Category: Adrian Harley

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72 Hours Left to Pre-Order “Many Drops Make a Stream” by Adrian Harley

Our pre-order campaign for the sapphic fantasy novel Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley ends at midnight, GMT-12 (so, 8 a. m. Eastern Time on October 1st, 12 p. m. GMT). Make sure you order this fantastic, fun, dramatic debut before we close the orders. We’re less than $500 from reaching our next stretch goal!

Not hooked yet? Read the blurb!

A memory-stealing cult.
The ever-watchful City of Eyes.
Making small talk.
Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…

Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.

Today, we’re sharing our last teaser before the end of the campaign!

“Subterfuge isn’t one of my strength,” Droplet admitted. 

“You’re literally posing as a wealthy human businessperson, back home. What do you think that is?”

“That’s easy subterfuge. Every rich human thinks they’re better than all the other rich humans in the room. I know I’m better than all the rich humans. Nobody suspects a thing.”

–excerpt from “Many Drops Make a Stream” by Adrian Harley

Don’t miss the chance to get this awesome, entertaining book by an up-and-coming queer author. Pre-order Many Drops Make a Stream!

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5 Interview Questions with Adrian Harley

Many Drops Make a Stream features Droplet, a vigilante shapeshifter, assuming many animal forms while she takes on the corrupt powers-that-be of the fantasy world she inhabits. Today, the novel’s author Adrian Harley joins us to answer five questions about Droplet specifically and in the book in general!

Q: How did you build the world for Many Drops Make a Stream?

A: I’ve been writing in this world since I was 13, full of confidence, when my only guide for what showed up in my fantasy world was “What do I personally think would be cool?” I highly recommend this, it was great fun. The twenty years since then have been a slow process of asking myself questions, which has also been great fun. I asked myself things like “why does this world have half-human, half-animal hybrids?” and “what’s beyond that mountain ridge on the map?” This has resulted in dozens of story ideas, some of which are even drafted, and I hope a lot of them make it to final book form some day.

Q: Tumblr user definitely-not-a-shark asks, “There are so many wonderful animals that Droplet gets to shapeshift into! Which of them is your favorite form, and why is it the shark?”

A: Tragically, a shark form did not make it into the final draft of this book, so it cannot be a shark. I ended up with a surprise favorite form – I loved writing Droplet as a rat. The runner-up is Droplet’s goose form. I have a soft spot for geese. I find their total disregard for people and open hostility very entertaining. I started writing Many Drops Make a Stream before Untitled Goose Game came out, but that sort of aggressive commitment to upending order is something I enjoy writing.

Q: Following up on that, what animal would you love to write that you haven’t written yet?

A: Otters, definitely. Otters or some other kind of mustelid. That bounciness and playfulness would be quite a change of pace for Droplet, but we may see more shapeshifters who would be more at home in an otter form. I’d also like to write Droplet taking on a rabbit form, in homage to Watership Down.

Q: What was the first story you ever wrote?

A: Before I could write, I dictated stories about Land Before Time characters to my mom, who wrote them down for me so I could illustrate them with dinosaur stamps. I don’t remember the first story I ever wrote myself, but it was probably about a cat. I don’t even know how many magical cat stories I came up with as a kid.

Q: What are some hobbies you have outside writing?

A: I absolutely love being outside. I take a lot of walks, and I go on hikes as often as I can. I do my best brainstorming out walking in the woods, too. My main sedentary hobby is reading, closely followed by checking out books from the library that I do not read, which sit on my end table for a month before I return them.

Have you read about the Many Drops Make a Stream pre-order campaign? Have you read the free story opener included in the Duck Prints Press zine?

You have? Awesome! You must have more questions, then – and we’d love to hear ‘um. Comment or drop us an ask, and Adrian will answer you!

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Get 4 Story Excerpts: Read the Duck Prints Press Zine!

This debut online PDF edition of the Duck Prints Press zine includes general information about the Press, where to find us on social media, how to buy our books, and, most excitingly: FREE EXCERPTS! Yes, download this 20-page PDF, and you can read the openings of four stories. And don’t worry – the zine is SFW!

