Elizabeth Einspanier's Blog, page 2
April 21, 2015
Beta Readers Wanted: Necromancy Will Kill Your Dating Life
Hello blogosphere! I have an announcement to make...
This evening I will finally be finished rewriting Necromancy Will Kill Your Dating Life. This was my entry for NaNoWriMo last year, and since I sacrificed coherency for word count, it was an absolute mess when the rough draft was done. Editing it was a bear, but I persevered, and now it's ready for beta readers!
Necromancy Will Kill Your Dating Life is a Supernatural Young Adult novel about a seventeen-year-old high school student in St. Louis, MO, who happens to be the latest in a long line of necromancers. She has been raised knowing that the dead are nothing to fear, so ghosts and zombies aren't anything remarkable to her. Unfortunately, it has left her with exactly one friend, a lot of people at school looking at her like she's Drusilla, Queen of the Zombies, and no apparent hope of finding a boyfriend.
This changes when, two weeks before Halloween, she is asked out on her first date ever by the single cutest guy in her school. Unfortunately, spectral activity is increasing around St. Louis, and it seems to be centered around Tiffany herself. How, Tiffany must get to the bottom of some increasingly hostile haunts before a) everything goes to Hell on Halloween or b) she scares off her impending boyfriend.
This is my first YA novel, and in addition to the Urban Fantasy stuff it will also deal with potentially triggery topics like bullying, suicide, and depression. I will need some help to make sure I capture the high school experience accurately, because it's been a while since I've been seventeen years old, and I'm sure the social dynamics and the language have evolved quite a bit since then.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, please feel free to contact me and let me know what format you prefer.
This evening I will finally be finished rewriting Necromancy Will Kill Your Dating Life. This was my entry for NaNoWriMo last year, and since I sacrificed coherency for word count, it was an absolute mess when the rough draft was done. Editing it was a bear, but I persevered, and now it's ready for beta readers!
Necromancy Will Kill Your Dating Life is a Supernatural Young Adult novel about a seventeen-year-old high school student in St. Louis, MO, who happens to be the latest in a long line of necromancers. She has been raised knowing that the dead are nothing to fear, so ghosts and zombies aren't anything remarkable to her. Unfortunately, it has left her with exactly one friend, a lot of people at school looking at her like she's Drusilla, Queen of the Zombies, and no apparent hope of finding a boyfriend.
This changes when, two weeks before Halloween, she is asked out on her first date ever by the single cutest guy in her school. Unfortunately, spectral activity is increasing around St. Louis, and it seems to be centered around Tiffany herself. How, Tiffany must get to the bottom of some increasingly hostile haunts before a) everything goes to Hell on Halloween or b) she scares off her impending boyfriend.
This is my first YA novel, and in addition to the Urban Fantasy stuff it will also deal with potentially triggery topics like bullying, suicide, and depression. I will need some help to make sure I capture the high school experience accurately, because it's been a while since I've been seventeen years old, and I'm sure the social dynamics and the language have evolved quite a bit since then.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, please feel free to contact me and let me know what format you prefer.
April 16, 2015
Kickstarter Aftermath and Moving Forward
Well, my first Kickstarter project wasn't as successful as I'd hoped it would be, but that's okay. Self-publishing is always a learning process, and I think the next time I try to go this route I will get things more right than I did this time.
In the meantime, though, I do plan to move forward with the polishing and publication of Hungry as a Wolf. I'm in communication with an editor/proofreader on Fiverr who can work within my (tiny) budget, and a graphic designer on Facebook has offered to do my cover in exchange for a copy of the finished book.
So, for all of you who backed this project, thank you! It means a lot that you took the effort to invest in my novel, and I will keep you in mind when Hungry as a Wolf is finally published.. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do! Feel free to follow along with my progress on my website here or my blog here!
In other news, I'm very close to finishing the first round of edits for Necromancy Will Kill Your Dating Life, so I fully expect that title to be available for beta reading next month. Anyone who likes supernatural YA fiction should feel free to give this one a shot. Follow my progress here.
