Good evening Machiners!

We have an exciting update tonight! We will be covering a lucky raffle winner, announcing the item to be raffled at 40 readers, and revealing a new surprise promotion. So lots of goodies here.

OK, first off, we have a winner of the 30th reader give away. As a reminder, the item was a super cool copy of Haunted Horror #12 autographed by Jack Katz above his illustrated story "Bride of Death." And the winner is, drumroll.... Janna Grace! Congratulations! Apparently you are full of raffle luck - I'm well up to date on my Tony Valdez Dax Harrison mug give away videos (which are amazing BTW - everyone go pre-order Dax Harrison immediately and let's get Tony published!) and clearly Janna is full of raffle luck. No videos here though. You all will have to take my word for it. It's legit, scout's honor. Janna, my people will talk to your people and we'll figure out where to send your comic!

Second, and this is serious business. I am astounded by the fact that The Last Machine now has 80 followers. That's incredible! I am amazed by the deep interest in the story. However, I am getting the sense that we have some readers sitting on the edge of the pool only dipping their feet. Trust me, the water's fine - it's time to jump in! Now for the little push straight into the deep end: For folks who are already following but haven't yet pre-ordered, the next ten who take the plunge and pre-order will receive a signed copy of The Last Machine's cover art. I will sign and so will the illustrator, Jack Katz. Now I'm done with swimming metaphors. But seriously, time to get wet.

And last but not least, when we get to our 40th reader - which we are quickly approaching - all readers will be in the running for a framed poem of mine that was illustrated by Jack Katz and appeared in the Alameda County Fair poetry competition this past summer. The poem and the illustration will also appear in California's Lost Gold, an illustrated poetry collection of mine also on Inkshares. Go check it out and give a follow to stay updated on progress there. The illustrated poem is called "Bound in Earth," and you can read the poem without squinting on the California's Lost Gold page. 

Carry on readers!

Hi everyone,

I’ve been trying to write this short update for a few days now, but I keep being interrupted with more things to add in.

Friday night, I was having diner with family and my phone as vibrating like it was trying to make a break for it. I usually don’t look at my messages at the diner table but the whole point of having a mobile device is to be available in case of emergencies and, considering I rarely get any messages, I was wondering what was up. Turns out, I had sold a handful of copies of The Life Engineered in a very short amount of time. “Cool.” I thought, making a note to track down what as up later that night.

The thing is, I’m a marketing guy. My instinct when seeing sales is rarely about the money or about the visibility, it’s almost always about ‘where are these coming from?’. So as soon as it was polite to do so, I went to social media to see what had happened. Turns out, The Life Engineered, along with Sword & Laser, were the focus of a short article on io9.com.

I read io9.com daily.

Already that's pretty awesome and I wanted to put up an update about it. Then I got confirmation of this article by Alicia Smock being posted on examiner.com. It’s a great article and was fun to participate in. So I was going to include that in my update.

Then The Life Engineered gets mentioned on Geek & Sundry and I lose my God damned mind. I can only keep a rational, marketing oriented line of thought for so long before I become an irrational mess. This isn’t a client’s product being mentioned in the media according to plan. This is my book.

Finally, another article, this time on Inkshares very own newsletter pops up.

So there you have it my friends. The surreal events of the first few steps of promotion of The Life Engineered. If you’ve ever doubted that this little crowdfunding venture takes care of their authors, I think I can testify that we are handled with much love and care. And that’s just the stuff I feel comfortable putting on a public forum!

Oh, and by the way, I still intend to kill you. When A God in the Shed gets published I will draw a name at random from those of you who've pre-ordered and I'll include your likeness in the final draft as a victim. It will be awesome. Also, for each people you've referred you get one more chance to win the raffle. To my editors: Don't worry. I wouldn't offer this if I didn't already have a minor character that I could replace with the winner.

So lets start referring this book to all our friends and family so I can get to killing you as fast as possible.

As always, you have my gratitude. It’s an incredible ride so far and none of this is happening without your support. Thank you.

JF

Hey everyone, 

Just taking a chance to post a quick reminder. I've made the choice to enter my novel "The Children of the Forest" into the Sword & Laser Contest through Inkshares. After completing the first draft of the final copy, I decided this was the best way to get the book quickly into readers hands. This means that everyone who has currently pre-ordered a copy of my book has been refunded their purchase(s). 

I'd like to ask that you please use the credit you've been refunded to support me with a new sale to help me take 1st in the contest! This has the added benefit of being cheaper, as the contest is based on unique orders instead of needing to reach a goal-line. Readers only have to support me with a digital sale for a measly $10.00!

Thanks everyone!

MERRY/HAPPY CHRISTMAS-WINTER-HANNUKAH-KWANZAA-HOLIDAY-STARBUCKS RED CUP-FESTIVUS! 

It's the holiday season, so that means you are all probably just sitting by the fireplace, gathered with family, wondering what's going on with Nick and Noa's book, Practical Applications for Multiverse Theory. 

 We got our first look at the completely copy-edited version of the book, and it won't be long now before we get to see the fully formatted, and possibly physical manifestation of the book. 

