Yo, #FGU!
Yep, it’s true: I finally, actually, mostly, probably, truly have tentative release dates for my epic worldbuilding book, From The Ground Up!
WOW has this been a long haul. If you know the story, skip the next paragraph, but in case you don’t…….
I wrote the proposal for FGU waaaaaay back in 2012 when dinosaurs roamed the earth.* It took, mm, I think about a year to actually be accepted? (Now I want to go look that up…. Yep, nearly a year. I subbed the proposal in Nov 12 and got a contract in Aug 13.) After a couple of deadline extensions, I handed the book in almost exactly a year later, in Aug 2014. My amazing editor read it over a few times…. And recommended that I restructure the entire thing, and rewrite significant portions. This was a Good Thing; she was definitely right about it needing to be done! 😀 So, March 2015, I handed in the rewritten book. Woot woo! Then, due to some scheduling conflicts, the book had to sit for about nine months and patiently wait its turn (the nine months is moderately ironic since Kid 2 made her debut during this time frame, ha). Then I got to attack it for the next round of epic revisions, which were completed in July 2016. And then I amicably parted ways with the publisher in March of this year.
* Well, they roamed my house for the first time, since this was the year Kiddo 1 made his earthly debut.
So yeah, it’s been a long haul, though I need to note here that everyone I worked with through the publisher on this was amazing, and I am nothing but grateful for the time, love, care and attention they lavished on this project. It is a much, much better book because of them, and I have zero regrets – and hopefully, neither do they? 🙂
So, as noted in ‘yesterday’s’ post, I have found some amazing experts who have been willing to fact check in return for cake (incredible!), and they are working through the book at the moment. I’ve received the first comments back, and a couple of places will need to be fleshed out, so I need to do a bit more research and fresh writing, but on the whole it’s not looking too terrible.
At this point, I’m probably going to tackle the illustrations myself, which means they won’t necessarily look PROFESH, but they will at least be clear and legible and will do the job, because sadly, I don’t have $50 per image, or even $10 per image, to get the 30+ images made by something with more Skillz. Never mind. (If there is a preponderance of fluorescent dinosaurs in the book, though, you now know why.)
SO. RELEASE DATES.
With all of that as context, and working around my novel-writing schedule for the foreseeable future, THIS IS THE PLAN.
From The Ground Up is written in five sections; three of those stand alone. (Well, actually, two parts stand alone, and another two parts stand alone when combined together, har :P) So in order to work through all this in an orderly manner, and to have end products within people’s budgets, and make the very most out of all that EPIC and INSANE research I did, etc etc etc, these standalone sections are going to be released as books in their own rights as each part is completed, and then FGU-the-final-absolute-compendium will be released after that. The individual sections are about 30-35,000 words each, or about 130 – 170 pages, and will include all of the worked examples and templates and graphics from the full version.
Look, they even have tentative covers!
How To Create Cultures (parts 2 and 3 of FGU) is tentatively scheduled for January.
How To Create Life (part 5 of FGU) is currently scheduled for April.
And How To Map (part 1 of FGU) is scheduled for July, which means the whole big bundle of From The Ground Up is presently penciled in for November of next year (though it may be ready before that, possibly as early as September).
(Yo, I am releasing them out of order. It’s okay. They’ll each have their own intro/conclusion which will contextualise them and make them genuinely stand alone, I promises :3)
These three sections are, as you can see from the covers, forming part of the Inkprint Writers series, and will be priced accordingly ($5.99 for the ebooks, $9.95 for US paperback, $14.95 for AU paperback). FGU is aimed more at a textbook kind of market, though, so expect its price point to be A LOT higher – like, $9.99 for ebook, $24.95 for US paper and possibly as much as $39.95 for AU paper. Still cheaper than buying all three other sections individually, though, AND you get part 4, which won’t be available independently.
So there you go. The epic saga of FGU, which, if it comes out in November next year, will have been SEVEN YEARS in the making, with so much research and writing and brain-pretzeling, it’s indescribable.
I’m getting excited about the project again, and am also so totally, utterly, thoroughly ready for it to be DONE. Which is a good thing: this means I’m nearly there.
Nearly there, you guys. Nearly there. *\o/*