In 2045, the forests are burning, the oceans are rising, corruption is growing, and a group of scientists take matters into their own hands. This is their confession
Happy December!
I’m still working on the prologue. I’ve now tried approaching it from three different character’s points of view and added period-appropriate dialogue and description. I’m dialing back the flowery language from the version I have posted to make the poetic bits more emotionally impactful. We’re getting there, I think.
In the meantime, I have exciting news! The Writing Bloc short story anthology,
ESCAPE!, is available for pre-order NOW! I have a sneak peek of my story, "Aspirant," about a young aspiring nun at a Zen monastary, up on my blog! The whole anthology is only $2.99 until January 1, when it will increase to $5.99. You’ll get the book delivered to your device of choice automatically on January 1 and will have something to hold you over until Rock of Ages is ready! I’m really proud of my story and of all the hard work the cooperative has put into making this collection happen.
I’ll keep chugging along with this rewrite and I’ll keep updating you! Please keep sending the encouraging words! :)
Thank you so much for your support, as always!
Hi All,
Thank you everyone for following my novel or pre-ordering a copy. As I’ve posted before, this feed of Inkshares emails is deliberately quiet, as I send out most of my updates using my author newsletter. I do this as I have many subscribers from outside Inkshares and it’s the easiest way to manage things (and avoid hitting you twice with emails). If you aren’t subscribed to my newsletter, you can sign up here: https://robertbatten.net/sign-up/
I’m writing this email now to ask for your help. I’ve been made aware my newsletters have been falling foul of spam filters and dropping into many people’s spam folders. I’ve just sent out my November update and I’d like to ask the following favours of anyone who’s subscribed:
Thank you for your help. I hope everyone is excited for the holiday season!
PS: as part of my process to clean-up the mailing list and get back on the good side of the spam algorithms, I’ve had to purge many emails from the list. If you thought you were subscribed, but don’t have a newsletter in your inbox or spam folder, I may have accidentally purged you — sorry! You can re-subscribe here: https://robertbatten.net/sign-up/
Cheers,
Robert
December is upon us, which means that, for a lot of us, Christmas is around the corner. Don’t forget to get your shopping done early; and if you haven’t yet, don’t forget to give Amazon or GoodReads (or whatever your preferred online bookstore is) your two cents’ worth of thoughts on "A Gentleman’s Murder". Other readers will want to know about your experience. We’re currently at 39 reviews on Amazon -- not too far off from the 50 review mark, which is when Amazon supposedly begins to take a book seriously.
December also means that we have just two weeks before the end of the Inkshares Mystery & Thriller contest: two weeks to try for that magic 250 reader mark for "Cat’s Paw". We’re still a good distance off, but, well, ’tis the season of hope. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I urge you to do so. Every little bit counts.
And of course, don’t forget to have a great weekend! I know I will: I’ve got a carton of eggnog waiting for me.
November 30, 2018
Good morning. Just a really quick update for everyone.
First, I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by Jan Lewis for her Local Public TV (Upton Community Television) segment, "Be My Guest." It was my first on-camera interview and I learned a lot, and am pretty happy with how it turned out (although there are a couple places I would have edited differently).
If you’re interested, you can see the spot on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z34uf0NGNA&feature=youtu.be
Second, for updates I’m considering moving to a mailing list format rather than Inkshares updates. One main reason is I’m starting to get a few more followers outside this platform, and need a central place to keep in touch with everyone.
I’ll be testing this out in December, and the updates will come from my Yahoo account: susankhamilton@yahoo.com.
Best,
Susan
Dear family and friends of Frances,
We did it! LILY LO is out in the world! The book birthday was yesterday, the 27th. As you may also know, the 26th was the 2nd sanniversary of Frances’s passing. Thank you for being on this journey with us and bringing her dream to life.
We hope you have received your copy(s) and have had a chance to read this excellent story. If you are so inclined...
Would you kindly write a short review of/rate the book on AMAZON?
If we get over 50 reviews, the book will come up in lots more searches. It is a powerful way to market and sell LILY LO with all proceeds going to daughter Emmie’s education.
By the way, Kirkus, a notoriously hard reviewer of children’s books gave LILY LO a very nice one. Here’s a link: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/frances-lee-hall/lily-lo-and-the-wonton-maker/ This may spur some school or library sales. Fingers crossed!
Once again, thank you all for helping us bring her wonderful writing and story to young and old readers alike.
Wishing you happiest of holiday seasons!
With gratitude and elation, Ann and Annemarie
November 24, 2018
Hello, hello! For those who celebrated, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We hosted at our house and it was really nice to have everyone together.
I wanted to share a couple quick updates with you all.
NEW PROJECT! My short story, Chrysalis, is part of the Writing Bloc’s upcoming ESCAPE! Anthology. This is an amazing collection of stories from some tremendous writers -- and I’m honored to be part of it. You can pre-order your e-copy now (for $2.99 -- price will go to $5.99 on January 1). The e-book version will come out first but there are plans for a print release as well. I really encourage you to grab a copy -- you’ll be glad you did!
Interviews: First, I had a delightful conversation with Sarah from the GSMC Book Review Podcast the other day. The interview is now live, please check it out!
