In honor of Women’s History Month we asked a few of our upcoming Spring, Summer and Fall 2017 authors which female writers inspired them the most. From Barbara Ehrenreich’s groundbreaking investigative journalism, to Rainbow Rowell’s perfectly complicated female characters, and of course no list is complete without a little J. K. Rowling. Please join us in celebrating these many essential voices that should not be ignored.

Originally posted by space-grunge

J. Danielle Dorn, author of Devil’s Call (July 2017):
The summer of my 26th year, I was unemployed, living off of my savings, and suffering from PTSD after surviving two separate instances of sexual assault in a six-month period. It being 2011, the news I had not yet read the Harry Potter series spread through my social circle like a bad cold. With all this free time and money to spend on booze and books instead of petrol and health insurance, I caved to peer pressure and purchased the box set from Barnes & Noble. You all know the story of the boy who lived. By the end of 2011, so did I.

Rowling took the pain of her mother’s death, her clinical depression, her suicidality, and she made something lasting and good and real out of it. She spoke openly about her struggles. She is confident, and passionate, and so smart. Knowing she was my age when she caught a break kept me writing. Most of what I wrote was crap, but the act itself was cathartic, and I found my voice.

Six years on, I am eight months sober and starting to heal. Inkshares will publish my first novel this summer. More people will want to publish my opinion on more topics, and I do not intend to sugarcoat anything. Rowling’s honesty about her own dark days kept me alive through mine, and her speaking out against global injustices continues to inspire me. That is the sort of writer, and woman, I want to be.

Malena Watrous, author of Sparked (September 2017):
Choosing one influential female author is impossible for me! Confession: I almost exclusively read female authors. I feel sexist admitting that, but it’s important to me to find strong, nuanced female characters in books, and female authors nail that more often than men. (And yet female authors don’t seem to have a problem writing men, right?)

In classics, I’m most inspired by Charlotte Bronte, particularly Jane Eyre, a character so vivid that she almost seems like an old friend (I’ve also read the book many times). From her tragic beginnings to a relatively happy ending, Jane remains stubbornly and recognizably herself, even though she also matures. She makes choices that some might think are “wrong” but she deals with the consequences, moves on and gets stronger. It’s in no way moralizing and totally riveting.

In contemporary fiction, I want to name Ruth Ozeki, who wrote one of my favorite books, My Year of Meats, and more recently the wonderful A Tale for the Time Being. I’m inspired by the way she manages to be philosophical and funny and poignant all at once, by the way she plays with form, and I also share her interest in Japanese culture, and love the way that she brings it to the page.

In YA, I adore both Lauren Oliver and Rainbow Rowell. They’re very different but both create amazing female characters who are, again, “flawed” but in ways that make me connect with them. I like authors who take risks, and one risk is making a character not everyone is going to “like.” To me, “likable” is a little insipid. I prefer complicated women!

JF Dubeau, author of A God in the Shed (June 2017):
Jacqueline Carey for two distinct reasons. First and foremost, her books taught me how to write strong female characters without falling into the trap of giving male characteristics to them. She dodges out of the trope of injecting testosterone into the women in her stories, making them either violent or murderous as a substitute for strength. This opens the door to a much wider variety of characters each powerful in a different way and capable of evolving and developing, like a person should. I credit Carey with whatever hints of depth the women in my stories have.

The second reason I picked her as an inspiration is her approach to world building. Carey favors a subtle approach to the fantastic elements in her stories, preferring nuance to spectacle. While I wouldn’t say this is necessarily a better way to write fiction, it’s one that I’ve embraced for A God in the Shed, giving more room to the characters, their interactions and their evolution through the fantastic and horrific events that surround them.

It’s these two elements combined that has opened the door to creating the varied cast that populate the village of Saint-Ferdinand in my book and I owe them to Jacqueline Carey.

Mark Dowie, author of The Haida Gwaii Lesson (July 2017):
My first, and still my favorite co-author, was Barbara Ehrenreich. We worked together on an investigative report about the export of birth control armentaria (high estrogen pills, Depo Provera and the Dalkon Shield intrauterine device) that had been banned for use in the US because they were killing so many American women, but purchased and sold overseas by nasty corporations and population control zealots. The article we co-bylined won a National Magazine award in 1979.

Like so many millions of readers, I came to deeply admire everything she wrote after we worked together, particularly Witches, Midwives, & Nurses (which she wrote with my former boss and close friend Deirdre English), For Her Own Good (also with Deirdre), Fear of Falling, Nickel and Dimed, and last but not least, Living with a Wild God. She is one of the world’s greatest living reporters and essayists, but today prefers to describe herself as “a mythbuster by trade.” She already knows I love her, so I’ll say it again here.

Scott Thomas, author of Kill Creek (October 2017):
I discovered Shirley Jackson the way most people do, by reading “The Lottery” in high school. What blew me away wasn’t just the amazing reveal, it was the way she turned the ordinary into something profoundly horrifying. She made every day life something to fear by uncovering the complicated, bone-chilling darkness lurking beneath a deceptively simple premise. The Haunting of Hill House only confirmed this: a straightforward haunted house story that is actually the complex character study of a troubled soul. Shirley Jackson showed me that true horror is being forced to face the darkness in our lives. The terror doesn’t just come from the supernatural; true horror is being forced to accept how fragile the strings holding our world together really are.

Helena Echlin, author of Sparked (September 2017):
The woman who made me fall in love with stories was English children’s author Joan Aiken, mostly because of The Wolves Chronicles, a series of fantasy books set in an alternate Victorian England. At a time when a lot of children’s books featured boys having adventures and girls at ballet class or boarding school, Aiken created Dido Twite, a tough-as-nails ragamuffin with a Cockney accent and a penchant for boy’s clothes. She gets knocked unconscious and tied up in a sack in pretty much every book, but always keeps her cool and makes a clever escape. She’s just a scrawny, barely literate girl, but she saves the king himself from being assassinated—several times.

