We’re taking care of a very special Tuesday newsletter blast today because something very special has happened: the latest Tellest Kickstarter has launched!

The post Special Tellest Newsletter – November 2023 appeared first on Tellest.

The official rules can be found here.

For now, let’s take a look at the winners from last month’s contest.

February 2022

Winner: Madison Ross

Runner-up: Brittany Stelmach

A new month is upon us, and we know that we’ve got aspiring artists already taking the lead and creating Tellest content.  If you know anyone who wants to share their artistic talents, this is the place to be!

The post Fan Art Winners – February 2022 appeared first on Tellest.

The last time I spent a few moments to talk about how Tellest was doing, we were deep in the throes of several projects.  Now, just a few months later, several of them are almost ready to be ushered out into the world.

If you’ll allow me a few moments, I’d love to talk about what’s coming soon to Tellest, and how you can get your hands on it!

Quantum Quest: Merge Dungeon

The first big bit of news is that Tellest’s first spin-off video game, Quantum Quest, has officially been funded on Kickstarter!  Just last week, we wrapped up that campaign, and it looks like we’re going to be launching the game as expected in just a few weeks.

Merge Dungeon has been a very interesting project to work on, and it’s another very cool item that I can tick off my bucket list.  I’ve always wanted to make a video game, so the fact that it’s this close to coming out is almost more than I can bear!  We’ve got a lot planned for it as well—even though it’s a casual game, we aren’t being casual about its development, and we have a pretty extensive road map planned for it over the next year.

Best of all, Quantum Quest: Merge Dungeon is completely free to play.

If you want to see more about Quantum Quest: Merge Dungeon, definitely feel free to check out the campaign page at the Kickstarter.  The campaign itself isn’t active anymore, but you can watch the video for the game, and play the demo!

Quantum Quest: Reinforcements

Merge Dungeon isn’t the only Quantum Quest getting some love.  We’ve also got the Reinforcements tabletop expansion coming to your gaming table later this year.  We’ve still got a tiny bit of testing to do, and we’ve got to tell a bit more of a story for a few characters, but the new expansion will be here in time for the holidays.

And best of all, when the game is gearing up, we’ll be getting new characters from the expansion into Merge Dungeon, adding further connections between the two.

Finally, Quantum Quest is getting some more love with an official novelization.  This companion tale connects Tellest and Quantum Quest in some very interesting ways, and leaves room for the world of Quantum Quest to continue to grow and feed into Tellest.  More on that later, though!

The Whispers

You’re seeing it left and right, I know!  The Whispers has been a project that I’ve been working on for more than half a year now, and it’s definitely one of the stranger ones that I’ve done.  But with dozens of votes cast, I’m not the only one telling this story!

Remember that when you see an email for The Whispers drop into your inbox, that’s your chance to help Declan save all that he’s ever known.  I anticipate that we’re nearing the halfway point to this story, but that means you still have plenty of power in your vote—join the Council of Whispers, and help them do what’s best for our unlikely hero!

Tellest Legends

Last but not least, it’s been a long time coming, but we’re still working on the final books in the Tellest Legends set of books.  Part of the delay there is me adding more books to the mix every few months, but I really should have committed to my schedule!

The good news is that among the two books that we have left, The Maelstrom and Tales of Tellest, Volume 2, the latter is nearly complete.  Since the anthology is being cleaned up by our editor currently, I imagine it will only be a few weeks before we start putting some more stories on the Tellest website.  Then, probably by the time we go to Keystone Comic Con later this year, we’ll have the newest set of shorts ready to dive into!

I want to thank you for being a part of the world of Tellest.  It’s people like you that keep me inspired and excited to make all these projects, and I feel like we’re exploring new and creative ideas all the time.  Hopefully soon we’ll have a slew of other cool projects to show off to scratch your fantasy itch!

The post State of Tellest – February 2020 appeared first on Tellest.

Back in October of 2017 (really!), Silver Serpent hadn’t even been released, and since then, we’ve had a handful of other books come down the pipe.  Quantum Quest wasn’t out yet, and we hadn’t even started the first Kickstarter for it.  Since then, though, we have seen a lot of momentum on a lot of different battlefronts.

