STONEMASTER Stretch Goals!

The STONEMASTER Kickstarter has reached goal! Now it’s time to start laying out the stretch goals!

Now, here’s the thing. Obviously the, er, obvious, stretch goal is book 3, SKYMASTER, which is already written, too. HOWEVAH:

Another book is exponentially more costly on my end, mostly due to postage matters: it’s not possible to get SKYMASTER ready at the same time as STONEMASTER, which means I’d be shipping it separately, later, and as most people know, shipping costs are pretty appalling. So I’m willing to put that up there as a pie-in-the-sky goal, but I want to put some more *possible* ones down between here and there. In descending order of interest (absent book 3), people have said they’d like to see these stretch goals:

1. short stories about secondary characters

2. a world map

3. cover art posters

Discussion of these ideas, in reverse order:

3. For me, the problem with posters is proving to be that I can’t find anybody who will print posters on folded paper (or fold the posters after they’ve been printed, you know what I mean :p ), which means rolled posters, which means a separate shipping cost from mailing books or other things that can be flat-packed, which means…posters would cost a lot more than their probable value. So it’s just as well that’s #3, probably. :)

2. I’m talking to someone about a world map. I’d like a world map. I keep inventing places, and it’d be nice to have a map to put them on. :) Now, realistically, because I’m aiming for a short turn-around on this project, a world map might not be READY to go in book 2. It could go in book 3, and I could send PFDs and postcard-sized print maps to people who order print editions. But I admit I think a map would be really cool, and I’m gonna put it up there as a stretch goal!

1. The ONLY PROBLEM with writing short stories (aside from time) is that SO MANY of these characters will want to run away with the short part and make them…books… :) I’m going to put 3 short story goals in:

€3250, Story #1: Isidri, Guildmaster and venerable Ilyaran elder who is *suspected*, half seriously, by the youth of the Seamasters’ Guild to be THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

She’s not.

(probably.)

€4000, Story #2: Asindo, Seamaster, captain of the Ilyaran flagship Waifia. The sort of man who does not start a fight, but definitely finishes one. He is absolutely not 300 years old.

€4750, Story #3: Kisia and Desimi, our hero Rasim’s age-mates, will get an adventure that…I don’t know yet if it’ll be pre, during, or post-series. Well. It won’t be post, because SPOILERS, SWEETIE! :)

€5500: a WORLD MAP is unlocked!

€6750: at this point backers will have all read SEAMASTER, book 1, which I will be sending out shortly to backers. Backers will have opinions on who should get a short-story-bordering-on-novella. I will seek those opinions, and attempt to fulfil them. :)

€8000: BOOK THREE, SKYMASTER is unlocked!

Let’s see how far we can go!

(…okay, somebody cue Moana, now…)

-Catie