Aiken’s plots are deliciously outrageous—who else would dream up a hundred-years- old queen who extends her life by eating the bones of young girls? Aiken never lets reality stand in the way of a good story, but however absurd the story, she manages to make it convincing through her use of detail. Those bones, for instance, are eaten in the form of a “gruel, which was of a very thick consistency and perfectly white.”

I co-wrote Sparked because Aiken made me want to write about a girl who is unexpectedly heroic and who battles the force of evil when the adults in her world do nothing. But most of all, Aiken taught me how it feels to be utterly captivated by a wild tale—and she made me want to captivate others in the same way.

Patrick Edwards is the author of Space Tripping, one of the top three winners in last year’s Nerdist Space Opera Contest. His debut sci-fi comedy hits bookstores (real brick-and-mortar ones) March 7th. In the following Q&A, Patrick’s reveals the secrets to his creative method, his inspiration for writing the most hilarious and absurd sci-fi comedy this side of the universe, and his upcoming projects.

Patrick was born and raised in Chicago, went to Augustana College in IL, where he majored in business studies, with a minor in amateur libation studies (“mostly of the beer variety”). He currently lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Katie, and new baby, Gabriella Rose, who was born in the midst of the Nerdist Space Opera Contest.

Inkshares: To start, please describe your book in one haiku.

Patrick:

Surviving in space

Much easier when sober

But that’s not much fun

Inkshares: OK, now let’s get serious: which Hogwarts house do you belong to?

Patrick: Hang on a sec. Let me finish this online quiz. Oh! Oh dear… It says Slytherin.

I’m going to try a different one… and here we go, clicking “submit” and…Hufflepuff?! What?! No, that can’t be right.

Let’s try one more. Okay, this one says I’m a Lumberjack from District 7… I don’t even think that’s the right literary universe.

I’m just going to create my own. I am a member of House… Chucklesworth.

Inkshares: That must be at Ilvermorny. At Hogwarts, I’d say you’re a SlytherPuff. Where were you when you thought of this book idea?

Patrick:  Physically? Planet Earth.

Mentally? Three glasses deep into a cheap bottle of wine.  

Inkshares: Would you tell us about your writing process? Are you the binge-writing type? Caffeine addict? Coffee shop writer?

Patrick:  Ha, calling it a “process” is giving me way too much credit. I’m an “anytime, anywhere” writer. Those picturesque writing scenarios where you have three hours to yourself, a quiet room, and a cup of coffee don’t happen in my life. I realized early on that if I only write under “ideal” settings, I’d never finish the book. I probably wrote at least half of Space Tripping on my phone. I’d have fifteen or twenty minutes, and hammer out a few sentences in an email to myself. Later, I’d piece it all together and clean it up. It wasn’t something that came naturally, but I was determined to finish the book, so I found a way.

Inkshares: How long did you work on this book from forming the idea to finishing the manuscript?

Patrick:  It was about fifteen months from the day I wrote the first line, to the day I wrote “The End” on my first draft. Funnily enough, I was on my honeymoon when I finished… but don’t judge me! My wife likes to sleep in. I’m an early riser. So for once, I actually had a few of those mythical “picturesque writing scenarios” I mentioned in the previous question.

Inkshares: Do you believe in aliens?

Patrick: There’s a conspicuous gentleman in a black suit and sunglasses looming over me, so let’s just say that I don’t not believe in aliens.

Inkshares: Writing is hard. Why do you do it? Is there a piece of literature that inspired you to become an author?

Patrick: It’s so eye-rollingly cliché, but it just feels like what I’m supposed to be doing. Trust me, I want to punch myself in the face for that answer too. I’ve been interested in creative matters (art, writing, etc.) since childhood. I actually started college with the intention of majoring in art and literature. I even convinced one of my freshman professors to let me write a short story for my final essay instead of the research paper he’d assigned.

But somewhere along the line, I got it in my head that it’d be more reasonable and realistic to go into business. So, that’s what I did. Then through most of my twenties, I never felt fully together. When I got back into writing… brace yourself for another lame cliché… it felt like I was myself again.

Regarding books that inspired me, anyone who’s read Space Tripping could guess I’m big fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Additionally, I absolutely cherish Terry Pratchett’s (R.I.P.) Discworld series. I love anything that dumps the tropes and clichés of an established genre into a sandbox and plays around with them in a humorous manner.

My biggest childhood influences were the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip —so much fun re-reading those as an adult and picking up the stuff I missed as a kid—and Bruce Coville’s Aliens Ate My Homework series.

Inkshares: What was the first thing you ever wrote?

Patrick: In 5th Grade, I wrote a comic that was a shameless Wolverine knockoff. I’m pretty sure the hero’s name was “Razor” and his nemesis was “Doomcla.”

Inkshares: A little alien told me that you are an illustrator as well. How does your love for comics influence your writing?

Patrick: That little alien needs to keep his three mouths shut. But yes, I am a huge comics fan. Most of what I write starts with me visualizing the scene, as if it were a comic. Then I try to write out what I’m picturing. A lot of my ideas start as comics, but illustrating takes more time than I have these days.

So, if you’re reading this and you’re an illustrator, hit me up. Let’s make something weird and cool.

Inkshares: What advice would you give to writers trying to hit a funding goal on Inkshares?

Patrick: It is not a passive endeavor. You are going to have to work as hard, if not harder, than you worked on the actual book. Slick cover art and a gripping synopsis won’t cut it. You need to get out there and spread the word. It’s like having another job.

Inkshares: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Patrick: A stomachache from laughing too much. Seriously. I’m not looking to achieve any literary breakthroughs here. I just like writing things that make people smile.

Inkshares: What are you reading right now?

Patrick: The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, because he has a great first name. And I guess it’s also because, you know, he’s an exceptional writer… or whatever.

Inkshares: If your story was made into a TV show or movie, who would be cast to play Chuck and Jopp?

Patrick: While they’d each bring a distinctly different vibe to Chuck, my first thoughts went to either Elijah Wood or Dave Franco. I’d also be interested to see what Riz Ahmed from HBO’s The Night Of could do in the role.

For Jopp, my first choice would be Kevin Hart. Though I could also see Adam Devine from Workaholics play him as well.

