Two things happened so far this year that can be considered positive developments. I created a Patreon page to help finance my stories, including ’The Mercy Giver,’ and three of my stories in These Broken Worlds have been nominated for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards.

And they are not bad little stories either. In ‘A Tale of Two Moons,’ an alien longs for her destroyed homeworld. In ‘The Day the Sky Burned,’ I give a ground zero view of the day the Great Alien War broke out, and in ‘When Stars Blink,’ an eyewitness describes the arrival of the aliens

I suppose the award can best be described as New Zealand’s version of the Hugos. I may be wrong, but I’m excited so it’s quite possible I’m not thinking clearly. 

The Sir Julius Vogel Awards are fan-voted awards, given by the SFFANZ (Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand) for contributions in the science fiction, fantasy or horror fields, and fans can vote for novels, short stories, art, fanzines, or just services to Science Fiction in general. 

The award is made with the generous support of the Weta Workshop. Yes, the same people who designed things for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and many other movies. 

Voting takes place at the National Science Fiction Convention here in Wellington each year and nominations for this year’s awards are now being accepted. Deadline for nominations is 8.00pm PST on 28th February 2016, which is just around the corner. 

Oh, and anyone can make a nomination and it is free! 

So there you have it. My first ever nomination for words I wrote. I know it’s just a nomination and that the number of nominations will decide who lands on the final ballot, but as I write this update, glee pumps through my veins and it’s a good feeling. 

TBW was mentioned on Tor.com’s Aurora Australis last year and I remember writing at the time how awesome it felt. But then, TBW is a mini-kōsalogy of awesomeness and a lot of love and commitment from a very talented group of authors went into producing this precursor to “Interspecies,” and so I’m really thankful for the recognition it’s getting. 

My smile is tickling my earlobes but I have to get back to writing. I can tell you this, though, as an indie author the nomination inspires the heck out of me. 

With a toothy grin, I bid you farewell. 

Woelf

We are now at 7 DAYS REMAINING and currently 208 sales towards our goal of 250 ~

As the final week looms over my head, I’ve decided to do something a little different. This week I will be uploading 2 new chapters, both of which develop the various nations that surround Yggdrassil. Alethia, the Bad-Lands, and Nin will all receive their fair share of exploration and more. 

Within the lands of Alethia, necromancy and other forms of fel-sorcery have become the norm as the kingdom’s population continues to dwindle while its needs to defend its threatened borders persist. 

But these locations and their respective cultures are not all there is within the lands of Dearean. To the East there are the Imartii - fierce and proud warriors, with each city its own nation - while to the South live the mysterious and nomadic Picts. A strange and little-understood culture, the Picts are elf-like in appearance, and attuned to the magical quantities of the world in a way few other races possess the capabilities to be. 

Artwork rights belong to Blood Rage - will hopefully have official work done soon of these groups. In the meantime this offers a work-concept of what I’m considering for these two cultures.

As funding continues for "The Children of the Forest" I’m looking to have *2* backers receive a special reward. In two random drawings, I will select two different customers of my novel to be featured as characters hailing from either the Imartii or Picts. The winners will have the ability to pick their character’s sex, have input on their origin, and even help choose their name and appearance! More still, once official artwork is scheduled, your character will feature prominently and you will receive a free and highly detailed print!

For this reward I will only be selecting from the pool of backers who have achieved either Alethian or Wolf-Rider status - but there’s still time to get your name in the drawing. All you need to do is upgrade your purchase to the 2nd or 3rd level, and that’s it - you’re in!

This is a really awesome and unique prize that will offer two lucky individuals the chance to personalize their experience with the opening novel in the series. Winners will be selected only on the basis that the book reaches its goal of 250 sales, so act quickly, and make sure you recommend and push the book to everyone you can. 

Hi everyone!  

Just wanted to give you a quick update - the Copy Edits are done!  My Copy Editor Michael Trudeau over at GFP did an absolutely bang-up job, not just cleaning up grammar and such but finding some rather embarrassing inconsistencies in the text.  He also highlighted a number of passages that could be confusing to a first-time reader, and I got all those cleaned up.  The final product keeps getting better and better.

So next steps:  The copy edited manuscript is getting "poured" into galley format.  This means that the book is finally going to start looking like a book!  It’s in this galley format that the final proofreading gets done, and there will be a limited print run so we’ll have copies to send as promos to elicit blurbs.  I’m planning on dropping a copy off over at Stephen King’s house...wouldn’t it be cool if he gave us a quote to put on the front cover?

This phase of the process is budgeted to last through March, and then mid-April it gets sent to the printer.

I haven’t mentioned it in a while, but you can follow me on twitter @llabak and you can find It’s All Fun and Games on Facebook here.  

We recently lowered the ebook price to $5.99, so if you know someone who might be interested, by all means spread the word.  New Inkshares members are still receiving a $5 credit, so the ebook is only $.99 (and the trade paperback is $8.99).  The first time someone orders any particular book from Inkshares using your referral code you get $15 in credit with which to support another up-and-coming author.  It’s a win-win!

Thank you again for all your support through this process!

Cheers
Dave

I just updated everyone with the Preface to Mission 51. It complements the Foreword. The coolest part for me was writing myself into the story. I didn’t exactly envision that when I was first plotting out the story. Ha!

Let me know what you think.