Tellest Legends and Beyond

We’re nearing the end of this beautiful, long-gestating project.  I’m so close that I can almost sense the impending doom of when I have no more books I’m “committed” to writing!  I kid, of course.  While The Maelstrom is the end of a new era of Tellest books (Tales of Tellest, Volume 2 not withstanding), I’m excited to wrap up this second phase of novels.  This was the biggest commitment that I’ve ever made for Tellest, and I’m happy that I’ve been able to show people that it can be done!  I’m going to be even more careful about it next time though, because as we know, my writing process is a little on the slow side.  My game plan for the next big “set” of books is to have more of the books done prior to running an event like a Kickstarter.  While I’m incredibly blessed that people have been so patient, it also kills me that I can’t be as quick with the stories as I want to be.

That’s not to say that there won’t be little one-offs here and there to shake things up while we wait.  As you know, there are little secret side projects that I’m always working on, and they’ll fluff up my library over the long spans between those big releases.  Speaking of…

The Whispers

Back in June, I began the process of starting a new project that honestly has been very interesting to try and adjust to.  The Whispers is a story that has a life of its own—it’s what I’m calling an interactive novel, because the story doesn’t quite write itself, but needs the input of other people, in this case the readers.  This month we wrapped up the third chapter, and gave the story’s protagonist, Declan, his third set of choices.  I know a lot of the beats, but I’m being surprised in more ways than one about how we’re getting to where I expect to go.  Because of the structure of the tale, I have to be aware of more than just the linear path.  It’s strange and exciting, and knowing that the way that I expect to go could be the “wrong” way gives me a detour that I have to adjust to on the fly, but it’s actually been really fun putting it together.  I thought more people would have voted the opposite way as they did in the first chapter, and I’m excited every time I wrap up a chapter, to see what choices come next.  If all goes well, the story will go on for quite a while, and when it’s done, we’ll have a book to publish with a lot of acknowledgements inside!

Tellest Visions & Art from the World of Tellest

Also back in June, I finally put something really awesome together that I’ve been dreaming of doing for a while.  Tellest now has an official artbook, which chronicles the Tales of Tellest and Tellest Legends.  Believe it or not, we only barely scratched the surface of all the art we’ve amassed over the years, and if things keep going the way they are we’ll have a second book before we know it.  Tellest Legends collects more than 100 beautiful pages of artwork from so many of the great artists we’ve collaborated with, and you can get your signed copy right through the Tellest website.

Just as important as where we’ve been is where we’re going, and I can tell you that you’re in for another fantastic year of art through the end of 2020.  We’ve got new artists, new art styles, some old favorites returning for new sets of art, and more.  As we continue to perform well with all that we offer, we’ll attempt to surprise you in even more ways!

Quantum Quest: Quarterly, Reinforcements, Merge Dungeon and More

I didn’t realize just how much content we’ve put into Quantum Quest until I wrote out that header.  We’ve got a lot of love for this spinoff, it seems, and it should show based on how much we’ve done for it, and how much its expanded.  This is the piece I’ll probably spend the most time talking about, since we have so much coming out (or that has already come out).  First and foremost, hey, we released a tabletop game!  Within months of our last “State of Tellest” feature, we officially released Quantum Quest: The Living Dungeon, and it has gone on to be a hub for other projects that we’ve worked on over the two years since.

First, let’s talk about the Kickstarter that brought our game to life.  We missed our mark on the original Kickstarter, which would have allowed us to have the game printed overseas for a much better price.  From there we would have had to figure out distribution and storage and things of that nature, so it might have been a good thing that it didn’t work out quite like we anticipated.  A Kickstarter with a smaller goal several months later meant that we were able to have a domestic print run which completely blew up and did beyond what we needed.  That was fantastic, and we’re so blessed to have such awesome fans that helped us make that a reality.  All of our games were delivered and it sounds like people had a lot of fun, and we’re still adding value to that in a lot of different ways.

At the front of the pack, a few months ago we released a supplemental magazine for Quantum Quest that told our story, including the new projects we were working on, tips and tricks, and even a short story that will be exclusive to that magazine until Tales of Tellest Volume Two comes out.

