I published RAVEN on May 20, 2020 — it’s time to celebrate! To mark its anniversary, The RAVEN ebook is free on Amazon for the next 5 days. Click here to go get it now! Share it with your friends, with young folks you care about (also the ones you dislike, ha!), with youth programs that encourage kids to enter STEM and tech.
Back when I chose that date, I had no inkling what a crazy first year my book was going to see. Over 1,500 copies of RAVEN are out there in the world now! I’ve spoken to audiences about why I wrote the book and what we need to do differently to encourage diversity in tech, on about 10 different occasions – including Bloomberg QuickTake. All done remotely, which has probably made it easier to reach audiences for my message.
Building from that energy, I’ve challenged myself to push Microsoft and the tech industry to bring more fiction to encourage diverse young people to enter the tech industry. And about 2 weeks ago, I spoke with the CTO of Microsoft about it! Let me share what he said: he was supportive, and agreed to be my executive sponsor. He likes the idea and agrees that this is something that can be funded feasibly (hooray!). He rightly pointed out the top challenge: bringing readers. He wants me to develop a plan for how we’d market the books that are created as part of my proposal. Believe it or not, publishers do not invest a lot in marketing the books they publish, so we’ll need to work on how we’d develop the market ourselves. But he is connecting me to other people he knows with experience in the publishing industry, to help me figure it out. I’m meeting with one of them this week! So overall, not a done deal, but still making progress. This initiative will take time to develop, but my Evil Plan to Save the World is still moving forward. Huzzah!
Meanwhile, the audiobook of RAVEN is coming Real Soon NowTM — it’s actually overdue, but the narrator is nearly done, and I’d rather get it done right than rush it. Once she’s finished, I’ll have to listen and ask for any revisions I want her to make, then give her time to fix it up. So it’ll still likely be a couple of months.
And I just received what’s probably the final revision of the outline for BOOK TWO from my writer on Friday! If I hadn’t been busy with a hockey tournament this weekend, it might be signed-off by now. Trucking right along! I’ve been meaning to run another Kickstarter campaign to give you all a chance to get in early on that… Look for it soon!
Thank you all for your support, your encouragement, and your suggestions. My mind boggles with how many people have lent a hand. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. This has been a fantastic year. ❤