The first five pages of Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley. Pre-orders are open through September 30th!

Many Drops Make a Stream is a fantasy novel featuring the shapeshifter Droplet as she embarks on a rescue mission, loses a found family and tries to convince herself she doesn’t want to find another, and stumbles into a sapphic pre-relationship. All the laughs and drama that author Adrian Harley could fit between the covers!

The first two scenes of Theirs All Along by boneturtle. Available now!

Theirs All Along is the prequel introduction story to boneturtle’s Pet Names verse, featuring sexy established-relationship M/M/M fantasy smut and lots of emotional intimacy. Husbands Aren, Samael, and Mithros just want to take care of each other…

The first two scenes of Be Not Afraid by Nicola Kapron. Coming September 28th!

Be Not Afraid tells the story of Tora as he faces a personal apocalypse in the midst of an actual actual apocalypse…and a M/M “OMG they were roommates” get-together story.

The first chapter of To Drive the Hundred Miles by Alec J. Marsh. Pre-orders open October 5th!

To Drive the Hundred Miles follows trans man Will as he returns home for the holidays, confronts his family’s clumsy attempts at “support,” and finds comfort at the local coffee shop. Features family feels, a nascent M/F relationship, and a splash of smut.

Download the PDF NOW and get a glimpse of all the great stories Duck Prints Press has to offer!

Who we are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fan creators publishing their original works. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Want to always hear the latest? Sign up for our monthly newsletter! Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, and claim free stories? Back us on Patreon monthly!

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Time is Running Out to Pre-Order “Many Drops Make a Stream” by Adrian Harley!

What is Many Drops Make a Stream? Why, it’s the debut sapphic fantasy novel by author Adrian Harley!

A memory-stealing cult.
The ever-watchful City of Eyes.
Making small talk.
Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…

Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.

Pre-orders for Many Drops Make a Stream are open through September 30th, 2023!

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Teaser for Adrian Harley’s “Many Drops Make a Stream”: Oops…

Exciting news, everyone! The pre-order campaign for Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley has hit the first stretch goal – we surpassed $4,000, and everyone who backs for a pre-order package will get a bookmark! We’re so happy. Thanks to all the backers who contributed to making this possible.

We’re also about a fifth of the way to making our next stretch goal, $5,000, at which point we’ll make a wooden pendant for pre-order package purchasers. So if you’ve been on the fence, there’s no better time than the present to order your copy, and get the book, the merch, and these awesome extras (that don’t cost backers a penny more to receive!)

Now, on to today’s teaser!

A boisterous crowd of blood mages came straight for Droplet and Azera’s table.

Azera has good people skills. Surely she’ll think of a way to get us out of this, Droplet thought.

Five minutes later, still in her seat, surrounded by blood mages, Droplet realized that Azera may have been relying on her to get them out of this.

Oops.

-excerpt from “Many Drops Make a Stream” by Adrian Harley

Read other teasers, get to know the author, learn more about the book, and more – check out our pre-order campaign now!

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Five “Top Fives” with Adrian Harley!

We sat down with Adrian Harley, author of Many Drops Make a Stream, their debut sapphic fantasy novel (pre-orders are open now!), so we could learn about five of their favorite things in five categories!

Read on to learn some more about Adrian—who knows, maybe you share some favorites!

Five favorite queer books

  1. The Locked Tomb series, by Tamsyn Muir
  2. Rust in the Root, by Justina Ireland
  3. Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, by Akwaeke Emezi
  4. Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, by Ashley Herring Blake
  5. The Teixcalaan Series, by Arkady Martine

Five places you love to write

Here’s where I admit that I am very boring and write in one of two places: 

  1. My favorite chair inside the house
  2. Out on my porch

But someday I’ll change that! To round out the list, three places I plan to write:

  1. The cafe attached to the bookstore downtown
  2. Overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway
  3. The forest park near my house