Inkshares: Was there a particular moment or event that was harder to write than the rest of the story?

Patrick: Action sequences. They were definitely the hardest. There’s a lot of moving parts to a big fight or chase scene. You want to clearly describe what is happening without writing so much text that it slows down the pace of the scene. It was a tricky balance to find.

Inkshares: What surprised you about the publishing process?

Patrick: The amount of time and number of steps involved. Space Tripping’s publishing date is March 7th. The Space Opera contest ended last year on March 14th, and I already had a finished manuscript at that point. I found it to be a pleasant surprise. It was comforting to see how much professionalism and effort Inkshares puts into the process.

(So…uh… when do I get my fifty bucks for that shameless promotion?)

Inkshares: Haha you can take that up with the boss. What would you like to say to your Inkshares backers?

Patrick: Thank you. A million times, thank you.

Also, your next round of drinks is on me.

Inkshares: Would you like to tell us about any upcoming projects?

Patrick: Well, of course I’m working on a Space Tripping sequel, but we have quite a while until that could conceivably be released. There are a number of events/conventions later this year that I’ll be attending, some in a professional capacity, some as simply a fan. If you want updates on all that, by all means, feel free to follow me on Twitter @RamblingWaffle, or check out my sites: ramblingwaffle.com & spacetrippingbook.com

And before you ask, that Twitter handle has a long and uninteresting back story. Please trust me, it is not worth the time it takes to explain it. Ok, fine, you twisted my arm. Here’s the story:

So there I was, trapped in the Syrup Swamps of the Lost Peninsula. I had a half-drunk bottle of maple rum in one hand, and the ancient book of Blessed Recipes in the other. The Great Pancake loomed over me… his rows of teeth glistening in the early morning light. I knew if I didn’t stop him here and now, he would consume every innocent resident of the nearby village, Breakfast Bluffs. So, without a moment’s hesitation, I took a swig of rum, held the sacred book high, and-

Oh, would you look at the time? I gotta run. We’ll have to finish this story later.

A big thanks to Patrick Edwards for putting up with these hard-hitting questions! Interested in his work? Space Tripping is available March 7th.

To pre-order, visit: https://www.inkshares.com/books/space-tripping, or find a paperback copy anywhere books are sold.

Last July we brought book production in house. As part of that, we knew that we needed to hire and work with the best editors and designers around. Over the next few months we’ll be introducing you to some of these amazing people. We want to kick that set of introductions off today with Mike S. Corley.

Mike is known for his powerful, evocative covers. He’s done work for bestselling authors like Hugh Howey and Paolo Bacigalupi, and he’s worked on everything from novels to comic books to concept art for videogames. He’s designed covers for some of the biggest publishers, like Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin, and Random House.

Currently, he’s designing Matt Harry’s Sorcery for Beginners (publishing this October from Inkshares with the official cover reveal on Wednesday). He’s also the mastermind behind the gorgeous covers for other Inkshares titles like A God in the Shed and Rune of the Apprentice.

Mike recently spoke with us about reinventing Harry Potter covers, the pleasures of reading Murakami in the summertime, and his thoughts on what makes a great book cover.

Mike, we’ve heard you have a really interesting story about how you broke into the business. Can you tell the Inkshares community a bit about it?

Back in 2008, I was working at a merchandising agency and wasn’t really enjoying the work I was doing. It was easy and comfortable but not very fulfilling. So one night after work when I would normally work on my own personal projects, I was thinking about what I would do if I could have any art job. I’ve always been a bibliophile, so I figured if I could do anything, it would be designing book covers.

There was a trend at the time of redesigning things in old-fashioned, minimalist art styles. People were doing movies as books and videogames as books and posting them on the internet. So I thought, well I don’t wanna just copy them and try to make more movies or video game covers: why not just do books as books, go back and apply the same design aesthetic?

The first ones I tried my hand at were the Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I worked it out in the old Penguin Marber Grid style of covers they had in the 60s.

I worked on Harry Potter next and started posting the covers online. I struck a chord with a lot of folks on the internet when I put my HP covers up and things escalated quickly with those covers specifically. I was going to make prints because there was a huge demand at the time, but then Warner Bros. lawyers came flying outta nowhere and shut me down quick. It was surreal that I would be contacted by a HP lawyer saying, “you can’t make this art and sell it” as they slowly cracked their knuckles into the phone quite menacingly. So of course I stopped any progress on producing those covers. Luckily they were already out in the wild and about a week later I got my first cover job from someone who saw them and wanted me to do something similar for them.

From then on I got about one book cover request a month for the rest of the year and it slowly increased. I would do my normal job during the day and work on covers at night when the jobs came in.  In 2009 I quit my corporate job and went full time on covers because the timing seemed to be right, and I was young and stupid enough to take the risk without much damage to my current life. I figured I’d give it a go for a couple of months and if it didn’t work I could always go back to a design firm and get a “grown up” job again. Luckily that never happened.  

Wow, that’s a hell of a story. You should publish that as a book on Inkshares, and we’ll make the cover. Kidding. What were your favorite books of 2016? And which books are currently on your nightstand?  

I read a lot less last year than I would have liked, but a few standouts for me were:

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami. I have a tradition to read a couple of his books every summer during the months of May-August.This year my Murakami summer read will be 1Q84. He is the best. Makes me feel super melancholy and nostalgic for things I don’t even know.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I love the Frankenstein monster and the old Universal monster movies in particular, but I’ve never read the original novel, so I made that a goal for last year. I read an oversized version illustrated by Bernie Wrightson which really added to the story.

The Valancourt Book of Christmas Ghost Stories from Valancourt Books. I love reading ghost-story collections around Christmas time. There is something fantastic about sitting by the fire, drinking some Winter Cheer (look it up) on a cold winter night. I’ve read so many collections it seems that everyone just repeats the same ‘greatest hits’ in the ghost-story genre, but this book was all new to me.

On my nightstand I currently have The Vile Village, Book 7 in the Series of Unfortunate Events. I started re-reading them in January because of the new Netflix show coming out. I wanted a refresher, and they still are fantastic. I also just started The Pilgrim’s Progress. I’ve read abridged versions before, but this is the first time I’ll read the original text which I’m looking forward to.