In the meantime, though, I do plan to move forward with the polishing and publication of Hungry as a Wolf. I'm in communication with an editor/proofreader on Fiverr who can work within my (tiny) budget, and a graphic designer on Facebook has offered to do my cover in exchange for a copy of the finished book.
So, for all of you who backed this project, thank you! It means a lot that you took the effort to invest in my novel, and I will keep you in mind when Hungry as a Wolf is finally published.. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do! Feel free to follow along with my progress on my website here or my blog here!
In other news, I'm very close to finishing the first round of edits for Necromancy Will Kill Your Dating Life, so I fully expect that title to be available for beta reading next month. Anyone who likes supernatural YA fiction should feel free to give this one a shot. Follow my progress here.
April 7, 2015
Wild West Zombies
I love zombie movies. I think my love for the genre started with a Behind the Scenes look at the making of the music video for Michael Jackson's "Thriller", but it only continued with the Romero Whatever of the Dead movies. Zombies are fun and gory and insatiable (and technically ghouls, as portrayed by Hollywood) and pretty much universally recognized. However, zombies in their modern form have been around since the 1960s, and they've been deconstructed, reconstructed, parodied, and even turned into romance heroes in the meantime. So what could I do with the silly things to set them apart, aside from dropping them in the American frontier?
I do what I did with Wolf Cowrie's background and draw from Native American mythology, of course! As I indicated in my first article for the Kickstarter campaign, Wolf being raised Sioux was a happy bit of fortune, considering the setting was in a territory that would eventually be South Dakota and all the racial drama that happened between the local people and white settlers. The Sioux were historically the mortal enemies of the Ojibwe, who hailed from the region of southern Canada... and the Ojibwe's folklore told of a charming little critter called a Wendigo.
Depending on who you asked (the stories vary), a wendigo is either a human who resorted to cannibalism and turned into a monster, or an evil spirit that drove men to acts of violence and cannibalism. I decided to split the difference here, while taking a page out of the account of the Donner Party story: The wendigo was there, but trapped in a vessel and unable to get up to monkeyshines until a bunch of gold miners uncovered it and subsequently had the Worst Winter Ever.
The result: intelligent, berserk undead, animated by a supernatural force that drove them to consume human flesh. To add another layer of horrifying to the whole thing, these screamers (so named because of a horrifying shriek they emit when they spot food) are completely aware that the hunger is not their own, but those geographically closest to the wendigo's influence can't do anything about it. They don't feel revulsion, or fear, or anger, or remorse, and they absolutely will not stop until they have eaten you.
The result combines elements of Return of the Living Dead, Evil Dead, and 28 days Later, and I think on the whole they work out well as a literary monster. Who says you can't do anything new with zombies?
March 31, 2015
Confessions of a Character's Development: Wolf Cowrie
It was kind of funny how Wolf developed. When I was planning out Sheep's Clothing, the dynamic between the two male leads was intended to be sort of a Holmes-and-Watson-style partnership, with Doc Meadows as Watson (of course) and the bad-ass gunslinger as Holmes (which is why he ended up being so tall and lean). Things didn't quite turn out that way, of course, especially as Wolf started to evolve into his own character.
The first thing that happened was I made him a werewolf--or more specifically, I made him half skinwalker. A skinwalker is a nasty critter from Native American mythology that can turn into any animal it wants, so I had to handwave Wolf having a human parent in addition by saying that his mom (the skinwalker) was mildly fond of humanity. On the heels of that, it seemed logical to also make him half Native American (on his mother's side), and a whole pile of cultural knowledge went along with that.
In a way, this left him still in the same boat as his original inspiration, plus a bit of Simon Belmont from the Castlevania games--with a boatload of relevant information about his monster-hunting lifestyle and not a whole lot more. Rather than an intellectual or an altruist like the Great Detective, however, Wolf was out for one thing: revenge (Back to Simon, depending on the game). He might not have the education, but he has the intelligence and the anger to hunt Alexandre Russeau for five years. Wolf Cowrie is patient, and that makes him a very dangerous enemy.
