We’re having an amaze-balls week here in McSciFi-Land. Let’s just dive into the juicy stuff. Last Saturday I was informed I’d been selected as one of the Who’s Who of Emerging Writers. The nice people at Sweetycat Press, a nonprofit publisher, assemble lists of authors, collect bios, and then pare the list down until they’re satisfied. They don’t charge authors, nor do they allow any to promote themselves to the panel. Basically, you’re either accepted or not, you have no say in the process. 

And I like that. I can do nothing with the best of them. And to get global recognition for doing nothing is just the icing on the cake.

They will be releasing a book, containing the biographies of the 110 authors selected, on May 1 and I will post links when it’s live. They were aiming to select 200, but they wouldn’t add authors just to pad the totals. Of the accepted authors I have met since then I can honestly say they truly are global. And diverse as diverse can be. No one genre dominates the list, and some of the stuff I’ve been able to check out so far makes me wonder how I got in. There are some incredible talents here. 

The image below is a screenshot of the rules. You’ll note they exclude all self published authors. While I know some successful authors who self publish, I can also understand Sweetycat’s concerns. It’s hard to verify claims if a single person is controlling the narrative. 

Much more below.

In other exciting news, the primary distributor for the comics I write, Nerdanatix, has partnered with ICC Magazine, a happy zine that includes me as its Assistant Editor, to create an indie PR Juggernaut. Not to be confused with Hybrid Zero: Juggernaut. As Nerdanatix has grown it’s been able to add more brick and mortar stores while increasing its digital footprint. Meanwhile, ICC Magazine has been attracting bigger names, and garnering the attention of companies that have an international presence, while still remaining staunchly indie.. 

This is a great example of the right thing happening at the right time. Add in the fact that the entire partnership now has an exclusive printing company, Valor Printing, LLC., and they suddenly become the one stop shop for indie creators. Distribution, promotion, and printing all under one roof. Which has already brought costs down so, once again, I win for doing nothing.

This is not a bad trend as far as I’m concerned.

In the meantime, Hadithi Sambamba continues its dominance in the indie comic world with four titles represented in the top nine positions at Nerdanatix. Rankings are based on online reads, sales, and licenses.

To read any title, note all are NSFW, just click on “Read Chapter” at the bottom of the page you’re at via each link.

Legends Parallel
A man, his mom, and her lover have to save the multiverse

Hybrid Zero: Cassandra and the Changeling Sword
96 year old dead woman is now a teenage shinobi on another Earth

Hybrid Zero: Jungle Grrl
A nice girl works in a futuristic sex park with her best friend and a dinosaur clone

Hybrid Zero: Juggernaut
The fun multiverse where sex is lauded, violence is taboo, and a family of assassins is our only hope

Still more below.

Finally, Splice is in the final round of edits and should be made available to beta readers sometime next week. If you’d like to be one just email BillMcSciFi@gmail.com. Goptri of the Mists has been edited and beta read and is now being formatted. No easy task with that massive tome. Just formatting the appendix has been a multi-week task and isn’t 100% done yet. 

Seriously, I need to cut back on the caffeine. 

Also, if you have a spare prayer, please send it to Nancy Chandler, president of Azoth Khem Publishing. She’s been fighting some health issues, along with a botched surgery, and could use a little rainbow power to help her along. Or bourbon. She’ll gladly accept bourbon.

Other than that, the ongoing negotiations on a few fronts are still ongoing and I don’t see them wrapping up any time soon. That’s not a bad thing, everyone’s just being thorough. There are a lot of moving pieces and we’re tackling them one by one. 

Until next week, thank you all for your continued support. Without you I’d probably be pushing a broom and wearing a paper hat instead of sitting around without pants and getting paid to throw letters at a screen and pray for words.

I like this better.

Have a great week everyone!