What was your favorite cover of last year? No choosing your own covers!

Hah, I wouldn’t choose my own covers. I’m one of those artists that never enjoys looking at work after it’s done, I’ve seen how the sausage got made so I’ve no interest in ogling at it beyond the creation itself.

I don’t know the designer off hand but one cover I really enjoyed was I Am for You by Mieko Ouchi. Beautiful and simple. I love images that are one thing at quick glance and then on closer inspection they reveal another.

Another would be Onibi, a French graphic novel by Atelier Sento. I really love the art style and the book, which I own but can’t read because I don’t know French beyond fries.

If you could live a day in the life of a character from any book who would it be?

Thomas Carnacki from William Hope Hodgson’s short stories on the character. He is the epitome of what I would like to do as a life job (besides art) and just has the perfect amount of confidence and scaredy-pants-ness as a guy I can relate the most to, who can still be cool.

What is your favorite part of the job? What’s the hardest?

Getting paid! Har har. No my favorite part is doing the concepts. I read pitches then I go through a little routine of prepping for a new book. I’ll gather some reference images that feel like a style I think matches the book, and I go for a run or have a long shower (that’s where my ideas come to me for whatever reason). Then I sit down for a day or a few and just work out every angle I can take the book with a number of concepts until I either think I hit the right one, run out of ideas, or run out of time. Sometimes I get art blocks during the concept phase and mope to my wife about how I’m a terrible designer and maybe I used up all my ideas on the last book. Then I’ll start the process over, run more, shower more, a literal rinse and repeat.

You forgot the “lather” part! What was the most challenging book you’ve ever worked on? What made it challenging?

There was this one indie-author book that I got a few years into doing freelance. They found me because of the Harry Potter covers. They detailed the book idea they had, even had a rough sketch and said “just make this in your style,” so I made just that in my style. They said “this is good, but was it too good?” They asked if I could make it look worse, of course not that specifically but very nearly. I went through round after round breaking it down till it was literally (not figuratively) their sketch in the end, and then they weren’t happy and said “okay how about you do it the way you’d like it.” And then I put my hands up in the air and said I’m probably not the right guy for the job. That was a playful retelling and this was drawn out over many months. It was very surreal, sad, and frustrating. It’s over though, so I can look back and laugh a bit about it.

*cries softly*

It felt a bit like McSweeney’s “Client Feedback on the Creation of the Earth.”

In your opinion, what makes a great book cover? Are there rules that for you across genre?

I don’t think that can be pinned down in words exactly. It’s very easy to see a terrible book cover and point out why it’s bad. Wrong font, bad images, weird layout, etc. But often a good cover, for me at least, is more of just a gut feeling. You know it when you see it, and you can try to break down why this part works or that part works but sometimes it doesn’t make sense at all. Sometimes rules are broken that shouldn’t be broken in design and it just works. Sometimes it’s how the title plays with the images. Sometimes it’s just the colors, or just the images. Sometimes it’s just great because art is relative and you think it’s a great cover when it actually isn’t…  

I see a lot of publishers point to other comp covers out there and say “That cover is great, make that cover, but not..” and I can do the exact same thing that we see on the referenced cover but it won’t work for this other book for various reasons. Sometimes things just work with one book and don’t with another.

So for me, I have a certain taste in covers, and I realize my likes on art in general don’t match everyone’s tastes, but if I can be paired up with people where we mesh, then we are able to create great things. Or maybe they’re not! Depends on who’s looking at it.

Unless it’s our mothers looking at it, then of course it’s great.

You’ve had a lot of success, but you’re still young. Who are your favorite covers designers from the older generation?

Oh gosh, I don’t even have an answer there. The older generation? I may only be in my 30s, but I feel like the old generation already. Often times, and criminally, I don’t know who most cover designers are. It isn’t prominently posted anywhere especially with books from the olden days. There are lots of vintage books I own with just beautiful hardcover designs and I haven’t a clue who created them. Things are changing a bit now which is good, with social media artists are posting their own covers and often even publishers will link to the artist so it’s becoming a lot more known who did what. But I don’t have any good names to give. Saul Bass?  

What was your favorite cover as a child?

Calvin and Hobbes collection covers. Those were the best.

If you could go back in time and design any book’s cover, what would it be and what would it look like?  

I would love love love to go back and design the Harry P—just kidding. I would actually love to have been able to design the Lemony Snicket series. I’m not sure I could have done better than the original covers— Brett Helquist’s art is Lemony in my mind. But that series means so much to me and changed my view on books as a whole in a lot of ways, so getting to design them if only to take part in that series in a more concrete form than just being a fan would have really buttered my bread.

The List started out a few month ago as an attempt to bubble up some of the best yet-to-fund projects on Inkshares.  And already three great books have done so: Cape’s Side Bay, Murder at the Veteran’s Club, and Sorcery for Beginners.

The additional three selections are:

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas

Completely Incomplete by Jeffrey Hirschberg

The Familiar by Jonathan Marx

Congratulations to each of these authors and to the many fantastic authors in the contest.  We are looking forward to The List 2017 already.

Cheers,

The Inkshares MGMT

Hello Friends,

It’s another wonderful week here at Inkshares! We are getting our office painted, so excuse me if I pass out on my keyboard from the fumessssssskhjhsaidlgjlkjsdhgjhlkajzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Whew! Ok, I’m back! Here are the drafts that caught my eyes. Both eyes. A lot. Please keep in  mind that I have only read the sample chapters that are up on the site, but I am excited to pre-order. This is a little different than the stuff I usually post, but…you’re not the boss of me, OK? Good. Here we go!

Fantasy:

The Walls Are Closing In by Jacqui Castle

Castle’s tale about a walled United States is exciting, maddening, and full of hope. Two walls have been constructed at the northern and southern borders of the United States—with no way in or out. Patricia is a brave and intelligent heroine living between the border walls with a thirst for the truth about life before the Seclusion, and the future that could be had if the walls were to come down. I have only read the chapters posted on Inkshares, but I am so excited to read more about this epic, futuristic tale that is so different and fresh in the sea of modern dystopian stories that are out there.