 Speaking of the holidays (segue achievement: UNLOCKED), you know what would make a great Christmas gift? The promise of getting our book in April! Most of you have already purchased the book. 

But if you know anyone who hasn't, or want to purchase more copies for yourselves, please do so. The number of preorders a book gets is a big way that book stores determine how many copies they will order and keep in store. Then you can put an I.O.U. under the tree for you loved ones! 

To make link sharing easy, we've provided the big three below: 

 Amazon 

 Barnes & Noble 

 Inkshares 

 Thanks, and as long as Krampus doesn't reap you and your family this Christmas, you'll hear from us in the new year. 

 - Nick & Noa 

12.1.15 - Weekly Update Two: Maxan, the Reluctant Hero

Hello, Readers and Followers of “The Animal in Man”. I have so much to share, so I’ll jump right in…

RAFFLE! I’ve thought about it and thought about it and thought some more… I couldn’t make up my mind on whether or not I should do a raffle. On one hand, I am rewarding my readers with an amazing story, but on the other hand, I want to reward them even more because the chance they’re giving me means so much to me. So why not? As soon as I reach the first 100 readers who pre-order the book will be entered to win one of five $20 Amazon gift cards! ...and if I can get 100 before midnight of this weekend’s end (Sunday, 12/13), I’ll bump that up to $25 just for the hell of it? Am I made of money? No! Am I completely out of my head? Probably! Have I told the wife about this plan? …….no.

So, please lock in your pre-order NOW! I look forward to drawing your name out of a hat! If you don’t get it this time around, I plan to do an even more extravagant raffle when “The Animal in Man” reaches 200 readers! ...don’t tell my wife....? Today’s update will shine a brighter light on the character I’ve been mentioning a few times here and there. Maxan. The protagonist of “The Animal in Man.” I personally know how amazing the world of Herbridia is, but I know that no matter how dazzling the setting, an audience will never latch onto your story unless there’s an interesting character doing interesting things within it. Maxan is a fox, born just before or perhaps just after the Awakening two decades ago, so his exact age is unknown. As the story begins, he is in the employ of the Crosswall city guard, but he doesn’t keep vigil on a wall or scrutinize passerby at a gate or patrol the lanes of a market. Maxan is a shadow, a special kind of guard who infiltrates and observes areas of the city where the king has deemed only a minimal guard presence necessary. In this age of the Strayn disease, Maxan thus finds himself often in the Western District, infiltrating, hiding, and observing criminal activity from the rooftops of the dilapidated structures that cram into this vast space of Crosswall.

It’s a lonely job. It’s the perfect job for someone as lonely as Maxan. But don’t feel sad for him. He believes he has good reason to shun companionship. Moving backward in time, we would see a younger, teenage fox training as a thief with The Commune, a once-notorious gang of thieves comprised primarily of foxes like himself. He wasn’t always lonely. Maxan had many friends in the Commune. Day in and day out, his gang would take what they could from the city’s nobility and gather in their hideout to share spoils and stories. Maxan’s life was good, until one day he was forced to make a choice that strained and eventually severed his relationship with the Commune. A few days after that choice, he tried to return and make amends, only to find the hideout engulfed in flames and witness whatever friends the fire spared dragged away in chains or put to the sword by several cloaked figures. It wasn’t the fear of these assassins that stopped him from charging, nor lack of courage. It was the fire. Maxan the fox is deathly afraid of fire. Why?

It’s not the first time that his entire life was reduced to ashes. Maxan has fleeting dreams and fading memories of the cozy den where he spent his childhood, of his mother’s face. But he remembers how they came for her, for him, one night, how his mother fought them, and pushed him aside as the flaming timbers of their roof collapsed, how the beam pinned his arm and burned away his fur and flesh, scarring him forever. But he remembers the chase. How after he escaped the burning den, the cloaked figures gave chase for miles, until Maxan miraculously ran into the shining silver greaves of a Leoran knight - the deer-man Yovan - by the river gate at a nearby town. Yovan had a sworn duty of his own - to escort a young rhinoceros by the name of Chewgar to Crosswall - but he would not refuse to help the young fox boy in need. The knight pressed a gold coin into Maxan’s hand and instructed him to seek him out in Crosswall before turning on the pursuers. And Maxan ran on again.

He kept that coin for years. First as a street urchin, living on garbage and scraps. And then as a Commune thief after his natural talents were observed by the gang. He held that coin for nearly fifteen years, until after the fire, the second fire, that destroyed his life a second time. When he brought it, finally, to a guardhouse and spoke the name “Yovan,” it was Chewgar, now all grown up, who greeted him, who remembered the fox boy who ran despite all the years, who took Maxan in and gave him a uniform as a Crosswall city guard. Chewgar may be Maxan’s only friend. Perhaps the only thing he fears more than fire is the idea of losing anyone he grows close to. Of course, that doesn’t stop Chewgar from trying. There’s more to say about Maxan, but we’ve only so much time in the day. Next week, I plan to talk your ear off about The Animal in Man’s diabolical villain (or perhaps villains) - Salastragore.

Thank you for reading, thank you for following, thank you for pre-ordering!