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ElectriCity
Author Kait Nolan wrote a blog about Kickstarters and platforms (featuring me!), which caused me to go have a look at the most successful fiction Kickstarters.
NO DOMINION’s still in the top 15, which surprised and delighted me. DINOPOCALYPSE NOW, which I’ll be writing a book for next month, is still in the top 5. (And Tim Pratt’s latest Marla Mason novel is also in the top 20! Yay!) The whole thing made me kinda want to run another Kickstarter.
Kinda. :)
I’m not going to (despite somebody asking for an Inheritors’ Cycle Kickstarter the other day), but one of my post-contract plans is to finish the script for Fred Hicks’s ElectriCity graphic novel, which we do expect to Kickstart when we get all those ducks in a row.
I have a *lot* of post-contract plans, because there’s no known cure for workaholism, but ElectriCity is one of the handful of smaller (for the value of smaller that means “130 pages of comic script”) projects that I think would be hugely satisfying to get written. It’s front-loaded writing work for me, but beyond that it’s sheer flipping fun. I’ve project managed a comic before. I *loved* it. I really want to do it again.
And when I mentioned it on Twitter, our artist sat up and said, “Yes, please. Now, please!”
Anyway, so yeah. I have far too many potential projects and still have a book to write under contract before I can go anywhere near even ElectriCity, nevermind the others (which I am not fool enough to detail for you!), but that’ll be fun, when I get to it. :)
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Crowdfunding: What’s Up Next
I’ve ended up with some FAQs about what I’ll be doing next for crowdfunding/Kickstarter, so I thought to close this series out with a poll, which I’ll post shortly (ETA: I have posted it! It is here! You should be able to vote by logging in with FB, G+ or OpenID, I think, so if you don’t have an LJ account, fret not!), and a tackling of the FAQs. Surprisingly (or, y’know, not), the most common question is:
So will you be doing this again?
Um, yes. Yes I will. :) The next campaign will be the ElectriCity graphic novel, in fact, and you ought to start seeing some serious squee coming down the line about that in about a month. Because OMG. *OMG*, it’s going to be cool.
Followed by:
Will I eventually be able to buy “No Dominion” even if I didn’t get to participate in the Kickstarter campaign?
Yes. At some point it’ll be made available through Some Other Means. I don’t currently know what those means are, but will keep you posted.
Does this mean you might Kickstart the next book in The Inheritors’ Cycle (THE QUEEN’S BASTARD books)?
…I might. I really don’t know. The idea has obviously crossed my mind, but it’s also already been a loooong time since I wrote those books, so perhaps they’ve cooled off. Also, the price point for a novel would be a lot higher, and the number of copies of THE PRETENDER’S CROWN that sold (about 5,000) do not necessarily convince me that I have access to the right readers to make that particular project work. It’s a lovely idea, but I don’t think it’s reality-based.
How about “Take A Chance”? Is there any chance you might go back and do more of that comic?
Yes. Yes there is. A lot of things have to shake out first, and it’s not going to be a this-year (or possibly even next year) project, but it’s on the really short list of things I’m thinking about doing.
Oooh! What about the Strongbox Chronicles? Could you crowdfund some of those?
I could. I might even love to. There are literally *dozens* of Cate Dermody books I could potentially crowdfund, and the Strongbox Chronicles were huge fun to write. But it makes me utterly crazy that the first books are essentially lying fallow, and I don’t want to do anything with the rest of them until I have a definitive idea of the first 3’s eventual fate.
Okay, and what about HEAVEN CAN WAIT, that YA book you’re writing the first 3 chapters of as part of the “No Dominion” awards?
Do not tempt me. That way lies madness.
Or maybe your climate change trilogy?
See above.
Or perhaps Something Mysterious that is very close to your heart and has been on a back burner for (dear god) twelve or thirteen years now that we don’t actually know about?
*looks shifty*
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Here’s the thing that’s really striking me about crowdfunding: it opens up the possibility of simply working on whatever I want to next, rather than necessarily working on something I’m absolutely certain is commercially viable.
I mean, don’t get me wrong: I will continue to publish traditionally and will be very happy to launch the projects I’ve got on proposal as commercial, traditional works. But for the side jobs, the things I just really want to do and don’t know if I can sell straight off? The idea of being able to see if I can get support to go ahead and do them is mind-blowing and wonderfully freeing.
Now, whether it’s actually *possible* remains to be seen. “No Dominion” was preposterously successful, but it was the Walker Papers universe, and it was Gary, who is possibly the most beloved character in that universe. (Seriously, my mother threatened to never speak to me again if I ever did anything really bad to Gary.) I have no idea if a new project would meet with such enthusiasm. Obviously it would be nice to *think* so, but I can’t really know without running it up the flagpole.
Still, the idea is pretty compelling, and it’ll be very interesting over the next few years to see how it all plays out. There are things I can’t or won’t do out of concern for pissing off my traditional publishers, but for projects that seem more of a long shot or which are more collaborative, like graphic novels, this is really a hugely exciting time to be a creator.
And to wrap this all up: thank you, everybody, for your patience with this series of blog posts, for your questions and comments, and for your astonishing support.
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stupendous
I have had a stupendously productive day.
I finished the second ElectriCity chapter. I got the cover for BABA YAGA’S DAUGHTER and posted it. I delivered via email the stories I was supposed to and delivered two packages to the post office to be sent far far away. I finished the laundry. I got “Easy Pickings” ready to go up on Amazon and B&N.com. I walked 3 miles. I did some video game dancing with my adorable dancing toddler. I fixed the cross-posting problem from mizkit.com to LJ. I ordered the Rockabilly dress, because a friend of mine said “If Catie was a dress, she would be that dress. She Must Have It,” and that was so awesome I decided I could lose twenty pounds and rock it. I have sent a request to my Kickstarter patrons and have been overwhelmingly granted it, the results of which will be made visible early next week.
I am awesome. And I have a trillion other things to do this weekend, but damn, I done good today. (Actually, I really only have to do one thing this weekend. It’s just that it’s largeish in scope: the Kickstarter write-up and associated stuff. And, er, it appears I’m finally getting around to updating/perhaps redesigning cemurphy.net…)
This week I’ve been using the Kinect “Just Dance” game, which is ridiculously fun. It’s also, as hoped/anticipated, something I can do with Young Indiana’s, um, assistance. He loves to dance, so he’s much more tolerant of the “videos” than of any other form of exercise I might try–ie, I can do it for longer–and he gets to dance too, so he’s also having fun with it. I’ve also done a couple rounds on the “Your Fitness”, which actually has some pretty decent-seeming workouts, but what I’ve really learned this week is that I need to just go downstairs and do a workout first thing in the morning instead of trying to get a little work done first. So next week that’s what I’ll be trying to do. Because I have a really fantastic dress on the way and I’d like to fit into it sooner rather than later.