Also check out the really cool promo video that Jacqui made on the project page.

Read if you liked: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Best quote: “In the beginning, in 2022 when it was first erected, they say the entirety of its length was rigorously patrolled for twenty-four hours a day. No more. Decades have passed, multiple generations have been born in its shadow, and it has become as natural a part of the landscape as the wildflowers that innocently climb its base.”

Originally posted by gameraboy

Sci-Fi:

I Think You Dropped This by Brien Shores

What good is being a time traveller if you’ve gotten yourself stuck on a rock in the middle of the ocean and no way to get back? Adam fights off boredom by keeping an immensely entertaining journal about his incredible trips through time and space.

Shores keeps this tale lighthearted and intriguing as we find out more about the abilities of the five time travellers who find this journal. This project is awesome. I love Shores’ wit, and Adam is a riveting protagonist. I won’t give anything away, so head over to the I Think You Dropped This project page to find out more.

Read if you liked: Space Tripping by Patrick Edwards

Best quotes: “My name is Adam, I am sitting on a rock, and for a lack of a cooler title, I am a time traveler.”

“I might be a jackass when I’m drunk. I’ll have to run a few experiments to confirm that theory when I get back home.”

Originally posted by the-future-now

Young Adult:

West of Weird by Harrison Cheung

A story about a 15 year-old kid with a dark sense of humor trying to get adopted. I found this story powerful, tragic, and funny. Somehow, even after being passed around different foster homes, and treated horribly by the people who were supposed to take care of him, Charlie manages to remain hopeful that he will one day be taken in by loving parents.

This draft crosses racial boundaries and takes readers through an emotional, funny, and very clever journey of love and acceptance.

Read if you liked: Sunshine is Forever by Kyle Cowan

Best quote: “I liked Ms. Beverly a lot.  She was someone I could talk to about my worrying, my nightmares.  She taught me relaxation techniques, breathing tricks with a paper bag—for when I’m having anxiety attacks.  I thought she cared. Unfortunately, one afternoon I told her that I loved her and she calmly put down her pencil and told me that it was inappropriate for a boy to become overly attached to his therapist.  She referred me to Ms. Wendy the next week. Just like that, she didn’t want to see me anymore.”

Originally posted by blacksheep-shepherd

Mystery/Suspense:

Manifesto: A Tale of Murder by Daniel Poort

A nearly retired sheriff sets off on an action-packed manhunt for the kidnapper of little Erica Potter, while simultaneously investigating a gruesome murder in his town. Readers follow Sheriff Harkin as he discovers the killer’s manifesto and hunts for the truth in this incredible suspenseful thriller. WARNING: Make sure you don’t have any deadlines to meet first, because you won’t be tearing your eyes away from the screen for a while.

This story is different from anything I have read. Poort eviscerates the fourth wall, allowing readers to feel closer and more involved in the investigation than I would have thought possible.

Read if you liked: Echo Park by Michael Connelly

Best quote: “In my mind’s eye I pictured myself standing up and smashing him in the head with a stapler over and over again until blood and pieces of bone covered my face. I imagined my coworkers standing around in shock as all the liquids inside of that old fuck Mr. Jacobs splashed the walls of the office. That was the moment I realized just how much I wanted to kill somebody.”

Originally posted by be-your--own-hero

Horror:

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas

Full disclosure: I almost couldn’t read this draft—it’s so (delightfully) creepy. I can’t read/watch horror because I am a big wuss, but if that’s your thing, you are going to love this haunted-house tale.

After the violent murder of the owners of the home on Kill Creek, the house remained mostly empty for years. The people who do move in are scared away by an unknown presence and move right back out within a year. Creepy right? That’s what four bestselling horror writers think when they are invited to spend Halloween night in the house on Kill Creek as a publicity stunt. American Horror Story: Roanoke meets Finding Forrester.

What’s driving people away? It is the house itself? Something inside the house? Read the first 50 pages on the project page for more and pre-order to find out.

Read if you liked: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Best quote: “‘Do you believe in ghosts?’

For that brief moment, he was ten again, perched on a chair in an abandoned house, knees pulled close to his chest, eyes on the basement door as he heard labored steps behind it shuffling closer, closer, closer. A thin, cold sweat broke out across Sam’s brow as his mind replayed the childhood memory. The doorknob slowly turning. The door creaking open. The shrouded form that once was a woman, peering through the darkness with clouded eyes. The ancient voice, dry as the earth in which it had been buried, croaking the single word that had haunted him for years—’Child.’”

Originally posted by marci1900

On that cheerful note, that’s all I have for you this time. If you know a great book that deserves recognition, please let us know by commenting/reblogging/retweeting! After all, there are so many more projects that deserve attention than just these five.

Have a great Inkshares Day!

Your biggest fan,

Elena

Inkshares’ developmental editor J.C. Gabel (who just finished development on Kyle James’ much anticipated Not Afraid of the Fall) began his career in publishing at the age of 19. In the mid-’90s, he handmade the first issue of a zine called Stop Smiling, and has been making books full time since 2010 for a variety of publishers (Taschen, Phaidon, Chronicle, Rare Bird, Melville House), and also through his own imprint, Hat & Beard. He contributes regular features, criticism, profiles and interviews for the Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Bookforum, The Paris Review, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Wallpaper.

We recently caught up with Gabel to speak about literary nightstand favorites, common mistakes writers make in early drafts, the importance of physical books, and more.

Is there a book you read in 2016 that stays with you most?
Several, but the one that keeps popping up in conversations is Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell by Deborah Solomon, the New York Times staff writer and art critic. This was the first biography of the famously reclusive Cornell, and it got a spectacular reissue by Other Press in New York City.

If you could live a day in the life of a character from any book who would it be?
A tie: Ignatius Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces or Raoul Duke from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Which books are currently on your nightstand?
I am in the midst of re-reading a spat of modernist classics, while finishing up work on a graphic survey book of New Directions, one of the best independent publishers of literature in the world for 80 years and counting. Notably favorites from the canon: Nightwood by Djuna Barnes; Journey to the End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Celine; Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov; Wisdom of the Heart by Henry Miller; Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West; The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald; Collected Poems by Stevie Smith; Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood; everything by Clarice Lispector and Muriel Spark.

