The 2016 Launch Pad Manuscript Competition has finally drawn to a close, and Human Resources has walked away with an amazing outcome; not one, but two major prizes:
Scott Free, the production company of Ridley and Tony Scott, are one of the three major partners in the Launch Pad Manuscript Competition. As part of the competition, they guaranteed to option at least one script as their major prize. They ended up selecting two, Human Anew by Irina Ivanova, and my novel Human Resources. Sir Ridley Scott has made some of my favourite movies of all time - to have a shot at them developing my novel is a dream come true. The announcement of this prize can be found here.
Inkshares are a book publisher that uses a crowdfunding business model to select the majority of books they publish. In keeping with that model, they applied it to the Launch Pad competition when determining the winners of their major prize (Inkshares are a partner in the competition). The model was simple; all 75 first-round finalists (as selected by the judges in the main competition) could compete. Their books would be available for pre-order on the Inkshares website. At the end of the competition, the three books with the most unique pre-orders (individuals ordering, not number of copies) would win.
The crowdfunding competition finished today at 12 noon PST. After an eight-week campaign, it was a nail-biting finish, with two other competitors neck-and-neck with me up to the final seconds. In the end, only one pre-order separated myself from second place. One, single, pre-order. I still can't believe it. It was such a close competition, Inkshares have since announced they are going to publish six of the books! You can read their official announcement here, and a similar announcement by The Tracking board here.
I'll be working hard over the Summer to finish off the manuscript and get it through the editing process with the publisher. My focus will be on producing the best book possible. I'll be posting periodic updates on my progress as well as planned timeframes as I know them.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me in getting this far. It has been an exhilarating ride, and we're only just getting started!