always the part I dreaded, the self-promotion part, but despite my social anxiety issues I went door-to-door pushing my novel, went to comic book stores and coffee shops, messaged every single person on my Facebook friend’s list, began building up a Twitter following, did interviews for podcasts and local news and networked with a lot of brilliant authors throughout Inkshares and Goodreads. The solidarity with my fellow authors is what helped me push forward the most and it is something I’m going to continue cultivating. It really helps to know you’re not alone in this endeavor and that authors of all levels of success and experience are willing to lend a hand or ear when it’s needed.
I lingered around 19th place in the contest, pretty respectable considering there were nearly a hundred submissions. When it was over, I put the aggressive marketing on hold and worked hard on completing a more polished draft. By the time I had asked for my first extension I had finished the second draft clocking in at about 75,000 words. I can tell you now, that all of the work I’ve put into this book has not been done in vain and despite the outcome of the campaign, I’m still going to continue to polish this book until it is the best it can be.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you what I think I did wrong or what wasn’t enough. That’s self-defeating and I call this a near-success, not a failure. Ending with 119 pre-orders out of 250 is not bad at all. What I will tell you is that while I continue to fine tune my novel (and the aforementioned fantasy novel) my role on Inkshares and Goodreads is going to be more cheerleader rather than self-promoter. There are still a lot of great authors out there trying to meet their goals and I encourage you to give them a look and help them get where I couldn’t. This is not the end for me or To Live and Die in Avalon by a long shot. My only plan right now is to finish the best version of the book possible before I decide what to do with it next.
I’d now like to acknowledge some of the Inkshares authors who showed their support for me and I encourage you to look them up, follow what they’re doing and help them reach their goals. Or at the very least, be the cheerleader for them that they’ve been for me:
Michael Haase
Tony Valdez
RH Webster
Billy O’Keefe
Eric H. Heisner
Stephen Carignan
Joseph Asphahani
Thomas J. Arnold
Nell Walton
Mike Donald
Tal M. Klein
Tabi Card
Matthew Poat
James Rasile
RF Martin
Bekki Leber
Seriously, the list goes on and on and if I didn’t mention you by name, trust me, every single person on my follow list for both me as an author or the book itself is important to me. Thank you. You’re all wonderful people for even just caring to see where this book could go.
A special thanks to Jeremy and the Inkshares peeps, I love you guys. Thanks for providing a platform for fledgling writers like myself to take a chance and put it out there. You’ve opened huge doors for me and I’m eternally grateful for that.
The story is not over yet. This is not goodbye, just see you later.
Thank you!
Jason
28 days!
Hello Cape’s Side Bayers!
Hope you’re all enjoy this Sunday, and wherever you are the weather is cooperating with whatever plans you may have!
We’re currently down to less than 130 orders to go and it’s time to ramp things up!
I’ve been going back and touching up the manuscript and as I’ve been saying since late January when I first set up the Cape’s Side Bay page here on inkshares: I love it! I cannot wait for you all to read it, the few people who have read it in its entirety have all given me feedback, it’s been positive, just some things to clean up, touch up, and add on!
I love writing and I hope you love reading what I’ve written.
So please, as always, if you have no tyet pre-ordered Cape’s Side Bay let me know what I need to do to get you there! And if you have and what to pre-order again, I won’t argue! Or if you just want to review, recommend, and/or share, that would also put a smile on my face.
Thank you all and enjoy the remainder of the weekend!
Mornin’, rebels.
I woke up, and my allergies was already kicking my butt out of the sheets. Usually, on these days, I can hardly work to the best of my ability, and I’d get constant headaches from sneezing and coughing all the time. So, I decided to take it easy today because I’ve been moving around and talking non-stop it seems, but I’ll have Forgotten Stories(Aria) up tomorrow afternoon. Please, for those who haven’t already, check out the chapters that are out and consider pre-ordering soon! Don’t forget to recommend and share.
Stay rebellious!
From yours truly, A.J.III.