Can you tell us a little about your background? Where did you go to school? How did you get into book editing? What was the first book you ever worked on?
I grew up making zines with my friends in Chicago as a teenager. I also used to work at record labels, bookstores and record shops in the pre-broadband Internet era. By 19, Stop Smiling, “The Magazine for High-Minded Lowlifes,” was born, and took off a few years later, as a glossy magazine. We all migrated to New York in the late 1990s, but always kept a big foot in the door in Chicago, and continued to publish regularly for 15 years, before we all made a left turn into books when it was clear that substantive magazines were dying as solvent businesses; everything was becoming gamed by new-fangled internet tricks and advertorial muck. More practically: I’m a print purist; therefore, books seemed like a lot more reasonable a medium to work within and still make money in our Post-Digital Age while still making physical product. Digital books don’t interest me. It’s all about the object. I have been making books full time since 2010 for a variety of publishers (Taschen, Phaidon, Chronicle, Rare Bird, Melville House), and also through my own imprint, Hat & Beard. All in all, I’m what you would call an “accidental editor.”

You have a background in nonfiction, but mainly photo/illustration books that likely have quite different developmental needs than narrative nonfiction or memoir. How would you characterize these differences?
I’m morphing into more of a curator, art/literary historian and small publisher. I’ll always write and edit books, but my day-to-day headspace is moving into a new arena, which I think is healthy after 20 years in the trenches of traditional publishing.

I’ve always been a non-fiction junkie: oral histories, biographies, memoirs, a book of letters, cultural histories—these are the titles I spend my off time (what little I have) reading. I also—for many years—wrote about nonfiction books for various magazines, websites and newspapers, including the New York Times, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review, the Oxford American, Wallpaper and Playboy, where I was a staff writer for several years.

Nonfiction is now king when it come to sales. This seemed like a natural fit for me to break out of the so-called art book genre. I have also done several other word-driven nonfiction books.

From your experience, how would you explain what a developmental editor does to an author who has yet to dive into the publishing process?
A developmental editor is, first and foremost, the person who has to make tough decisions about what needs to stay or go, and how to best tell the story, at any costs. This is hard to accept, but it’s part of “the process.”

What is the most common mistake you’ve seen new authors make in their early drafts?
1. Not understanding grammar and how it works.
2. Writing a first draft that is longer than James Joyce’s Ulysses.

What’s your typical process like when working with an author on their manuscript? What can they expect in terms of feedback?
I dive in pretty deep. I usually read the book three times before marking it all up to see what can really go immediately vs. what has to be re-written, per se. This is a long process unless it’s one’s full time job. I usually have three to four months with a book of this length to get it into shape so that it can be made into galleys; then printed in its final format.

If you could give first-time authors one piece of advice on how they can improve their manuscript before handing it in for a developmental edit, what would you tell them?
Think about how others will read your work on a first pass when you finish your work. Then, ask yourself: Will the work grab their attention so that you can finish the book in a few sittings? If the answer is “No,” then you have to keep cutting the book down to the most digestible length before turning it into any publisher. This will save everyone A LOT of time and energy and avoid frustration and editorial impasses.

In the New Year I rediscovered the beautiful utility of audiobooks and podcasts—bookish ones, to be exact. Not only are they an amazing source for getting book recommendations while doing the dishes, but a great way to find the lesser-known stories of both legendary and aspiring writers, the lifeblood of the publishing industry. After waking up every morning I search my subscriptions for the latest episode that piques my interest while coffee’s brewing, then I’m off on a run listening to an interview with Roxane Gay (Lit Up), or a discussion of the book nerdiness of Obama (Book Riot) before I even dive into the work day.

Each day something’s happening in the world of books and there are seemingly infinite ways to keep track—from industry-leading Publishers Weekly newsletters to reader-focused Goodreads forums. My goal for staying on top of it is twofold: to deepen my knowledge of the history and practice of making books, while staying abreast of new developments, because publishing in all of its facets—selection, editorial, design, distribution and marketing—is changing. Studying both the history and evolution of this centuries-old industry—its traditions, quirks, strengths, and weaknesses…really, its opportunities—consistently informs our processes at Inkshares. This depth of knowledge and expertise allows us to be a more intentional, discerning, and efficient publishing house.

If you’re reading this you probably love books (and perhaps the stories of how they’re made) as much as we do. As we enter 2017, here’s a list of what I’m listening to and reading most:

How a Book is Born: The Making of the Art of Fielding

How about a short, cheap ebook to start us off? Expanded from an article published in the October 2011 issue of Vanity Fair, How a Book is Born is the origin story of how n+1 cofounder Chad Harbach’s 10-years-in-the-making manuscript went from being passed on by every top agent in New York to a literary fiction sensation with a $665,000 advance from Little, Brown (a nearly two centuries old publishing house recently acquired by Hachette, one of the Big Five publishers).  

It’s a boiled-down, unpretentious account of the publishing industry (up to five years ago), and reveals just how authoritative a bureaucracy these houses can be, despite the fact that the traditional role of publishers—editing, production, marketing, distribution—must now contend with huge wins in self-publishing and democratizations in technology. Specifically, this book does an admirable job at explaining the nuances of traditional roles in publishing and demystifying the inner-workings of a Big Five publisher:

“Publishing houses appear to be giant monoliths. In fact, in the end, they are the sum total of the judgment and taste of their individual editors—current editors, who buy the new books, and past editors, who created the backlist.”

The book could have dived deeper into how and why book-making is such an emotionally driven industry, and how this might change in the future. As it stands, it’s a concise chronicle of traditional publishing for $1.99;  you can get through it in one sitting and feel like you’ve learned a ton for one day.

Girl Friday Productions Blog

Girl Friday Productions is an author’s dream—a creative agency comprised of highly discerning publishing professionals with decades of experiences at traditional houses. It’s a fortress of book knowledge. The Girls (and Boys) Friday are responsible for the development of many of the amazing, polished books we’ve published to date (from cover design to cold read). They have a Pinterest board-like pool of book designers to source from and an arsenal of spectacular developmental editors.

