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I think it’s safe to say the Goblin Queen Kickstarter is going well!

This is my first time doing a Kickstarter, so I tried to keep things relatively conservative. I set $3500 as a base goal that would let me cover the expenses of getting the book published.

Well, we raised that in the first four hours. We hit the first stretch goal later in the first day. Stretch goal #2 on the second day, stretch goal #3 on the third, and goal #4 on the fourth.

I don’t actually have a fifth stretch goal…

As of this afternoon, 215 people have pledged almost $9000 in total, which is amazing. Thank you all so much!

Of course, this doesn’t mean I’ll be $9000 richer 25 days from now. I don’t have an exact breakdown yet, but here’s where that money will be going…

• Kickstarter’s cut: 8-10% total, if I’m reading everything correctly. Call it 9%, or $810. Oof…
• Cover art
• Interior art (stretch goal #1)
• Bookmarks and stickers (stretch goals #2 and #4)
• Copies of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen – 215 books so far
• Additional books for other reward levels – about 20 books
• Envelopes and postage

There’s also a significant time investment. I’ve got a lot of books and bookmarks to autograph. Then there’s printing out address labels, getting everything packed up and mailed… And all five of the critique rewards have been claimed, so I’ll need to do those as well.

I know there are services that can help with reward processing and fulfillment. (They’ve been sending me messages every day.) For now, I’m planning to handle this myself, but we’ll see how it goes.

From everything I’ve learned, Kickstarters get most of their funding at the very beginning, with a second spike near the very end. Things will probably slow down a lot for the next three weeks. I have no idea what I’ll be looking at when we finish. One of the Kickstarter projection sites estimated we could be looking at anywhere between $9000 and $21,000. I’m guessing it’ll be closer to the $9000 side of things.

In the meantime, I’ve got an artist working on the cover, and I’m going through the book to try to pick scenes for the interior artwork. I’ve asked an artist about doing the fire-spider sticker art. I’m slowly getting the manuscript ready for printing and ebook conversion. And of course, I’m doing the live readings every Friday night at 8.

I’m happy with how it’s going. Reaching the goal the first day helped a lot with the anxiety, but there’s still a certain level of stress. But it’s more than balanced by the excitement of seeing how many people want to support the project, and of moving forward on publishing this thing.

Thanks again to everyone for your help and support!

As of 8 a.m. today (4/22), the Kickstarter for Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen is live!

The base goal is $3500 to cover cover art and other initial costs. The first stretch goal is $5000, at which point there will be interior artwork! All art will be done by Leanna Crossan.

Rewards include copies of the ebook and autographed copies of the print book, as well as critiques, a thank you to you by name in the book, gifts of the book to libraries/schools/charities, and even more autographed books…

Rewards are set up to be available worldwide, but I’ll warn folks up front that shipping gets expensive. I looked into shipping a book to Canada and elsewhere back when I was selling a few copies of Terminal Alliance, and postage for that one book was more than $20. (Happily, ebooks ship for free! 🙂 )

So here’s the bottom line…

• If you contribute at any level, that’s wonderful! Thank you. But if you can’t (or don’t want to), that’s okay too. I know this is a tough time financially for a lot of folks.
• If you can share the Kickstarter on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else, that helps too.

The Kickstarter is set to run through the night of May 22.

This is the first time I’ve done this. I’ll try not to be too annoying or pushy about it, but I’ll be posting updates as we go.

I’ve got the latest Storytime videos posted. We had a bit of a glitch last night. The FB Live feed cut out toward the end of chapter four. So there’s a separate video for that last scene or so. But if you’re interested in catching up, here are the links!

YouTube

• Chapters 1-2
• Chapters 3-4
• The rest of Chapter 4

Facebook

• Chapters 1-2
• Chapters 3-4
• The rest of Chapter 4

The Kickstarter hasn’t gone live yet. It’s mostly set up. I just need to either put together a quick intro video, or skip the video altogether and launch the KS without one.

It sounds like folks have been enjoying the story so far — or at least enjoying the distraction from the real world 🙂 I know for me, it’s a nice break from everything else.

Hope to see some of you again on Friday at 8!

I’m working on setting up the Kickstarter for Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen. I’ve got most of the campaign set up with a summary, rewards, etc. But I know a lot of you have more experience with these things, and I wanted to ask whether you had any particular advice or suggestions before I get started.

I’ve set a tentative goal of $3500. I’m thinking of a stretch goal of interior black-and-white illustrations.

I’m planning to use Friday’s reading as the video. Here are the rewards I’ve set up. (I briefly played with the idea of doing a $10,000 “In my dreams” reward.)

• $1 or more: Good Karma and Happy Goblins. You’ll be rewarded with my gratitude and the knowledge that you’ve made the goblins of the world very happy.
• $10 or more: Goblin Queen Ebook. You’ll receive a DRM-free bundle of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen in .epub, .mobi, and PDF formats.
• $25 or more: Autographed Book. You’ll receive an autographed paperback of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen, along with the ebook bundle.
• $40 or more: Two is Better than One! You’ll receive TWO autographed copies of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen — one for you and one for a friend. You’ll also get the ebook bundle.
• $75 or more: Pay it Forward. You’ll receive an autographed copy of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen and the ebook bundle. In addition, I’ll donate three copies of the book to classrooms, charities, libraries, and other good homes.
• $100 or more: Critique. You’ll receive the ebook bundle of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen. In addition, I’ll critique one short story (or the first part of a novel) up to 7500 words. Limited (5 left of 5)
• $250 or more:Jim C. Hines Starter Pack.You’ll receive the autographed paperback of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen, along with the ebook bundle. You’ll also get autographed copies of the first books in each of Jim’s four SF/F series, as well as the standalone tie-in novel Fable: Blood of Heroes. Limited (10 left of 10)
• $1,000 or more: Jim C. Hines — The Complete Works.You’ll receive the autographed copy of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen, as well as the ebook bundle. You’ll also get autographed copies of every SF/F book Jim has published, including the Goblin trilogy, Princess series, Magic ex Libris series, Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse, Fable: Blood of Heroes, Rise of the Spider Goddess, and Goblin Tales. He’ll also throw in his collection The Goblin Master’s Grimoire, and the anthology he edited, Heroes in Training. Limited (5 left of 5)

What do y’all think?

The first Storytime reading of Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen starts this Friday, April 10, at 8 p.m. over on my Facebook Author Page. I’ll be reading two chapters each week for the next ten weeks. As with previous Storytimes, I’ll also post the video on my YouTube channel.

This is a brand new, never-before-shared middle-grade fantasy novel. Here’s the synopsis from the FB Event:

Twelve-year-old Tamora Carter, known as T-Wrex in the roller derby world, is leaving practice one night when she spots two funny-looking, funny-smelling, strangely-attired people in the parking lot. These people turn out to be goblins…goblins who might know what happened to Tamora’s missing friend Andre, one of three children who’ve vanished from Grand River.

Aided by her autistic older brother Mac and his consummate knowledge of fairy tales, as well as a high school cheerleader named Karyn, Tamora sets out to rescue Andre and the others. But the closer she gets, the more dangerous her enemies become…

Over the next ten weeks, I’m also planning to do a Kickstarter to produce a print and ebook edition for everyone who wants their very own copy. I’ve contacted several potential cover artists, and put together a graphic I’ll be using in the meantime.

More information to come. For now, I hope some of you will be able to tune in Friday night for what I hope will be a lot of fun!