Five writerly goals you have

  1. I’d love to write an epic high fantasy someday—one of those sprawling epics that goes for 500,000 words at least.
  2. I want to publish more books in the same universe as the Droplet series. I have a few drafted and many, many more plotted.
  3. I would like my readers to be inspired to write fanfic. If my fiction ever gets requested at Yuletide, I’ll know I’ve made it. If my fiction ever gets too big for Yuletide, I don’t even know what I’ll do.
  4. I’d like to write faster! Ideally, I’d like more hours in the day, but given the impossibility of time travel, I’ll settle for more words per fixed 24-hour day.
  5. I would like to always incorporate weird animal facts in some way.

Five works that inspired you to write Many Drops Make a Stream

  1. The Animorphs series, by K. A. Applegate
  2. Leverage (TV series)
  3. The original Abhorsen trilogy, by Garth Nix
  4. Thief of Shadows, by Elizabeth Hoyt, was the most direct inspiration. The romance channel in my slack group kept calling this book Regency Batman, and we’d discuss shifter romances, so the logical mashup of Shifter Batman popped into my head.
  5. Following on that, I think my fifth spot has to be the entire shifter romance genre, for making me go, “but why would you have them turn into just one animal?? You could have every animal! Why limit yourself?” This is before I realized I was nonbinary.

Five ideas you have for future books starring Droplet

  1. One of the first things in my notes for Book 2 was “BABY HEIST.” I’ll let you all guess what that means.
  2. Azera starts [Many Drops Make a Stream] having been jilted by her rich fiancée. At some point, that rich fiancée is going to need Azera’s help…
  3. Droplet’s old organization has been scattered across the world, but many of them are still working to take down the rich and powerful. An old friend will show back up in future books.
  4. There will be at least one murder mystery.
  5. Business people will learn more about shapeshifterkind, and nobody will be happy about this.

Thanks for your time, Adrian!!! And, dear person reading these awesome fave fives, don’t forget to check out the book!

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“Many Drops Make a Stream” Excerpt: Meet Mr. Sunshine

Droplet, the main character of Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley (pre-orders open now!) is a shapeshifter who can take many forms. Last week, we met her goose form; today, we introduce her most intimidating dog form: Mr. Sunshine, who is a very good dog.

Droplet used the most intimidating dog form she had, more wolf than dog, her shoulder higher than Azera’s waist and mouth sporting a killer’s snarl. This was from a dog named Mr. Sunshine, who’d been so flattered by Droplet’s request to honor him by taking his form that he’d licked her whole head. But nobody needed to know that.

-excerpt from Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley

If you want to see what other creatures Droplet can become, why not pick up a copy of the book and meet ‘um all?

The pre-order campaign for Many Drops Make a Stream is only $100 from meeting our first stretch goal! There’s no time like the present to read all about it!

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Beware the Eyes of Sacarus: Excerpt from “Many Drops Make a Stream” by Adrian Harley

Pre-orders are open now through September 30th for Adrian Harley’s debut novel Many Drops Make a Stream, and we’re back with more excerpts!

In Sacarus, the people weren’t the only ones watching.

The Eyes of the City were not everywhere, all the time—much as the island enforcers would like them to be. But at any moment, a black-ink sketch of an eye could appear on any wall in the city, facing in or out. Watching.

You can learn all about Many Drops Make a Stream, pre-order your own copy, read more excepts, and more, by visiting our website! Take a peek now!

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Pre-Orders Now Open for “Many Drops Make a Stream” by Adrian Harley!

Pre-orders for Adrian Harley’s debut sapphic fantasy novel Many Drops Make a Stream are now open!

A memory-stealing cult.
The ever-watchful City of Eyes.
Making small talk.
Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…

Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.

Many Drops Make a Stream, Adrian Harley’s debut novel, is the stand-alone first book in a series of related fantasy-mystery-heists featuring the shapeshifter Droplet and the friends and found family who work alongside her to fight the corrupt powers-that-be. Many Drops Make a Stream is rated general (adult) audiences and features shapeshifting shenanigans, a nascent f/f quarrelers-to-lovers pre-relationship, a wonderful extended cast of family and pseudo-family, necromancy and blood magic and spellwork (oh my!), and one (1) very angry goose.