They’ve imparted much of their knowledge onto their readership through their elegant blog, which covers a wide range of topics especially helpful to aspiring or new authors. Here are a few of the posts I found most insightful and practical:

How to Write a Great Query Letter

What Exactly is a Developmental Edit?

What to Do When Your Book Isn’t Selling

Plus, they have an amazing podcast, From the Margins!

The Jane Friedman Blog

If you’re a self-published author you’ve likely visited former publisher of Writer’s Digest, professor, and Publishers Weekly columnist Jane Friedman’s website more than once. With a particular focus on how the digital age informs and transforms writing and publishing, she regularly updates her Recommended Resources section, and includes guest posts from industry professionals and authors on her blog.

Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century

I’m cheating here, as this one is actually on my to-read list. I’ve already bought it, though, and what sold me here was a combination of the reviews on Goodreads and a recommendation from the hosts of the podcast I reference below—what’s known as the ever-elusive “word-of-mouth” method of book discovery, which asserts that a potential customer needs to hear about a book 3 or 5 or 10 times before they’ll commit to buying it. The publishers claim this book is “the first major study of trade publishing for more than 30 years,” so I’m all ears….eyes.

Book Riot: The Podcast

This is my favorite, most guilty pleasure type of resource on the list, simply because it’s just so fun to listen to. Co-hosts Rebecca Schinsky and Jeff O’Neal provide context and commentary on what’s new and noteworthy in the world of books and reading. They’re super smart, funny, and have great chemistry—their banter is so seamless and clever that you feel like part of the conversation.

I’ve started listening to Book Riot religiously and cruising back through the archives to relive momentous events or upsets in the publishing industry through past episodes (like when Amazon first announced the plan to open 300 brick-and-mortars), and I’ve happened upon some amazing stories I completely missed at the time (like when Jonathan Safran Foer started a movement to repurpose Chipotle cups by enlisting the literary community to “cultivate thoughts” on them, and Toni Morrison threw down the gauntlet. #WhenHighBrowMeetsLow)

Don’t know where to start? Here are a couple of my recent favorites:

Episode 190: 2017 Predictions and Wishes

Episode 187: The Best Books of 2016

Episode 176: Startup Douchebag Jargon

If you’re trying to publish a book and need to understand your options—or if you simply just love books and the stories of how they’re made—I hope you spend some time checking out the resources discussed here.

I’d love to hear about your own experiences with these, or what your personal favorite book-related resources are. Find us on Twitter: @Inkshares and @AvalonRadys.

—Avalon

The core operating team of Inkshares is only five people.  Thad runs all of the code and heads product.  Avalon and Angela split their time between production and marketing.  Elena runs all of customer service and fulfillment.  I split my time between strategy, partnerships, product, editorial, rights sales, and producing.  This is a lot of bases to cover as a small team, but in 2017 we’re trying to find more time to communicate with the Inkshares community.  I write today about Quill, our light publishing option.  I want to give some insight into (1) what Quill is, (2) why we started Quill, and (3) our thoughts on—and plans for—Quill.  

Quill offers a copy edit rather than a full developmental edit and print-on-demand rather than offset physical production.  Cover design is provided by the authors and although the books are available in our catalog—and are frequently ordered by bookstores—there is not a designated marketer at Inkshares.  Quill is thus somewhere between the services and distribution of a self-publisher like Amazon and traditional publishing services of “full Inkshares.”

We started Quill because we saw great books by talented authors not hitting “full Inkshares” but still selling a substantial amount of pre-orders, and we thought we could provide a level of editorial services and distribution superior to self-publishing.  Our hope was that authors would hone their skills and grow their readership—that Quill would be a “farm system” for Inkshares.  One of our first Quill books was Monkey Business (a great read) by Landon Crutcher.  I don’t know Landon personally, but our hope was that Landon would have a great experience with Quill, develop even further as an author, attract readers, and hit “full Inkshares” on his next book.  

There’s been a lot of speculation—largely incorrect—about Quill, so I want to give my thoughts on it and outline our immediate plans.  First, I want to articulate how highly I think of Quill authors and their stories.  I’ve gotten to work closely with both Amanda Orneck and Jaye Milius.  Their books, Deus Hex Machina and Terminus, were two of the first books to fund in Quill.  I’ve stayed up til 2 am reading Jaye’s pages and have gotten up at 5 am for calls with Amanda.  They are both exceptionally talented authors with bright futures in a genre that is still far too male dominated.  Second, I want to state clearly that our desire is to bubble up as many books to “full Inkshares” as possible.  I proposed The List as such a means, and it seems that after the guest judge’s selection that as many as six books will move from Quill to full publishing.  Third, I want to affirm that our goal for Quill remains furnish maximal value for authors.  On the business side, we’re working on a partnership with Reedsy—still in the early stages—that we hope will allow us to unlock deeper editorial value in developmental.  We’re also working with Mike Corley, one of our top cover designers—also the designer for great authors like Hugh Howey—on standardized Quill cover templates.  These templates will make them look and feel more like an updated version of Penguin Classics.  Here, for instance, is one such draft we played with for an Inkshares book titled The Punch Escrow by Tal Klein.

Quill, like all aspects of Inkshares, will evolve—as we learn from trial and error, and as we update the product suite at Inkshares.  Specifically, we need to streamline the Quill process so that the volume of titles being funded does not take up all of our time.  But those authors in Quill should feel confident that we’re working hard to deliver maximal value as consistent with our promise to them.  And the rest of the Inkshares community should rest assured that future evolutions of Quill will remain focused on Inkshares single goal: surfacing and developing the new author voices of tomorrow.

-Adam.

Beep Boop. First off, I would like to assure you that I am a friendly robot and not a Terminator. Although, in retrospect, I think that’s exactly what a Terminator would say. I am a real, living human with so many feels and a ton of work to do. I get a few emails a month asking me if I am real. That’s an existential crisis that I don’t have time for but I appreciate your question.