Of course, by the time we get to Hungry as a Wolf, that mission is all over and done with, leaving Wolf twisting in the wind. He has a pretty complex backstory for what might otherwise be a relatively generic half-Sioux gunslinger wandering the Territories, and that makes him fun to write. He's still going to be a monster hunter--that's kind of what he does--but Hungry as a Wolf is more about helping him get his feet back under himself.
He evolves a lot during the course of this novel, and I plan for him to evolve more in the next novel I have planned, where he has to face the consequences of his past while he's planning for the future. I won't say any more than that except that you can't tear a bloody swath through the monster population for five years without getting some blood on your hands, and his collateral damage is going to trigger someone else wanting revenge.
Because that's how people rolled in the Old West.
Come check out my Kickstarter Campaign for Hungry as a Wolf here!
The first thing that happened was I made him a werewolf--or more specifically, I made him half skinwalker. A skinwalker is a nasty critter from Native American mythology that can turn into any animal it wants, so I had to handwave Wolf having a human parent in addition by saying that his mom (the skinwalker) was mildly fond of humanity. On the heels of that, it seemed logical to also make him half Native American (on his mother's side), and a whole pile of cultural knowledge went along with that.
In a way, this left him still in the same boat as his original inspiration, plus a bit of Simon Belmont from the Castlevania games--with a boatload of relevant information about his monster-hunting lifestyle and not a whole lot more. Rather than an intellectual or an altruist like the Great Detective, however, Wolf was out for one thing: revenge (Back to Simon, depending on the game). He might not have the education, but he has the intelligence and the anger to hunt Alexandre Russeau for five years. Wolf Cowrie is patient, and that makes him a very dangerous enemy.
Of course, by the time we get to Hungry as a Wolf, that mission is all over and done with, leaving Wolf twisting in the wind. He has a pretty complex backstory for what might otherwise be a relatively generic half-Sioux gunslinger wandering the Territories, and that makes him fun to write. He's still going to be a monster hunter--that's kind of what he does--but Hungry as a Wolf is more about helping him get his feet back under himself.
He evolves a lot during the course of this novel, and I plan for him to evolve more in the next novel I have planned, where he has to face the consequences of his past while he's planning for the future. I won't say any more than that except that you can't tear a bloody swath through the monster population for five years without getting some blood on your hands, and his collateral damage is going to trigger someone else wanting revenge.
Because that's how people rolled in the Old West.
Come check out my Kickstarter Campaign for Hungry as a Wolf here!
March 24, 2015
Hungry as a Wolf Kickstarter Campaign: Week 1 Update
It's been a week since my Kickstarter campaign went live, and I have two backers who pledged $5.00 each, so a big thank you to Lukas Schmoelz and Mark Adam Thomas! I still have a long way to go, though, so be sure to tell all your Weird Western fan about this project!
The idea for Hungry as a Wolf started much the same way it's prequel Sheep's Clothing started: I wanted to re-imagine a classic horror monster that's been nearly done to death. Last time around, it was vampires, and I read Dracula for the first time in a while to get some measure of where literary vampires came from, and I also researched vampire myths from all over the world to see what their folklore roots were. (Fun fact: Every single culture has a vampire myth, including the Native Americans. Cool huh?) This time, I decided to try tackling zombies. Unfortunately, literary inspirations were kind of thin, and no two zombie movie franchises seemed to follow the same "rules" (on purpose, I imagine). So, once again, I delved into folklore to see where they originated.
Once again, Native American mythology came through for me, supplying the Ojibwe myth of the Wendigo. The Wendigo (depending on who you ask) either used to be a human who ate human flesh and turned into a monster, or is a sort of demon that possesses humans and drives them to a frenzy of insatiable hunger, especially for human flesh. This could easily be mapped onto the template of a sort of insane fast zombie. If they were smart zombies on top of that... Bwahahaha. For extra horror bonus points, Hungry as a Wolf is set in 1875, not too long after that little thing with the Donner Party (researched that, too).
