I hope you’re all keeping well! I’ve been focused on my Newsletter and my new Discord server lately, so have been neglecting my website. Time to set that to rights! I’ve got quite a bit to talk about, so I’m going to get straight to it!
The illustrated hardcover omnibus of the Society of the Sword trilogy is launching on Kickstarter in November, and I’m working hard to make it something truly special!
But before the launch, I need your help with one small, crucial action.
The Easiest Way to Help (It Takes 10 Seconds!) Is to Follow the Project by Clicking on this link:
Following the project does not carry any obligation to buy anything, but it is the single most important action you can take right now.
Every single follow helps boost the project’s visibility on Kickstarter’s internal algorithm. More eyes on launch day means a greater likelihood of reaching the funding required, and also hitting those stretch goals!
First off, I wanted to thank everyone who responded to my Patreon survey last month, it was really helpful to get your insights on that!
One clarification I want to make is that all my books will still be published in the usual way. You’ll still be able to buy it on Amazon in paperback and kindle. Audio is less certain due to the recent changes Amazon have made to their royalty scheme, though.
Patreon will just be an early access model for those who want it, along with a lot of other behind the scenes stuff to add some interest and value for those who are curious.
This isn’t an ideal situation, and it’s something I honestly would prefer not to do. However, Amazon is squeezing hard, and in order to continue being able to write for a living, I need to find ways to expand my platform beyond Amazon.
Ok, now a little more on to the main event. Kickstarter!
I’m running a Kickstarter to produce a deluxe, illustrated hardcover omnibus edition of the Society of the Sword trilogy. I’m pulling out all the stops on this to produce something really special. The book will be in faux leather with foil decoration, notches on the spine, ribbon bookmark and more! Here’s an image of the mock-up that the graphic designer has done up:
Now – a favour to ask. I know not everyone uses Kickstarter, and I know not everyone is interested in this type of project. I completely understand! But, Kickstarter uses a recommendation engine to boost visibility, so by just following the prelaunch page – which is free and carries absolutely no obligation – you can help raise the visibility of the project, which is massively important for me.
I’d ask that if you have a Kickstarter account, please follow my prelaunch page, which you can do here:
If not, please consider signing up for an account and following. I’d really appreciate it!
If you want to back the project when it’s live later in the autumn, fantastic! I’d love to have you along for the ride! The project will only be available to back once it’s fully launched, which I’m hoping to do in November.
There’s going to be a lot of new additional material in this book – art, maps, and physical embellishments to the book itself. I’m working hard with artists and designers to make something really special that fans of the series and new readers alike will be proud to have on their shelves.
Finally, don’t forget that I’ve set up a Discord server, and there’s a great little community there now. We’d love to see you there! You can join here: https://discord.gg/4JxhsHJb
Apologies for yet another extended absence from my website! Rest assured that I’ve made (yet another!) resolution to update more regularly!
I have no worthwhile excuse beyond saying that distractions have been coming far too easily over the past number of months, but after the last few weks I’ve managed to get myself into a more focussed and productive frame of mind. Work on a number of projects is progressing well, and all going to plan, next year should be a bumper year for releases, with at least 1 sci-fi story and at least 2 fantasy books, both new stories, one of which is Middle Sea, the other in the long-promised new world I’ve been building up for a while now!
Beyond that, I’ve been trying to catch up on some reading, which for the last little while has been non fiction, with one notable exception. I very rarely get the chance to take a look at arcs, but one came my way between books not so long ago, so I dove in, and I’m very glad I did.
The book is Forsworn, by David Estes, which I believe by the time of me writing this has been released. It’s a really fun epic fantasy with some fantastic world building that I really enjoyed. There’s even a bit of a gothic horror vibe mixed through, which was probably my favourite aspect, as this was a genre I used to really like reading and writing way back in my misspent youth, and it definitely tickled those tropes for me!
If you’re interested in checking the book out, you can find it over on Amazon!
That’s about all I’ve got for this update. I’ve been managing to find a little time for painting recently, demonstrating just how quickly my limited skills develop a sheen of rust! I hope to have some of those efforts to show off next week, as I really do make an effort to get back to a weekly posting schedule!