Do you ever make mistakes?

No. I am not programmed to make mistakes. 

Yes, of course I do. The best thing about our platform is that I can easily unmake them. I once accidentally deleted a guy’s project, then un-deleted it, which is supposed to be in violation of Newton’s laws of something. 

One time I messed up and got cussed out, called a piece of crap (paraphrasing for politeness). It hurts.

If you’re reading this, I’m not talking about you. You’re perfect.

Will you read my manuscript?

No.

Will you read my manuscript, it’s about a serial killer that is also a mermaid that hunts Nazis and has sharks for hands?

Yes, I will.

But really, I read drafts on the site all the time! Throw some chapters up on your project page and when I’m cruising the site after hours in reader-mode I’ll gladly dive in!

How to answer emails:

Beep bop beep boop, I will refund your order, Beep bop, thank you please.

How to not answer emails:

I love people—really. It’s kind of hard to remain professional when I get these awesome users messaging me and telling me how much they love us and our company. When an author asks me for an extension, or when a customer asks for credits, I want to say “Fo sho, boo-boo!”, but I can’t, because professionalism and stuff.

I really do care.

Really. This isn’t the Mickey D’s “we love to see you smile” commercial. I actually mean it. When you’re upset, I’m upset. Because I have a lot of pride and like to be on top of things, but also because feeling yucky feels yucky, and we don’t want you to feel yucky. Ok, I’m done saying yucky.

Yucky.

That was the last one.  

It is so easy to think that the faceless person behind the customer service account isn’t real, or that I’m a detached, outsourced shell of a person who secretly hates her job. I’m not, and I don’t. I love my job. Inkshares gives me a sense of purpose, an amazing work fam, a roof over my head, and most importantly, money for the taco truck.

Well, that’s all from me. I’m gonna go chow down on some motor oil…I mean, human food.

Until next time,

Elena Bot.

In the early days of Inkshares, we were able to connect personally with nearly every writer on the platform.  When Mike Mongo and Filip Syta signed up in 2014, we emailed them and set up Skype calls to get to know them and their stories.  I still spend about one-half of my day chatting with authors, reading manuscripts and giving notes.  And this year will see many talented development executives join Inkshares.  But there are now 10,000 writers on the platform, and we expect many new writers to come onto the platform this year.  This means that in most cases connecting on a personal level is difficult until we start officially working together to publish your book and represent you.  This aside, one of my goals in 2017 is to provide all writers on Inkshares, whether we’re officially publishing your book yet or not, with resources that help you both develop as a writer and realize the best version of your story.

In my twenties, both while in law school and while practicing, I was lucky enough to be represented as a screenwriter by a great management company.  I was constantly given resources, exercises, and guidance on the craft of writing.  It made me a substantially better practitioner of not just screenwriting but story.  The truth is that great writers aren’t born—they’re made.  And the same goes for great stories.  It is devotion to craft and development that turns the unrealized potential in the germ of an idea into a honed story with both literary and commercial viability.  I want to focus us, as a community, on that craft—the craft of developing great prose and great stories out of that prose.  Whether we’re officially publishing your book yet or not, I want Inkshares to furnish helpful materials, and introduce you to various story experts with whom we work.  

I want to commence this with a metaphor that I frequently give to authors with whom we’re working.  I don’t think I came up with it, but I can’t remember where I read it or who told it to me.  It has three parts.  The first part of the metaphor is actually a simile and goes like this:  a story is like a train.  It picks you up in one spot and drops you off in another.  The distance traveled is the measure of drama in that story.  It’s how much it moved people and what it meant to them.  It’s their tears, their tension, their laughter.  I have always found this a helpful framework to think about a story.

The second part of the metaphor is about who the writer is on that train.  It’s natural for a writer to think of themselves as a conductor, the person with a fancy uniform at the head of the train.  That notion is consistent with conventionally held myths about “the greats” and is supported by unfortunate look-at-me behavior of Twitter literati.  But that’s incorrect; and more than incorrect, it’s harmful.  The writer is the coal shoveler in the back of the train, covered in soot, lungs full of black dust, muscles spent.  Because it’s not the conductor who feeds the engine that drives the locomotive—it’s the sweaty, weary, and unthanked toiler in the coal car.  Absent that person, the train does not locomote. There is no journey and no drama, just a bunch of people who paid money and didn’t go anywhere.  I like this part of the metaphor because it fosters the workmanlike attitude that characterizes most successful authors.

The third part of the metaphor treats the coal that we shovel.  The coal is the stuff of story: characters with universalizable motivations and meaningful arcs, well paced beats that keep us wanting more, scenes filled with moments and dialogue that bring the story to life.  As a writer, your job is to create and shovel that coal, that viscera of story.  But the thing about coal is that it’s made from everyday organic matter like dead trees.  And however high concept or far-flung, that is what stories are made from—the little ideas that pop into our heads, the everyday things we see and hold on to, the basic human truths at the core of all great characters.  But like with coal, that everyday matter needs to be subjected to heat and pressure.  The heat and pressure which turns the little ideas and basic human truths into honed stories is the many outlines, character bios, beat sheets, drafts, and notes.  It’s the study, the slain darlings, the 90 percent of the iceberg that nobody but you sees, the ten pages you throw away for every one you keep, the notes you take when you think you’ve nailed it and just want to be done.  

I like this metaphor for many reasons, but chiefly because it breeds a workmanlike attitude focused on others.  Mediocre writers satisfy their need to tell a story.  They want to see their name foiled on the cover and tell people at cocktail parties “I’m a writer.”  As a rule to which there are exceptions, these writers fail.  Great writers, whether they “make it” or not, tell a story because they want to satisfy—to entertain and move—others.  They embrace the toil.  They don’t want the conductor’s uniform and don’t need to take a bow.  The only thanks they need is to know that the passengers made it to their destination.  

When I think of our community, I think of one big coal car.  Of lactic acid and aching joints, crumpled pages and weary eyes.  

We’ll write again soon when we launch the official Inkshares community page, which will have an events calendar, suggested reading lists, and other materials.

-Adam.