Campers!

Once upon a time there was a friend. This friend asked me to join a contest, and I didn’t think about it too much and just did it. First mistake: had I known what I was getting into, I would never have pulled the trigger on Inkshares in August ’16 and started the journey that culminated in a publication deal in March ’17.

Second mistake: She asked me to join another contest, this one a flash fiction writing contest from Sci-Fi-London (the 48hr Flash Fiction Challenge), and I did that too. On April 8th I opened the site to view my story requirements. A title, a line of dialogue, and an optional bit of science. The maximum word count was 2,000 words, and I had just two days to write it in.

Title: NOT ON MY WATCH
Dialogue: When the clouds are this low it can be a nightmare to get a clean signa
lScience (optional): Augmented reality becomes so good we neglect reality, when the system to fails, the decay is revealed.

Except I worked all day on Sunday, so I really had just one day. And then I knew that in all honesty I probably just had Saturday morning to write it. The good news was I already had a pretty good idea what I wanted to put to paper. I popped open Scrivener (worth it’s weight in gold), wrote out descriptions for about seven story points, and then just...

...wrote.

I finished up a little over 2k words before noon, trimmed it down, sent it to some friends to read, edited the mistakes, and then sent it off. I’m not sure how I got that word count done so fast, but my brain was sizzling with ideas and I just let it get on with it.

And now YOU can read it! I published the short story through Pronoun, making it available for free on all major ebook retailers’ sites, and you can access it here: NOT ON MY WATCH.  If you download it, please rate and review it! It’s only 8 pages, so it shouldn’t take you long at all. Every review or rating helps boost it’s status among other ebooks, and in return gives my author page more recognition, and all of this will help me when Fae Child comes out.

I don’t know if I’ll win the Sci-Fi-London contest, but hey, stranger things have happened? And those things I listed as mistakes at the beginning of the post? Actually they were probably the best decisions I could have made, regarding my writing. Thank you Jenny!

~ Jane-Holly
p.s. Of course, the work on Fae Child continues! We are #2 on Inkshares in Teen and Young Adult, how cool is that?

Hello all!

Hello All You Damn Dirty Apes!

Whoa! I know, too aggressive. I’ll try again. Hi Everybody! Hope you’re all doing great. I’m sending out a quick update to just let you know a few good things about this Business of Monkey’s book.

1. I did this:

I turned our bathroom into a recording booth, put a microphone in front of my face and read Monkey Business into it. I am currently editing that recording to turn it into something called an "audiobook." Which will be available to you soon. My plan, my hope, my dream is to give it to you for FREE if you purchased a physical copy of the book (or you’re willing to purchase one) OR... if you preorder my new book Black Cloud when it starts taking preorders.

There are still some technical issues to be worked out with all that but Inkshares is on my team and we’re going to make it happen. I think you guys will enjoy the audiobook. I know I really enjoyed making it.

2. Monkey Business is doing great!

• #1 Community Interest in Fiction on Inkshares, which is awesome!

• We’re up to 70 Reviews on Amazon.com (with a 4.8 out of 5 star rating.) If you would like to contribute your own review please do that right here, right now!

• In the Kindle book store, Action and Adventure category, Monkey Business has climbed as high as #406. Top 2%. Which is pretty awesome considering I have done no marketing whatsoever in the past couple months. Which I know makes me a huge slacker but it does reflect well on the book.

All of which is to say, Monkey Business is doing great and that’s thanks to all of you! Thank you for supporting this funny little book. Please stay in touch. Look forward to the audiobook and please go follow my new project Black Cloud which I hope to launch officially soon. In the meantime, read the sample chapters already on Inkshares. I think you will thoroughly enjoy them.

As the monkey always say... hang in there!

- Landon

April 6, 2017 

Hi everyone,

I know this is a quick update right on the heels of my last one, but I’m excited to share the new "Shadow King" cover with everyone. Thank you to the wonderful Charlene Maguire of ShapeShifter studios for the wonderful work.

I also noticed today that Inkshares has a new badge on the Shadow King page that shows we are the #3 best selling dark fantasy title on their site. 

I’d love to see that move up to a higher ranking, so if you haven’t ordered yet, this would be a great time!

Have a great rest of the week and weekend, and I’ll send another update in the near future!

Best,

Susan

Machiners!

I was just made aware of an issue downloading the eBook on Inkshares. The eBook had not been available for download. Inkshares just fixed this. So if you had recently gone on Inkshares and were puzzled about how to get your eBook, please try again! Full instructions are just below. 

I hope you enjoy the story. And remember, your support is still very much needed. After reading the story of Jonathan and Nikolai, please leave a review (CRITICAL) on Amazon and Goodreads (see my previous update for full details). 

Still having issues? Email me: matthew.sobin@gmail.com Thanks so much! -Matt

eBook Download Instructions

1. Log into Inkshares.com and go to the homepage for The Last Machine. Click on the "Download" tab next to "Reviews" (red arrows in the screenshot):

2. You will see the various eBook options as shown below. Pick the one for your device.

Hi, everyone!

Updates, Faoii! Listen up!

I won’t lie, faoii. This is an incredibly difficult update to write.

Remember how I told you once that I’d given up on The Last Faoii ever getting published? (The journey to this point is a long, beautiful that I detail on my blog HERE). It’s true. I worked for years trying to figure out the publishing world, and failed. Over and over. I was young, naive. I dug holes that I couldn’t get back out of and stumbled through the literary world with ungraceful feet. Ultimately, I put Faoii-Kaiya and her story on a shelf and walked away from it. I had prepared to let The Last Faoii die.

Then I found Inkshares and I figured "why not give it one more try?" At this point, what did I have to lose?

Never did I suspect to get so much support. An entire army picked up swords to make this book a reality. We were backed by syndicates and strangers. We almost made it to the top of Inkshares’ biggest contest. Every step of the way was hard work. I wanted to give up several times, but how could I let so many warriors down? And I kept hearing that voice in the back of my head: This is Faoii’s last chance. Take this hill or surrender. So I kept going. I kept going when Thane Studios dropped us right at the beginning of the contest. I kept going when Inkshares changed their royalties without announcement unexpectedly (that was a hard blow--I have probably spent more on editors and promotions now than I will make in return. And yet, it’s still worth it. This book was never about the money). I kept going even as I got sicker; as life got harder. I kept going because every single one of you stood behind me and worked to make this happen. And all you asked in return was a signed copy of the book I created for you.

Well, as it turns out, Inkshares has now decided that it’s not cost-effective to send out signed copies anymore. Poof. Done. Just like that. All the promises I made you apparently mean nothing. I’m putting more money into the project to order bookplates now so that I can at least give you SOMETHING to make your $20 pre-order worthwhile, and if you live in MT I’ll obviously still sign your book(s) when they come in, but all my promises of signed copies? I can’t guarantee that anymore and that hurts me greatly.

At this point I understand if you decide to drop your sword. Pull out of the fight. Demand a refund. No one deserves to be treated poorly, and I would not blame you if this was the last straw. You have fought honorably for this book-- you deserve to be respected. 

But, the beginning of this update still stands true-- I am completely aware that this is Faoii’s last chance. Either I keep going as I have been-- either I keep fighting until there’s absolutely nothing left to fight for-- or Faoii dies with me.

So the march continues.

I’m sorry, faoii. I wish I had better news for you. The book is still coming. You WILL still be able to read it. It’s just, I feel like I failed you, and there was nothing I could do about it.

But what else can we do? Shields up.

Faoii-Tahani