Let’s talk about the other projects that are coming down the pipeline though.  We’ve been talking about Reinforcements, the first expansion for Quantum Quest, since the first Kickstarter came out.  And it’s remarkably close to being done.  In fact, the only thing we have left to do for it is continue balancing and tweaking to make sure it is as tight as it can be.  Although, to be fair, we’ll also probably get together a few more cards to do a special Kickstarter and Convention exclusive like we do for the original box.

The project that’s coming out before that, though, is one that we’ve been working very hard on for the past few months.  Quantum Quest: Merge Dungeon is a game that’s got the specifics in the name.  The objective is to merge monsters for the dungeon master.  In doing so, you make them stronger, and more valuable to the Living Dungeon.  Originally, it was a game that strictly adhered to the merges, and the need to see what monster you were creating next, but it evolved to also include a pretty cool arena, where you’ll see the adventurers from the card game, done up in an entirely new style—yet still with Sergei at the artistic helm.  We’re also adding awesome support in the form of our programmer, Jordan Hoover, and our composer, Dakota Pawlak.  We’re so close to putting together an open beta where people can actually play the game on their own computer, and give us feedback as to how to make the game play better, and what else they’d like to see.  We’re aiming for a late 2019 or early 2020 launch, depending on how things go, so keep your eyes peeled.

We’ve got even more potential Quantum Quest video game stuff coming down the line, too.  In addition to Merge Dungeon, there’s another project that we’re working on that we’re incredibly excited about.  It’s still in the very early stages, but we’ll be giving news on that before you know it.

Finally, we’re not far off from one last piece of bonus content from the Kickstarter we ran, and it’s going to be going out to backers from our Quantum Quest and Tellest Legends campaigns.  Quantum Quest is getting its own novelization, and I’m so close to the end of that story that I can almost taste it.  It’s surprisingly deep for the novelization of a tabletop game, and it leaves tons of room for intriguing questions and as yet unanswered mysteries.

That will wrap things up for now, but as you’re always aware, I’m constantly trying to explore new things for Tellest.  We’ve done so much already, but by this time next year, maybe we’ll be offering up some brand new ways to experience the world of Tellest.  Make sure to check back weekly for new art, and monthly for a new chapter from The Whispers!

The post State of Tellest – August 2019 appeared first on Tellest.

So, as some of you know, we didn’t quite hit the goals we were trying to for November.  The Kickstarter for Quantum Quest fell pretty short, and I sure as heck didn’t lose the pounds I was trying to, heh!

The awesome news is that I’ve got another NaNoWriMo in the bag.  The Quantum Quest novelization is 50,000 words strong, and it’ll probably end up growing another 20-25 thousand words before its done.

Here’s some more good news: that novelization is going to have the game to bolster.  We’re going to be running a new campaign for Quantum Quest in March of 2018.  We’ve rejiggered things so that we’ll be printing domestically instead of overseas.  Now, this does have its drawbacks.  For one, it’s going to be a somewhat more costly endeavor on a per-unit basis.  We’ll have to sell for $30 instead of $25, but we’re working on ways to build value into that package. This also makes international shipping a huge burden.  It’ll likely have to be a case by case basis where we determine how much we have to ask for people who want the game who are outside of the US.  We’re also still trying to figure what to do if we manage to somehow climb up to that $15,000 mark that we were looking at before.  Do we switch over and do overseas again at that point?  Not quite sure.  The original version of the game might have to remain domestic and then we can do huge print runs down the road.

The other good news about a domestic printing is that it’s usually handled much quicker.  With that in mind, we’re hoping we’ll be able to do another showing at Comic Con next year, where we can actually sell the game!

Alright, enough about Quantum Quest.  First and foremost, Tellest is a literary universe, so it’s time to talk books.  We’re so close to releasing the next book that I can almost taste it.  Silver Serpent just needs me to finish tweaking some things post-first-edit, and then off to the second editor it goes.  It’s a longer book, so it’s taking a while to polish, but I’m eager to get it in front of folks.  The other good news is that each of the three books that follow it are at least 66% done their first drafts each.  Arise, the sequel to Awake, is getting so good.  And with Heart of the Forest and the QQ novelization having been tackled over the course of the last three NaNoWriMos, they’re very near to done as well.

