That’s right. I made goal in under 8 hours.
I owe a billion responses to people and a hundred billion thank yous, but right now I cracked a bottle of my traditional celebration beer (Arrogant Bastard Ale–so tasty!) and I’m going to have dinner with my family.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you to everyone who pledged and to everyone who shared the news.
As I write this, my Kickstarter project is at 80% of goal after only four and a half hours. So, that’s wacky pants and completely unexpected.
That said: As soon as we hit goal, I’ll open up more slots for the hardcover omnibus edition. That seems to be the format that most people prefer and I only limited it because they’re expensive to print and ship. Delivering physical goods is the kryptonite of most Kickstarter projects, and I guess I was over-cautious.
Also, I know I need to prepare to some stretch goals, and I’m doing my best to estimate those costs. I don’t want to rush into a promise I can’t keep.
That said, I do have A KEY, AND EGG, AND UNFORTUNATE REMARK already written (working title: “The Auntie Mame Files), and I’m doing the math to work out how much I’d need to get that book ready to publish. I already found an excellent editor to work on it, but I’d have to figure out the art and typesetting, too.
There’s also the short story collection, which will include the new Twenty Palaces story. That story will get written and the collection will be released no matter what; the pledges would only go to cover art and editing.
So, thank you to everyone who has pledged so far.
Here is the video. Warning: Contains me.
If the video doesn’t show up, you can click on the direct link.
Yes, the goal is high. I know it is, but printing those copies (especially the omnibuses) will cost quite a lot. So will shipping hardbacks with 350K worth of fiction in them.
Then there’s the art inside and out, the editing, the whole thing is spendy. Very spendy.
But yeah, I’m nervous about that goal. ::wrings hands:: Hey, even if you aren’t planning to pledge for the project, I’d like to ask folks to take a look at the video and maybe spread the word a little bit. Everything helps.
If you’ve previously signed up for my newsletter, check your inbox (or your spam folder). I just sent out an update about the Kickstarter for The Great Way, including an approximate start time.
Of course I will also announce the project launch here and on my social media–in fact, you might be sick of hearing about it before too long–but subscribers to my newsletter will hear about it first. Since a few high-end reward levels will be limited, they will get the first crack at them.
If you would like to receive my newsletter and get all the Kickstarter news first, you can still sign up through the form here.
Let’s see if I can briefly cover everything that’s been going on.
First, I’m revamping the Kickstarter page pretty thoroughly. As I mentioned before, I asked some folks with KS experience to check it over and I made a bunch of changes. Then my agent had a look and she told me that I was underselling everything. Like a lot of writers, I’m not the best advocate for my own work. She encouraged me to explain why the books are actually fun instead of, you know, doing the whole “Here’s a thing I wrote you might like it maybe” bit that writers do.
So, revisions. I have new text for the main page ready to go and I’ll be shooting a new video this week. As some of you folks know, I get ugly red blotches on my face when I eat certain foods, so I’m trying to be super careful about every meal until then. I don’t think it would help me make my goal to have leprosy face.
By the way, if you want to know when the Kickstarter launches before anyone else, you should sign up for my newsletter in the form on this page.
The print edition of TWENTY PALACES is still a few weeks off. Everything takes longer than you think it should. That’s the law.
Finally, while the Kindle version of TWENTY PALACES is still only $2.99, there’s a sale price of $5.99 for CHILD OF FIRE, GAME OF CAGES, and CIRCLE OF ENEMIES. If you read from the Kindle and have been meaning to pick up some or all of my books, you’re not going to get a better price.
I recommend starting with the prequel, although I wrote each book to stand alone.
There are shiny new ideas for me to work on, but I have so much revision and other work ahead of me that I don’t expect to get to any of it before the end of the year. Yeah, that sucks; we only get so many productive years in this life, but it needs doing.
More later.
You guys know I’ve finished draft zero of The Great Way and that I’m planning to bring it out into the world myself, via Kickstarter. “Where is this Kickstarter?” some have asked, “I have money I want to give you!”
Hey, I want to have new books to sell you, too. Since finishing Circle of Enemies, I’ve written more than half a million words, and only King Khan, the Spirit of the Century tie-in novel, is set to be published (later this fall). Sure, I was in a couple of anthologies last year, but you know, this is not how careers are built.
