My dear Machiners, 

Where do I begin? I will start by saying that I have now had over 48 hours to decompress. I took some extra time before writing my post-Sword & Laser update. I just didn’t quite feel that I was coherent enough to write the update I wanted in the immediate aftermath. At this point, the fact that I can call myself a “soon to be published author” has not fully sunk in. That this story, which I poured myself into, will be in print and on a bookstore shelf is still hard to believe. When I do see it on that shelf, it will be serious reality check time. 

For now I must say Thank YOU. Thank you with all my heart. I cannot thank everybody enough. I want to stress and stress some more that this was an unbelievable team effort. I wrote the story but bringing it to a wider audience through crowdfunding on Inkshares was undeniably a group effort. And a tremendous one at that. Many, many people went above and beyond the call to bring new readers to our cause. 

To illustrate this unbelievable outreach, we can break the campaign into two chunks. There were the first 4.5 weeks of the campaign: We brought in 170 readers and this was phenomenal. We were in a strong 2nd place position and hoped it would be enough to stay in the top 3. Then there was the final 1.5 weeks of the contest - and we brought in 180 readers! In my wildest dreams I would never have expected to more than double what we did in over a month in just 10 days. Thank you for the incredible support to finish this race. I feel honored and humbled. I want all of you to feel that you had a hand in making this happen. Because it’s true. The eBook or paperback you receive is yours as much as it is mine, and far beyond the money you contributed. 

I must give a hearty salute to my co-winners Joseph Asphahani author of The Animal in Man and Craig Munro the author of The Bones of the Past. It was an absolute pleasure to compete against them. An experience that was full of camaraderie and goodwill. Their books are awesome and I look forward to receiving my copy of both. It is well worth your time to go check them out, and also the other excellent work by talented authors in the top 10 in the Sword & Laser contest. The contest was filled with wonderful creative work - those outside the top 10 also deserve your consideration. Here is the rest of the top 10:

Adam Greven and Matt Deller’s The Knight Proper 

Byron Gillian’s The Children of the Forest 

Amanda Ornekc’s Deus Hex Machina 

Andre Brun’s Lies and Deception 

Michael Sebby’s The Inhabitants: An Unremembered Life 

Alexander Barnes’s The Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising 

Edmond J. Wedge’s Ocean Black: The Noble Exiles

The journey is just beginning for The Last Machine in the Solar System. There will be future updates as we continue down the road toward publication. This is all new and exciting for me and I am sure I will learn something each day. I look forward to sharing that with you, my benefactors. Without you I would not be here, and neither would this story. 

Until next time, 

 -Matthew 

Good morning everyone,

Lies and Deception is now at 99 copies pre ordered. wow that is amazing !!!

We are also at 3 readers away from our first raffle ; a 50 $ gift card of the winners choice. I cannot say how much I am happy right now, of course I will not win the Sword and Laser contest but I am getting one step closer to Quill.

I am doing this book, as I always wanted to write a good story and also want to prove to my children that you can achieve anything if you work hard and believe in yourself. When they will be older and I will be an aged man they will be able to say here is the book my father wrote... one book, maybe more.

Again if you like what I am doing, please recommend to your friend and family.

thank you once more from my children and I :)

Hello friends

Just a quick update. I have submitted my manuscript to Inkshares, and we expect to start the editing work in a couple of weeks. I believe this process last  6 to 10 months. Even though I would love a summer release, a Holidays release doesn’t sound bad.

I want to thanks the always patient and encouraging Avalon Radys —at Inkshares— for guiding me through the paperwork and submission process. Avalon said to me “you'll have plenty of work to do and deliverables to send at certain times. Take a break.”

So I’m taking her advice and using the time to support 3 authors that you should check out.

Andrew Wood

His book Storm of Fury is 89 pre-orders away from funding, and his deadline is in 64 days.

Andrew is a talented young writer, and his book presents quite an interesting story:

Lantrelia is a world that is under siege, but not by any mortal foe. Angered by humanity's many sins, the terrible god Na'lek has manifested his Fury in the shape of a mighty storm. Now, the fate of this war-torn world rests in the hands of Kaven, who is best known for walking face-first into a door. Given the opportunity to redeem himself, Kaven dares confront Na'lek and perhaps save the world as well.

Byron Gillan

His book The Children of The Forest is part of The Sword and Laser collection Contest (which ends next week). He is currently in fourth place, and he deserves to be in the Top 3.

Here is the description of his book:

In an ancient and broken land, two powerful nations vie for control of their devastated world's most vital resource. Manna. A material spawned from the great roots of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life. Men'kai and Commigial fight one another fiercely and without quarter in a brutal war with no end or victor in sight. That all changes the day the king of the Commigial - Beric Cohmwell - makes a choice that will forever alter the future of his kingdom and the world.

André Brun

His book Lies and Deception is part of The Sword and Laser collection Contest, as well, but he is also 165 books away from his funding goal.

I find the premise of this book intriguing. As you all know, I’m a sucker for time-travelers.

A religious man tries to prove to the world that Jesus actually existed. He travels two thousand years in the past where encounters another time traveler, a woman trying to prevent the crucifixion. Was "Christ" really betrayed?

Please consider supporting these authors. You have the power to change their lives the same way you changed mine.

Have a fantastic day! 

I'm proud to share the official Blood Dawn map!

After more than 15 months working carefully on the draft for Blood Dawn, I enjoyed a much-deserved break during the holidays. One thing I got around to doing that I've been looking forward to the most is drawing the map for the world.

Some of you have seen the sketch of the world (it's in the third sample chapter on my project page). This map is much more detailed and put together with care. It came together like magic, in fact. I'm very pleased!

p.s. think this is cool? If you haven't bought Blood Dawn, then now is the time! This map will appear in the book, and is but a foretaste of the rich adventure waiting for you.

Happy New Year!  Hope you had a great holiday time and that you get a good start on whatever goals you set for yourself.

So, updates for you!  I completed the developmental edit and submitted it to the editor for round two.  It was a fun task that involved a lot of juggling and slashing and gnashing of teeth and many, many, many hours of Civilization 5 keeping my focused with its turn based system of game play:-)

Also, we've settled on a concept for the cover, taking the original version and blending it with an idea suggested by a reader that touched on themes the publisher felt were significant.  

Rise Concept Cover

My thanks to the Inkshares and Girl Friday teams as well as to the artist, Chris McElfresh, for the work and care they've given to see this project come even closer to fruition.  September will be here before you know it!

We aren't doing this in a vacuum.  All of us authors who are in development or production or who are already printed owe this community for the help and work each and every one does on their own projects.  We bring more eyes to this unique community with our successes and even our failures.  Taking the power of publication selection and giving it to you the reader is such a novel concept, pardon the pun, and I hope you take advantage of it to help expand Inkshares library of completed projects.  I, for one, am looking forward to an entire shelf of Inkshares books and that's saying something as my wife and I went digital a long time ago.  Be sure to check out all the funding projects, especially those competing in the Sword and Laser Sequel contest (https://www.inkshares.com/contests/the-sword-laser-collection-contest-the-sequel) as that competition ends in just over 10 days!

Onward and upward!