I’ve got a whole bunch of news concerning The Dragonswarm, including an update on the KickStarter campaign, an official release date, and a link to a live excerpt from the upcoming book. But before I get to that, I want to make an offer.

Advance Reading Copies

Taming Fire has seen extraordinary success, and The Dragonswarm is already much-anticipated, and that’s because I’ve got some amazing fans. You guys are awesome.

I’m incredibly grateful to all of you. You’ve done a lot to support me and help me become the writer I am today.

And now I’m giving you an opportunity to do more. I want to share some Advance Reading Copies of The Dragonswarm with my fans.

With only six more days to get the thing assembled they won’t be very advance, but at least you’ll get a reading copy. I only have digital copies available, but they should be readable on whatever you’re using to read this blog post.

If you’re interested, send me an email through the contact form. Put “Advance Reading Copies” (or just ARC) in the subject line. You don’t even have to write a message.

Sometime tomorrow (I really, really hope), I’ll have a very-nearly-final-draft ready, and send them out to the first hundred people who’ve contacted me. All I’d ask in return is that you write me a review at the digital vendor(s) of your choice. Blog posts are welcome too, of course.

Now, on to other matters!

KickStarter

Sunday night, with barely an hour remaining on the campaign, the KickStarter campaign to publish The Dragonswarm was funded! That’s incredibly exciting news for me personally, for my publishing house, and for writers in general.

Not that I’m sharing the money with all those people. But as I’ve said before, patronage is a much better model for artists than commodification is.

Long-term, I’m hoping to support artists (and be supported as an artist) through the self-funded Consortium model, but until that’s proven, KickStarter is an easy and convenient way to crowdsource patronage.

That deserves a full post of its own. For now, I just want to say how deeply grateful I am to everyone who contributed.

None of you had to contribute. I didn’t even lean too hard on the mercenary sales pitch. You did it out of love for my work and my goals, and that warms my heart. It’s so much easier to do the work knowing people care.

Publishing Stuff

Before I get too sappy, I should move on to other news. And I have news!

• On Monday afternoon, I finished the rewrite on the novel! And then I got right to work on the editing and publishing of the novel.
• I’ve gotten complete feedback from Joshua, and should hear final opinions from Courtney and Jessie today or tomorrow. I’m hard at work smoothing down the rough edges and putting a final polish on it, but overall the feedback is good.
• As a reward to the contributors at KickStarter, I promised to publish an excerpt from the novel if they pledged at least half our funding goal. They did, I did, and you can get a sneak peek at The Dragonswarm on the publisher’s blog now.
• We’ve also got an official release date! The novel will be available in digital formats on Tuesday, December 20. That’s just six days from now!

Thanks again for your support! I’m so excited about this project.