Reviews: Reviews are coming in slowly, but remain very, very positive (latest one on Amazon is 5 star, whoo hoo!). If you have read your copy of Shadow King -- please consider taking a moment or two and putting a review up on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews are really valuable.
Events: The Arisia Convention has changed hotels in Boston and that may affect the days I’m in attendance. I’ll keep you posted on exactly which days when things get a little clearer.
That’s it for now -- have a great rest of your day!
Best,
Susan
PS. On the off-chance any of the above links are wonky, here are the full ones:
ESCAPE! Anthology: https://www.books2read.com/u/m2vWaO
GSMC Book Review Podcast: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gsmcbookreview/2018/11/23/gsmc-book-review-podcast-episode-124-interview-with-susan-k-hamilton
Well friends, we’re overdue for an update. I was holding off on sending one out until Tantalus Depths had officially been put into the copy editing phase, since I really wanted that to be the next news I could deliver, but unfortunately we’re still not there yet. I do have good news, though, so stick with me to the end of this update for that.
At the moment, Tantalus Depths is in a sort of limbo between the end of the development editing process and the beginning of the copy editing process. This is because Adam Gomolin, the CEO of Inkshares, has personally given me a new set of notes for further recommended revisions. Adam knows his stuff, and has helped other authors achieve enormous success with their debut novels, including getting TV and film deals. As much as I want to finish this process, get the book into stores and the hands of my longsuffering supporters, I have to take Adam’s feedback seriously. He wants this book to succeed as much as I do, and I owe it to all of you to make this book as strong as possible before wrapping up the editing process. He and I have been going back and forth over how to make improvements to the book for the past couple of weeks, and I should be able to deal with this final edit over the next couple weeks, aiming for an absolute final development draft by the end of the year.
So that’s where the book itself is sitting right now. I know it feels like it’s not going anywhere (believe me, I am painfully, intimately aware of that feeling), but progress is happening. That leads me to my first piece of really exciting news:
Tantalus Depths is going to have an audiobook!
We’ve signed a deal with Audible to produce Tantalus Depths as an Audible-exclusive audiobook. Audible will produce this audiobook in-house, with a professional narrator and crew. We don’t know any details about the juicy stuff like who the narrator will be yet, and production can’t really begin until we’ve fully finished the final draft of the manuscript, but this is really exciting news nonetheless. I’m a huge fan of audiobooks and have listened to them religiously on Audible for years, so I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’ll keep you all updated on this as it unfolds!
Finally, I have one more piece of exciting news. I’ve been keeping this one under my hat as a special surprise to you all, but the time has come to finally let the cat out of the bag!
I, along with 19 other published and soon-to-be-published authors, participated in a short story anthology, which will be released on New Years Day and is now available for pre-order. My brand new original short story, Breach, is a standalone story set in the same universe as Tantalus Depths and Proteus.
Breach is a tense, thrilling tale of desperation and peril as two starship crewmen struggle for survival in open space, trapped in a piece of debris when their ship is destroyed by pirates. Death surrounds them on all sides; can they hold it together long enough to survive the deadly debris field, their own diminishing air supply, and bloodthirsty space pirates intent on leaving no survivors? You’ll have to check out Escape: A Writing Bloc Anthology to find out.
After all these delays with Tantalus Depths, I am so glad I can finally present you a tiny peek into this universe of mine with this new short story. Beyond that, though, I am beyond thrilled that my work gets to appear alongside so many other incredibly talented authors in this anthology. I’ve read most of the other stories, and let me tell you, you’re in for a treat here.
Well, I’ve dumped way more than enough info on you all for now. I’ll give news on the final draft of Tantalus Depths, the audiobook, and the Escape anthology as soon as I’m able. Stay tuned!
Good day, everyone. Now that this campaign has finally crossed the century mark in pre-sales, it’s time to announce something near and dear to my heart.
For those of you who don’t know, I am Canadian and live in our nation’s most populous province, Ontario.
One dollar (in Canadian dollars) from each copy of Bane of All Things sold during this campaign will be donated to Autism Ontario (www.autismontario.com). This registered charitable organization is the leading source of information and referral on autism in the province and one of the largest collective voices representing the autism community in Canada.
Why am I doing this? Simple. His name is William. He’s 13 years old and he’s my son. And he has two cousins, Aidan and Tristan. All three are autistic.
I will make this donation whether or not my Inkshares campaign is successful. That’s right – even if we fail to reach the target, that gift will be given, on behalf of all of you who kindly offered your support.
But, the more books sold, the larger that donation will be.
In closing, I want to give a special thanks to all of you who came on board to support this campaign since my last update. It doesn’t matter what level of support you have provided, you matter. My deepest thanks. Please continue to spread the word if you have any friends or family whom you think will also enjoy this gritty, fantastical tale.
I do want to give a shout out to Linda Simpson. Not only did she come on board as a Super-Reader last week, she promptly recruited two other Super-Readers.
(Linda runs Performance Plus Rehabilitative Care Inc. (www.PPRC.ca), which specializes in providing personal employment counseling services to Ontario residents with physical, psychological or developmental disabilities looking to enter the workforce.)
That’s all for now, happy reading.
Cheers
Leo