Kickstarter campaign

Okay, I think I’m going to run a Kickstarter campaign.

See, in the middle of writing RAVEN CALLS–which, like all the Walker Papers, is of course a first-person point of view story told by Joanne Walker–something happened and for the first time ever I had the urge (nearly irresistable, in fact), to lark off, change viewpoint characters, and tell somebody else’s story.

Gary’s story, in fact. Not necessarily all of it, because, well, he’s 74 years old and it might take an entire series of its own to tell Gary’s whole story, but he has his own adventure in the middle of RAVEN CALLS. There’s not going to be a chance in-series for me to tell anybody what happens. There’s not time in RC, book 8 picks up *immediately* after RC with a very different storyline, and book 9 is going to be a madhouse with absolutely no time to spare. But I want to tell the story (I want to find out WHAT HAPPENS!!!!), so I’m thinking Kickstarter campaign for a Walker Papers novella.

There are several things about this. One is that I can’t really provide a teaser for the novella, because it happens in the damned middle of RAVEN CALLS and to even provide a few introductory paragraphs would be full of spoilers. I may have to write part of some other thing from Gary’s point of view–maybe meeting Joanne?–just for the flavor crystals. Yes/No?

Another is that while I want to run your average 6 week KS campaign to get the groundwork down, I also want to leave the crowdfund project open so other people can buy in if they miss the KS opportunity. I’m thinking probably the way to do that is to write a KS-only Gary short story that will be included with the novella for people who get in on the ground floor with the KS campaign, and people who don’t get in then only get the novella. Yes/No?

A third is that ultimately I’d want to release the novella as an e-book, probably 3-6 months after it’s delivered to its patrons. Yes/No?

A fourth is I’m thinking of incentive levels. Name-a-character is really not an option for the novella, though it might be for a short story. I can think of plenty of things to do if the campaign brings in various levels of cash–base level is the novella, double that gets cover art, half again gets a second short story, maybe, 2x original goal we start looking at maybe doing a limited edition chapbook of the Gary Sequence stuff. Other ideas welcome.

The fifth thing is that because the story happens in the middle of RAVEN CALLS, it’s not going to be delivered to its patrons until 6 weeks after RC is out, which is March 1, 2012. So the Gary novella would be out April 15th, as a salve, perhaps, for Tax Day. I know that’s several months out, but, well, there’s no way I’m delivering it before then because I want people to have a chance to read the full-length book first! Does that sound reasonable?

I tell you what, this will be V. Interesting. I’ve never written Jo from somebody else’s point of view. I’m totally looking forward to it. :)