Kickstarter

Well hello, gentle backers.

I hope that you've had as much fun with my novel as I had writing it. This last year was a blast, and it was all thanks to you. But time marches on and so must I.

That doesn't mean the fun has to end quite yet, though. I've recently finished the sequel story to the novel you all helped make a reality, titled On Discord Isle. Now I'm getting ready to produce it to completion. If you enjoyed Chasing the Lantern, please, check out my newest Kickstarter project, which has just gone live this evening. Either look up "On Discord Isle - A Novel" via the Kickstarter search, or just click here to see what it's all about.

Thank you all for your support in my endeavors.

- Jonathon Burgess

I sat down to write this, and noticed that it is December 3rd - six months to the day since my project funding completed successfully. I swear I didn't plan it like that.

I've just finished mailing out the stretch goal short story Til Death Do Us Part, along with the a teaser of the sequel novel I'm currently working on. I hope you all enjoy these - at some point I'll run them through Indigo and put them into a compilation, most likely. Just so you know, the short story is a companion piece, and works best if you've already read Chasing the Lantern, so I heartily recommend starting there!

What else have I been up to? Well, the novel you helped to create is now being sold on the shelves of several bookstores in the Seattle metro area (the Seattle U District Bookstore, Third Place Books, and Otherworlds). Hopefully more of the arrangements I'm trying to line up work out. Down here in Portland it is currently gracing the display shelves in the Purple Room over at Powell's. I've also been visiting several regional conventions that I'm going to try and get into next year in a more professional capacity (I even bought a monocle!).

And I've also been writing, of course. Short stories and the sequel novel, currently titled On Discord Isle. I'm currently up to chapter 17 of 24, so things are progressing right along. I hope to be finished at the end of January, at my current rate.

I can't thank you all enough for helping this happen. This time last year I was querying agents like crazy to find a way into publishing. Now my novel is a published reality, read by people all over the world. Which is both humbling and awesome, all at the same time.

All of the project rewards should be in your hands now, or at least in transit. If you haven't received yours, or wanted a different format for the ebooks, let me know and I'll see what I can do. If you've read through your copy of Chasing the Lantern, please do me another favor and drop a review over at Amazon or Goodreads; every one helps me out (and I refuse to sock-puppet ;-).

Oh! That reminds me. I arranged for updated ebook cover art, to more match the physical print copy. You can see it at the Amazon link above. If you want a copy of that (for free, of course), just mail me or make a note on this update; I'll send one your way.

Well. The hour is late and the night is cold. There's not much left to say except thank you. Thank you for taking a risk on me, and thank you for your support. I'll continue to do semi-regular (cough) updates over at my blog (www.jonathonburgess.com) and on Facebook, and I'll post one more update here to let you all know when my next novel is ready to kick off.

As Miss Stone says at the end; I wouldn't have traded this experience for anything.

- Jonathon Burgess

It's done. At long last.

This last week I finally acquired all 46 physical copies of Chasing the Lantern. I've packaged both these and the posters up and shipped them off. Now they should be making their way through various diverse means to your door. Unless, of course, you're close enough that I'm hand-delivering them :-)

I've been a little quiet on this end, but I've also been hard at work putting myself out there into the world. Chasing the Lantern can now be printed off at any Espresso Book Machine location, including Powell's Books here in Portland, and Third Place Press up in Seattle (as well as many other locations, see ondemandbooks.com).

But that's not all. Are you local to the Pacific Northwest here in the US? Next weekend is Wordstock, a rather large local literary festival here in Portland. I'll be at the main convention center Sunday the 14th over at the Indigo booth, starting at 1:45. And the day before, Saturday the 13th, I'll be up in Edmonds Washington (just north of Seattle) at the wonderful Otherworlds bookstore (otherworldsstore.com) for a signing and costume event! If you can, swing by either one and say hi, I'd love to meet you face to face.

With the books/ebooks/posters all on their way, that concludes the majority of this project. But further updates will come, especially as I still owe you all a short story. 'Til Death Do Us Part is in completed rough form, and I'm currently editing it within an inch of its life. I also still owe many of you a preview of the sequel story, currently titled On Discord Isle. In fact, I can't wait to show you the cover art for the next tale, just recently commissioned and completed. My artist once again did a phenomenal job.

 I again cannot express how much I appreciate all your support. Dealing directly with you, the reader, has been a wonderful experience. If you have any issues with your rewards, let me know and I'll do what I can to fix it. Also, if you haven't received an ebook, send me a message and I'll remedy that as well. Thanks again to all of you who have or will be leaving me a review over at Amazon or Goodreads. 

Okay, back to the grindstone!

- Jonathon Burgess

P.S. Here's some photos of the books, the packaging, and part of the delivery. As well as me looking smug at Powell's and some copies on the shelf at Third Place. None of it could have happened without you!

Ahoy!

Well now. I've certainly been busy.

Since last update I've met my printer for a face to face, looked over the physical results of the Espresso machine, and finally picked a cover.

Ebooks should have gone out last night, so check your mail! For those of you just responding, I'll do another round this weekend when I get a minute, if I can't do so before then.

Should you feel like spreading the good word around, Chasing the Lantern is now up on the Kindle Store, as well as Goodreads. I truly would appreciate it if you would do me a favor and leave a review once you're done reading.

Next up are preparations for shipment of the physical goods, including postcards, posters, and when I get them, the physical books. This is going to be a little slower, by necessity, but I still should be able to get them out to you before the estimated December delivery date (by quite a bit actually - hopefully in October!).

Speaking of that physical reward, check below to see the finalized cover! I thank you all for your votes; they were instrumental to certain decisions. It was ridiculously close, pretty much a 50/50 split between colors and designs. In the end I've gone with a mix of the black layout, but the maroon coloration. After meeting with Third Place, looking at the books that get printed out, and seeing how they would sit on the shelf, the Maroon was simply more eye-catching. But the black cover design looked far more professional.

Anyway, it's time for me to get back to work. If you've had any problems with the ebooks, please, feel free to contact me. Oh! Also, I'm going to be attempting to swing a couple local events here in the Pacific Northwest. There'll be more info on those as we get closer to October, so I'll be in touch!

Hello again, my backers one and all.

Well, here we are one month later. To the day and hour, even. I've been quiet, largely because I dislike those projects that spam their backers as some sort of Twitter stand-in. But also because I have been busy.

Postcards and posters have come in. My edits have come in and been implemented. I'm performing a final read-through for anything I might have missed and then the manuscript is off to Third Place. Then I'll get to work on ebook file conversion. Likely next week I'll send a survey to get delivery and contact information.

There. Updated accomplished. But wait! I have something else. I need your help, gentle backer, with making a choice.

At the bottom you'll find two images. These are the covers-in-progress currently designed by Third Place Books for the physical copy of Chasing the Lantern. From left to right it's back-spine-cover. I need your input! Maroon? Black? Some mixture of the two? These aren't set in stone, so let me know which parts you like. Just post your choice in the update comments.

Note: the art colors aren't quite representative due to format.