After that comes Stealing Seramore and The Maelstrom, as well as another short story compilation in the vein of Tales of Tellest.  That set is going to be nothing but short stories, as opposed to the earlier set that included the five novellas I wrote.  Trust me though, that book is going to be bursting with awesome.

So that’s it for now.  I’m hoping to have a great book ready for you soon, but until then, I hope everyone has a great holiday season.

P.S.: Another DeAngelo Christmas tale will be up on the 23rd (or so)!

The post Recovering appeared first on Tellest.

It’s time once again to let you know what’s on the docket.  With so much planned out ahead of us, there’s no better time than now to tip our hands.

Legacy Novellas

I’m still at the point right now where I am very, very happy with what we managed to pull off regarding the Tales of Tellest books.  From Mageborn to The Fall, every one of those books feels like good writing to me.  The stories are compelling, and the prose is relatively tight compared to my earlier work.  Sure, they’re shorter stories, but they taught me a lot, and they end when they are supposed to.  Not every quest is going to involve a thousand people, and not every memory is going to involve traveling across the world.  Somehow, we’ve still managed to tell what I believe are very compelling stories in the same world that will ultimately add to the overall universe.

One thing that we wanted to do to improve upon that quality included going back and tightening up some of the problem places we had.  Tellest developed a style guide a few months back, and we’re busy putting together some finishing touches on those five novellas and the short stories.  As such, we’d like to welcome Brandi Salazar to the team.  She’s a delightful second pass editor who will snag some of the problems that Nace and I may have missed. Sometimes, when you’re a little too close to a project, you can miss things more readily.

As of right now, there are no plans to give the original trilogy the same treatment.  We have a different game plan for that collection, but we’re not quite ready to divulge the information on that just yet. Just know that we are committed to bringing you the best stories we can.

Short Stories

Speaking of bringing you great stories, you’ll see that we’ve quieted down a little bit in the short story outlet in the previous few weeks. Preparing for the Kickstarter sapped my energy, and I aimed most of my creative output toward the bigger stories that you’ll see starting at the beginning of next year.

With that in mind, we’re happy to announce that we’re bringing Aaron Canton back for another set of three short stories that we’ll be preparing soon.  We also have some other writers that we’re hoping we’ll be able to debut, and we’re contemplating opening up Tellest writing prompts again to see if we can find the next Aaron Canton!

New Novels

So, word counts can be a bit dubious in nature.  NaNoWriMo considers a novel to be 50,000+ words, while the Nebula awards requires books to be 40,000+ words in order to qualify.  In any case, we’re hoping that our new books coming out starting next year will mostly qualify as novels.  With the exception of Dragonspeaker, each of these books should be longer than the books from our last wave.

Anyway, that was a bit of rambling preceding some awesome news. You see, even though we had the Kickstarter running, I’ve been on pace to knock out two of my books before their soft deadlines.  If things keep going well, both Lord of Thunder and Transformed will be done by the end of October, in first draft form.  They join the likes of Dragonspeaker which is already complete as a first draft, and Heart of the Forest, which is more than 70% complete.  With that in mind, we’re well on track to keeping up with our new goal of releasing a book every 10 weeks starting in March of next year.

NaNoWriMo

Last year, I participated in my first ever NaNoWriMo event.  I had to completely change the way I go about writing, but I learned a lot, stuck with my word goals, and managed to crank out my 50,000 words.

We’re going to be participating again this year, although it’s going to be a little bit off-rules, I’m sure.  I’m aiming to make Silver Serpent Chronicles my “novel” this year, and it might not qualify in format or word count.  We’ve been putting a lot of behind the scenes work into it though—much more than I typically do.  I like to learn the story along with my characters.  I’m a pantser more than a plotter, but I’m hoping that the outlining and preparing we’re doing for Silver Serpent Chronicles really makes it feel good when all is said and done.

It’s not official, but Rhianna is also planning on participating in NaNoWriMo—a mini-mo, if you will.  Come November, we’ll see exactly how far we’ve come!