For this campaign, we’re offering:

Better yet, you can get a discount by picking one of three bundles:

You can learn all about the book, the author, the campaign, and our offerings by visiting the pre-order page NOW!

Want a chance to win a trade paperback copy of Many Drops Make a Stream? Help us spread the word about this campaign by liking and signal boosting our posts on any of our platforms that including “sharing” functionality (such as Tumblr, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook), and you can get up to 4 entries per platform where you share!*

Campaign backers will also get bonuses based on the number of signal boosts our posts receive! All the social media links for sharing are on the linked pre-order page, so help us tell the world about the awesome book, and who knows – you might win a copy! (But only if we fund, ’cause we can’t afford to print the book if we don’t fund, so help us make sure people who want to buy The Awesome learn that The Awesome exists!)

*sweepstakes rules and conditions
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Meet the Merch! Check Out the “Many Drops Make a Stream” Extras

It wouldn’t be a Duck Prints Press pre-order campaign if we weren’t offering some absolutely awesome extras to go with your book purchase! When we open pre-orders for Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley TOMORROW, we’ll also be offering some merchandise – and you’ll be able to choose to buy a package that includes merch, or you can mix-and-match to get exactly what you want, or you can get just the book, if merch is just really not your thing. (You can preview the campaign deets here).

Wondering who Droplet is and why there are so many animals? This is a good moment for a refresher on the Many Drops Make a Stream blurb!

A memory-stealing cult.
The ever-watchful City of Eyes.
Making small talk.
Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…

Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.

Shapeshift main character? A chance to show off lots of fun animal forms? Heck YES that’s the direction we went when planning out the extras!

So what have we got for you?

An enamel pin of Droplet mid-transformation from a tiger to her signature goose form, 2 in x 2 in/5 cm x 5 cm, with glitter in the background color, featuring art by Aceriee (Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter). (Manufactured by Alchemy.)

Goose!Dux, the Droplet books’ custom Dux, as a die-cut sticker approximately 3 in x 3 in/7.5 cm x 7.5 cm. Designed by Alessa Riel. (Printed by Vograce.) “Goose” is Droplet’s favorite form (for good reason!) so when Dux got decked out for this book, of course we designed a Dux-goose.

An art print of the front cover (8 in x 10 in/20.25 cm x 25.5 cm), featuring Roui Cris’s (Tumblr | Twitter | Artstation) gorgeous artwork of Droplet and Azera flying over Sacarus, the City of Eyes. (Printed by PrintKeg.)

Patreon-exclusive extra: a wooden coaster (4 in./10.25 cm circular) engraved with art TO BE REVEALED. (it. might be a goose. just sayin’. there’s a Theme.) The artwork is by Aceriee, and the coasters will be manufactured by E. Conway, who also works with DPP as an editor.

How do you get the Patreon-exclusive extra? Easy! You just have to do two things: 1. Back our Patreon at the $10/month or $25/month level; and 2. Support this campaign by buying at least one of the pre-order offerings.

We’ve also got some merch-related stretch goals – depending how much money the campaign raises, we may also make a bookmark featuring the front cover artwork, an engraved wooden pendant with the Eye of Sacarus (that’s the eye motif featured on the cover!), and a wooden key chain featuring Goose!Droplet. We really hope we’ll be able to make some of this merch, too.

There is only ONE MORE DAY until this pre-order campaign launches on the Duck Prints Press website. Are you excited? Cause we’re hella excited. <3

(btw, in case you’ve been wondering when tomorrow, I expect to make the shop listings live sometime in the AM, EDT, and to make all the related updates to the Pre-Order Page and announcements on our social media shortly thereafter. Also, hi, I’m Claire Houck/unforth, the book’s editor and owner of the Press. I’m handling our marketing for this pre-order campaign! Nice to meet ya. 😀 )