So, Kickstarter: since finishing the draft, I’ve been working pretty hard setting up the pledge drive. I type things, I erase them. I shoot a video of myself explaining the project, then watch it, then apologize to my wife for the way I look, then shoot another one. A lot of other peoples’ projects have little animations at the front, so I tried to make one, too. In the end, I pitched 90% of it. So while I wouldn’t say that time was wasted, I… oh wait, yes it was. Those days were totally wasted on stuff I’m not good at.
I’d hoped to be finished in time for a mid-August launch. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Once the project was ready, I asked some people to take a look at the preview and give me some feedback. Now I have to tear it all apart and revise.
Well, not all of it, but I’m a writer who lives and dies by his revisions. This needs revisions. And since the best time to launch a Kickstarter is the second half of the month, I’m now looking at mid-September.
Which means I don’t have to worry about the Labor Day weekend, I can revise the textual description of my books, and I can redo the video.
Yeah, that means you get the books a month later, but what can I tell you? Things take time, you guys.
Yesterday, Saturday, I put in a 4,334 word day to wrap up the rough draft of my epic fantasy trilogy, The Great Way. I’ve even come up with a third title for the individual volumes:
The Way Into Chaos
The Way Into Magic
The Way Into Darkness.
If I were smart, I’d switch the last two around so the series order would be alphabetical order, too. We’ll see how smart I am.
Anyway, I had several long days in a row to reach the end, and I think it’s a bit odd for the end of an epic fantasy. I think it works for the overall story, but I’m used to seeing a clash of armies at the end of a fantasy trilogy and in this story there are no armies left.
But that’s me, immediately thinking of all the ways something is wrong. I think they’re good books, and they’ll be much better when I get a revision done.
The Kickstarter to pay for art, editing, and design will be coming soon. Maybe as soon as a couple of weeks. I just have to work out a few questions regarding time and money budgets and do the video.
Holy shit. Kickstarter. This is a scary new world for me.
It’s my last because I’m done. I wanted to add 40,000 words to my epic fantasy to reach 180,000, which I’d hoped would be the end. I’ve done that. If you pledged, thank you very much. If you haven’t, you still can here. Clarion West. It’s a good thing.
Unfortunately, I wanted to have this book wrapped up by now and I haven’t. That sucks. I have to say that, as the first fantasy writer to ever write long on an epic fantasy, my embarrassment is pretty huge.
Also huge is my desire to be done with this story and on to the next. I did 1600 words today and hope to double that tomorrow and Saturday. There’s a Kickstarter coming, and ebooks, and POD, and so on. Then it’ll be something new.
It was just Monday that I blogged about how grateful I am that folks are supporting me in the Clarion West writeathon and that I was taking those pledges seriously and hoping to get a lot done.
Then, later that day, I broke a tooth in a big way.
Tuesday, I discovered that I could not get in with my dentist that day.
Wednesday, I learned that I will probably need a root canal that I can’t afford.
Today, my wife found out that a very old friend of hers passed away. She’s processing it as best she can and I’m trying to stay close in case she needs support.
Guys, this week sucks. As soon as we can put this one in our rear-view mirror, lets.
On top of that, I realized too late that progress on the book had grown sluggish because my subconscious was telling me that I’d made a structural mistake. The book felt flat and I couldn’t keep pushing through it any more. This realization felt almost Strossian.
So, it’s late in the day but I’m going to go back and redo those pages in the proper way, and hopefully they will help to build the climax the way it’s meant to be done.
Week’s not over! It’s possible that tomorrow will be non-shitty. Let’s hope so.
I want to thank everyone who has pledged in my name to benefit the famous Clarion West workshop. The six-week workshop is only in its second week, and already folks have donated $340.
I’m taking my part of this seriously, too, working to finish the promised pages by the end of the six-week period.
Each week I get a short email from the Clarion West folks letting me know where things stand, and each week the pledge total has been higher than before. If no one pledged another penny after this point, I would be grateful and flattered.
Thanks very much. The Great Way will be finished soon. That’s my pledge.