Card Game

By now, everyone should know that our big side project, that we’ve been unveiling piecemeal, is an upcoming card game.  It’s influenced by Monopoly, D&D, Boss Monster and most of all, Tellest.  We’re still a little ways off from drawing back the curtain entirely, but we’re getting closer than ever.  We’re about 90% done preparing alpha art assets for the game, and then we’ll do a fair amount of internal testing before we introduce a beta team to join us.  After that, we’re actively seeking space at conventions to debut our game to a whole slew of new fans.

If all goes well, we’ll be ready to crowdsource next October.  Keep your eyes peeled for all the news we can hope to bring you regarding this cool new adventure in Tellest!

That’s it for now, but as always, we’ve got a ton of content just around the corner.  We hope everyone has an awesome holiday season, and we’re so looking forward to bringing you some great new books starting in March of next year!

The post State of Tellest, October 2016 appeared first on Tellest.

As many of you may know, I participated in NaNoWriMo this year.  It was a completely new experience for me, since most of the writing I’ve done for Tellest thus far has been pencil to paper in a notebook before it’s transferred to the computer.  In that way, I end up editing my book twice as I write it.  For NaNoWriMo, I knew that I was going to have to leave that kind of writing to the side, or I would never make my target word count in time.

50,000 words in 30 days is something that seemed a little beyond my skills, but as of today—with one day to spare—I’m proud to announce that I was able to meet that lofty goal.  I’m a NaNoWriMo 2015 winner.  Heart of the Forest is well on its way.  At that word count, we’re at about 100 pages written, and I’ve just started the twentieth chapter.  It’s still a long way to go, but I’m committing to a new task going forward, as a result of this first NaNoWriMo experience.

From now on, I’m going to write at least one chapter of a story per week directly on the computer, just like I’ve done throughout this November.  It’ll be my writing in its rawest form, so it won’t necessarily be the best display of my ability, but it’ll fulfill my promise to you that there will always be more content from Tellest that is ready to read.

Now, this will go on to serve two purposes.  First, it’ll mean that there will be more stories to read at a quicker pace.  My guess is that Heart of the Forest will be around a forty chapter story, so I’m about halfway there.  At this rate, I’ll have it done by the end of April.  At that point, it’ll be time to sit down with it and throw in some heavy edits to make sure that it’s a story worthy of your attention.

That brings us to our second purpose.  Writing in that style gives me the golden opportunity to bring my stories to you a lot quicker than the way that I currently do.  The Tellest Patreon page is the place where chapters of Heart of the Forest are currently being uploaded every Wednesday.  You have to be a patron to get early access to those snippets, but I’m announcing today that you only need to spend $1 a month to get that access (it used to be $3).  And here’s some even better news: even if you’re not a patron, there’s a chance you’ll see some of our exclusive early content there.  There’s a 1-in-3 chance you’ll see the art we commission early, and there’s a 1-in-10 chance that you’ll get to read Heart of the Forest early.

And I guess that kind of serves a third purpose then.  The more people that we know we’re working for, the more diligent we are.  If you know anyone who wants to be a part of that, let them know.  Tellest will only grow because of it!

Last but not least, I wanted to let you know about Tales of Tellest.  We started this campaign a long time ago (it’s almost been two years!), but it’s about time that it’s wrapping up.  In the next couple of weeks, all five novellas will have been released, as well as all twelve short stories that we committed to.  At that point, we’re going to be releasing the entire collection on Amazon, followed shortly after by a paperback release.  I wanted to personally thank everyone who has been so patient with all of that, and we’re looking so forward to bringing you that piece of Tellest.

Here’s hoping for more frequent updates in the future.  With NaNoWriMo just about wrapped up, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled broadcasts!

Cheers,

Mike

The post NaNoWriMo, Patreon and Tales of Tellest appeared first on Tellest.

Things have been somewhat quiet here for a little while.  We’ve had plenty of great authors featured in our book promos, and of course we haven’t gone a week without missing an awesome art update.  We even had a new short story that ran over the past month or so.  But there’s still more to come, and I wanted to pull back the curtain a little bit so that you could see what to expect.

