As you've probably heard by now: the book hit 100% funding and is now going to be published. It's all a bit much, to be honest.

Unbound are performing various rituals to ensure bestseller status - entrails and chanting, that kind of thing - and we'll be quietly pulling schedules and business things together over the next few weeks. I will try to keep this email short, but there's a couple things to say.

LATEST COHORTS, with job titles and ship assignments, and my sincere, slightly baffled thanks:

Carlo Navato, Asteroid Mining Consultant, GCN Brutalist Achievement

Daniel Ross, Tiger Attack Cleanup Officer, BD Unfortunate Rampancy

Katie Nordgren, Consul of Comedy, VC Light Him Early

Adrien Radke, Long-Jump Navigator, The Right, That's It, I'm Coming Over There

Hannah Penn, Bat Keeper, PR Watch It, We Have Bats

Adrian Everett, Social Secretary, MD It's... A Piece Of This Spaceship

Karen Walton, Head Financier, The Don't Make Me Fund This, Fine, Okay, I'll Fund It

Samia Gundkalli, Quizmaster, The Think! Think! Think!

K.L.Kettle, Nerf Herder, The Why Do We Even Have A Library On Board

Carol Whitton, Teabag Supply Chain Manager, KLK Two-Bag Situation

Anwen Hayward, Snake Barber, AW Kyatic Petrification

Frances Robinson, Lens Polisher, PD Watch It Yourself, We Have Lasers

Ewan Lawrie, Master of Ceremonies, GMH Gibbous Planetoid

Iwan Clarke, Marine Explorer, KFT We Dive From Orbit

And finally, a heartfelt thanks for the pledge that took us over the finishing line...

Lisa Quattromini, Completion Specialist, QTL Alexa the Avuncular

All of you - friends & family, fellow writers and artists, curious strangers and at least one wandering space scientist - have done me a great favour. I try not to be a giant sap in these updates so let me just say that I won't forget you for taking a chance on this project. Thank you. Very much.

OTHER GOOD STUFF

To misquote the great Tommy Wiseau: publishing is very strange these days. Starting a career as an author is hard even when you come from a position of stability and privilege, and if you don't then it can be almost impossible. I'm quite glad Unbound exists as a channel for stories that might not otherwise have the chance to reach people. Projects like Common People: An Anthology of Working Class Writers (30%), Pride, Not Prejudice (24%) and Others (73%) are just some examples. (They're all active and looking for supporters right now, by the way.)

I should also mention some ongoing solo projects that are really worth supporting: Ten Little Astronauts (72%), a murder mystery in space; Bobby Denise is Reigning Rampant (51%), a black comedy about a disgraced stage magician; and two timely, bleak dystopias in The Disappeared (34%) and Reset (30%). Honestly, there's just about something for everyone here.

As for books you can buy right now - here are some good ones you might not have heard of: All The Perverse Angels if you like complex time-spanning novels about love and loss and Victorian Oxford; A Murder To Die For if you like the idea of a murder mystery set at a murder mystery festival, and Angel Caging if you like weird short story collections spanning sci-fi, realism, satire and the surreal. There's loads more, obviously. There's loads of books. They get everywhere.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

I've had a couple questions about this. I'll be in talks with Unbound about scheduling over the next few weeks, then I'll be contacting people who've pledged for text-changing stuff (renamed planets and spaceships, that kind of thing) to finalise those details and get the manuscript into a final state.

There will be editing as Unbound's experts take out all my commas and discussions where they show me various cover designs and I rub my face lovingly on them. At some point the book will be magicked onto your ereaders and stuffed through postboxes for those of you wanting paperbacks.

We won't know specific dates for any of this until much later, but I'll keep you posted either via these emails or on my twitter. I hope you like the book. Thanks again. Very much.

-Niall xoxo