Here’s a short sample of Scott’s engrossing narration if you need any more convincing!
And finally, here’s the cover copy to give you a sense of what The Privateer is about:
The greatest threat humanity has ever faced lies beyond the frontier of its galactic civilization, but dangers closer to home have been overlooked and allowed to grow.
As greed and personal ambition in the Terran Union push the common good aside, the Navy is forced to turn to unconventional means. Jack Samson is ordered to team up with former allies to uncover and destroy the rot eating the Union from the inside.
Chasing down a trail of smuggled alien technology through the Union’s underworld, they soon discover the web of treachery reaches farther than anyone could have expected…
That’s all for today! I really hope you enjoy the audio edition of The Privateer!
Today’s post is an announcement about the long awaited audiobook release for The Privateer – Alpha Protocol 3. It will be out on 2 July, as in, next Tuesday!
It’s available for preorder now, which you can do at this link:
The Privateer is once again narrated by the superb Scott Aiello who’s knocked it out of the park once again, putting in an amazing performance and really bring the characters to life.
The good folks over at Podium (who produce and publish the audiobook) have sent me over a load of nice teaser trailers and images, so I’m going to try embedding them here. Wish me luck!
Here’s a little bit on what the story is about:
The greatest threat humanity has ever faced lies beyond the frontier of its galactic civilization, but dangers closer to home have been overlooked and allowed to grow.
As greed and personal ambition in the Terran Union push the common good aside, the Navy is forced to turn to unconventional means. Jack Samson is ordered to team up with former allies to uncover and destroy the rot eating the Union from the inside.
Chasing down a trail of smuggled alien technology through the Union’s underworld, they soon discover the web of treachery reaches farther than anyone could have expected…
Finally, I have the banner graphic, which looks pretty cool, so I didn’t want to leave it out!
That’s all the excitement I’ve got for this week! See you all again next week!
Just a quick update this week to apologise for the radio silence the last couple of weeks. We had a little holiday and some summer flu in the house that threw me off my schedule!
My only update for this week is I’ve some bigger updates and news scheduled for next week, when I hope to get back to my planned regular Tuesday posts!
As the title suggests, I’ve got a hobby post today, with this week’s subject being a space marine of the Avenging Sons chapter.
As with my plan to built and paint a model of every Mark V Spitfire livery from the Siege of Malta (the second one!), including the more speculative schemes, I thought it would be fun to paint a big selection of different space marine chapters.
I went through one of the 40k wiki pages, and pulled out an image of all the chapters that I liked the look of, and ended up with a lot. An awful lot!
It’s definitely an ambitious, and long-term project, withover 100 chapters I want to do. I’ve bitten into this a little before with the previous generation of models, but I’m starting from scratch again with the lessons learned from those experimental approaches.
It’s going to take quite a while, but it’ll be fun. Although I love painting minis, I don’t actually wargame, so I’m under no pressure to get an army completed. This is purely an adventure in mini painting.
It’ll be made all the longer by the fact I want to continue making model planes. In this regard, I’m limiting myself to single engine fighters from the European/North African theatre, with the exception of a few Mosquitos, because I just love ’em! I also want to keep painting historical minis, of which I’ve a very large unpainted accumulation.
I’ve settled on my preference for a volumetric highlighting approach for these minis, rather than the ‘eavy Metal Games Workshop style, as this is both my aesthetic preference, and is also an aspect of model painting I really want to improve on. I’ve always looked on space marines as the ideal practice ground for this, with their easily classifiable shapes of cylinders, spheres, squares, and the occasional cone!
So, on to my first finished model in this series, a member of the Avenging Sons. Bear in mind, it’s been about a year since I did any regular painting, so I chose a simpler scheme in colours I’m comfortable working with as there was a lot of rust to shake off. I think I overreached a bit in my approach of picking two light sources which complicated my life a bit, but overall, I’m happy with the result, and it’s definitely a good base to build from.
Once again, I’m playing with a new camera and lighting box, and have overexposed the photos a bit!
Time for the photos!
That’s all I’ve got for this week. I hope you’re all doing well, and I will see you all again next week!