Tales of Tellest: Volume One

While we’re working on the final novella, The Fall, we’re also trying to figure out where we’re at with the rest of the stories that are supposed to comprise this first bargain set of Tellest stories.  First off, let’s just talk about that fifth novella for a moment.  It’s a stubborn itch to be sure, and I’m not sure exactly when it is going to be done, but I can tell you that I work on it every day.  I probably should have expected as such from it – it’s such a crucial element in the overall Tellest story that I should have never been taken as off guard as I was with it.  And even fleshing it out as much as I am, I still feel like it is moving so quickly.  That said, we are nearing the end here.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and at that point, we’re really just putting all the pieces together.  After a quick stop at the editor, the final component will be in place.

We’ve also put together a “final” list of all the stories that are going to comprise this first set of Tellest stories.  Brought to you by a handful of authors, this is going to be one of the coolest things that I’ve ever done, and I can’t wait to actually be able to bring it to you.  Below, you’ll see the list as it stands right now.  Things are always subject to change, as we have a couple other writers who are considering things too, so a reshuffle is always on the table.

Tales of Tellest: Volume One:

• Mageborn
• Son of the Storm
• The Tinker’s Tale
• Awake
• The Fall
• Becoming a Man
• The Bubbles
• Cloudrider
• Dragonland
• Dream No More
• Fallen
• The Littlest Kobold
• “Masquerade”
• The Night Before Nadeus
• Practical Warrior
• Remembered in Gold
• “Untitled”

Tales of Tellest: Volume Two?

What’s that you say?  Volume Two?  Yes, it’s always been in the works, from the moment I started the Kickstarter for the original five.  When you have a mind that flows as much as mine does, it can get a little out of control, but I’m usually able to reign things in enough to get a cognizant idea of what direction I’m trying to go in.  And while I’m not sure of the details of other stories, I do know at least the five novellas that are going to make up this set.  By title alone, see what you can divulge from this:

• Alura Une
• The Crimson Veil
• Escape from the Nexus
• Ghosts of the Highlands
• King of the Forest

We’re still a long way away from the second volume, mind you.  These stories are going to be secondary to the return to the feature length novels.  Kaos, Steel Tip, Christopher and all the rest of the heroes from the Child of the Stars trilogy have many more stories to tell, and it’s possible that the scope of the world is going to grow that much wider because of it.

The Enemy Within Rerelease

Part of the Kickstarter deal that I made was getting new art for the original set of books.  We’ve had one that’s been kind of holding out for a while now, but we finally have it in place.  Leo is working on the cover for The Enemy Within, and even without full color, it is a sight to behold.  It really is a great way to end the commitment that was made, and I can’t wait to finally show everyone.  I’m also hoping it revitalizes sales on Amazon and Smashwords, but that’s yet to be seen.

The good news is, after that’s all put together, there’s just the matter of cleaning up The Bindings of Fate a slight bit in an effort to bring it up to the same quality that you’ve come to expect from the novellas.  Four or five years makes a heck of a lot of a difference in the quality of a writer’s work, and I want my readers to be comfortable across the board.  So stay tuned for that!

That’s not all that we’ve been working on.  As always, we’re on the lookout for new talent, new opportunities, and new adventures.  We’re in talks with a few close contractors that you might have seen us work with before, and, behind closed doors there’s a super secret project that we’re beginning preproduction on.  Once some steps have been taken to protect our interests, we’ll announce that.

In the meantime, thank you for being a loyal reader.  We’re going to make sure you never regret putting your faith in Tellest.

Cheers,

Mike

The post State of Tellest, March 2015 appeared first on Tellest.

So far, we’ve seen the oldest heroes of the book series (Kaos, Dirk and Steel Tip), and we’ve traveled to Atalatha to see their champions (Alicia, Zachariah and David).  Today, we’re rounding out the biggest heroes from the second half of The Bindings of Fate.

Here, you can see the characters that we were introduced to once Westwick was discovered in the book series.  Christopher and Holklund were specifically found in that town, while Kaos and his companions happened upon Anson and Adelia on their way to stop Blacklehn from destroying Atalatha.  They’re all featured from top to bottom in the order they appeared in the book.

There’s a couple of interesting things to note here, too.  I made two versions of Holklund – one with pupils, and one without, to denote his power to see through other people’s eyes.  Anson is the only character besides Dirk not to be presented without a weapon or a spell.  And Adelia took me 16 different tries before I was finally happy with the version of her I ended up with.

So, that’s it for Tellest Pixels.  It was a fun little side project, but I mostly wanted to focus on the young heroes of the stories.  That isn’t to say there aren’t more that we could do.  You’ve got the Knights of Virtue, the antagonists, and everything from the rest of trilogy and the series to follow.  If I get a lot of positive feedback on these, perhaps I’ll consider adding more to the list!

The post Tellest Pixels 3 appeared first on Tellest.

We’ve gone nearly half a year without an informed blog talking about what our plans are, and I thought we needed to remedy that today.  Between writing, planning updates, working on side projects and personal enrichment, you’d think that there wouldn’t be much time to talk, but oh, you’d be wrong!

Let me address just a couple of the things that are going on in Tellest.

Continuing to Evolve

Once again, we’re constantly switching up our presentation.  Recently, Paul Davies spruced up our header, and Kevin Gallagher gave us a video that much better demonstrates our values.  Now that we have higher quality art constantly on display, it makes sense to have a more beautiful look for ourselves.

We’re still going to make tweaks and adjustments, especially as the new book covers continue to roll in.  When we have The Enemy Within, As Darkness Falls and The Fall spruced up with new covers, we’re going to make a new content trailer that will help get the word out about Tellest somewhat.

And of course, we’re going to continue to invest in great art that demonstrates crucial environments, characters and races of Tellest.  That’s what we’ve found to have made one of the biggest impacts this year, and we don’t want to stop doing that, even if we have to slow down.

Tales of Tellest ,The Child of the Stars Trilogy and Beyond!

The Tales of Tellest is nearing its end – at least for the first volume.

We’re going to continue putting work into the Child of the Stars trilogy, so that it can be the best fantasy series ever.  We want the quality of The Bindings of Fate to be on par with the new stories.  The Tales of Tellest is a great entry point for the universe, but we want Kaos’ first adventure to be just as alluring.

While we work on the rewrites for Bindings, we’re going to work on new Tales of Tellest stories on the side.  The novellas are a great way to keep interest in the world at a fair pace, but we have other stories that we want to tell as well.

The Tales of Tellest: Volume One stories that we’ve told had a lot to do with characters we’ve had some familiarity with.  The next group of stories is going to focus on new characters instead.  In the meantime, we’re also going to try and take a few steps back and see some prequel material for Kaos and Mathias.  Our goal is to make sure that you always have something to read, with a minimal amount of time between stories.  Whereas this first run for the Tales of Tellest has been relatively non-stop, we’re going to have larger gaps for our next run.

Encyclopedia

What we’ve decided to do is consider every big flow of encyclopedia entries a season.  We had the initial 25 entries that we released, and then we moved into another 50 items, which we are considering season one.  Now, season one is coming to a close, and we’re going to take some time off until Season Two begins.  What we’ll do in the meantime is freshen up some older encyclopedia entries with new pictures and links so that it feels like a wiki.

In the future, when we have more authors working on stories concurrently, these encyclopedia entries may have smaller gaps, but for now, the quality cannot be undermined by the quantity, so we hope you understand.

Heart of the Forest

We’ve got one more bit of news that reflects our need to take time into consideration.  Heart of the Forest, the game that will focus on Steel Tip, is being put somewhat on hold.  This is because the main part of development has transitioned over to programming, which is a very expensive part of the plan.  We’d need about $2000 before we could have a very basic demo in place.  Unfortunately, with a wedding coming up, I can’t be throwing my money into this project as much as I want.

That said, you never know what could happen.  The books could start selling three hundred copies a month like they did back in 2011.  With what equates to another paycheck each month, I could probably bring Heart of the Forest back into the forefront again.  For now, it’s just taking a much needed reprieve while we focus on the books that have become so important.

Besides those things, we’ve been keeping our nose to the grindstone.  The Fall is coming along nicely, as are some of our short stories, and you’ll have more to look forward to in the weeks to come.  We’re nearing the end of our banner year for Tellest, and I have you to thank for it.  You’ve been incredible, and I hope that these books are a well earned reward!

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