Now for the fun part: Wolf Cowrie, the hero, is half-Sioux. The Sioux weren't exactly on friendly terms with the Ojibwe in 1875 (when this book takes place). Also, by chance, I wanted to set this story in the Dakota Territory. I discovered that the Black Hills were Sioux holy ground... and also the scene of a gold rush. I was already giggling madly by this point, seeing at least three sub-conflicts that would be running alongside the flesh-eaters. Add to that a thread left over from Sheep's Clothing--whereby Wolf is still recovering from a personal tragedy--and this is one heck of an elaborate character arc for him.
Honestly, with so much material to work from, there's no way I could not write this story! More on this next week as the campaign continues!
The idea for Hungry as a Wolf started much the same way it's prequel Sheep's Clothing started: I wanted to re-imagine a classic horror monster that's been nearly done to death. Last time around, it was vampires, and I read Dracula for the first time in a while to get some measure of where literary vampires came from, and I also researched vampire myths from all over the world to see what their folklore roots were. (Fun fact: Every single culture has a vampire myth, including the Native Americans. Cool huh?) This time, I decided to try tackling zombies. Unfortunately, literary inspirations were kind of thin, and no two zombie movie franchises seemed to follow the same "rules" (on purpose, I imagine). So, once again, I delved into folklore to see where they originated.
Once again, Native American mythology came through for me, supplying the Ojibwe myth of the Wendigo. The Wendigo (depending on who you ask) either used to be a human who ate human flesh and turned into a monster, or is a sort of demon that possesses humans and drives them to a frenzy of insatiable hunger, especially for human flesh. This could easily be mapped onto the template of a sort of insane fast zombie. If they were smart zombies on top of that... Bwahahaha. For extra horror bonus points, Hungry as a Wolf is set in 1875, not too long after that little thing with the Donner Party (researched that, too).
Now for the fun part: Wolf Cowrie, the hero, is half-Sioux. The Sioux weren't exactly on friendly terms with the Ojibwe in 1875 (when this book takes place). Also, by chance, I wanted to set this story in the Dakota Territory. I discovered that the Black Hills were Sioux holy ground... and also the scene of a gold rush. I was already giggling madly by this point, seeing at least three sub-conflicts that would be running alongside the flesh-eaters. Add to that a thread left over from Sheep's Clothing--whereby Wolf is still recovering from a personal tragedy--and this is one heck of an elaborate character arc for him.
Honestly, with so much material to work from, there's no way I could not write this story! More on this next week as the campaign continues!
March 17, 2015
Hungry As a Wolf Kickstarter Campaign is now Live!
That's right, readers--the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for Hungry as a Wolf, the sequel to my weird western novella Sheep's Clothing, is now live! It will last until April 16th, 2015, and every dollar you donate brings me that much closer to getting Hungry as a Wolf polished and looking awesome for the public!
I'm really excited about my first crowdfunding campaign, because and despite the fact that I'm going into this more or less blind. Just like self-publishing, I imagine crowdfunding will be a learning experience.
If you want to check out my Kickstarter campaign, just go here. I'm got a fair number of rewards for contributors of all kinds, and I'm not asking for much in the grand scheme of crowdfunded publishing, so donate what you can! Thanks in advance!
I'm really excited about my first crowdfunding campaign, because and despite the fact that I'm going into this more or less blind. Just like self-publishing, I imagine crowdfunding will be a learning experience.
If you want to check out my Kickstarter campaign, just go here. I'm got a fair number of rewards for contributors of all kinds, and I'm not asking for much in the grand scheme of crowdfunded publishing, so donate what you can! Thanks in advance!
March 10, 2015
On World Conquest and Zombie Outbreaks
I know this post is a little late in the day, but I wanted to make sure I had my stuff together before I blogged about it. You know how that goes.
First bit of news concerns the Heart of Steel audiobook. Yes, this will be a thing, and I've chosen the narrator for it and everything. The voice of Heart of Steel will be Peter Reynolds, whom you may or may not recognize for his narration of "The Things", a perspective flip of the 1982 movie The Thing, and selections from Fallout: Equestria, which is what happens when some crazy person crosses over My Little Pony with Fallout (yes, really). He's also done voice work in tons of video games, and to judge by the QA sample he's done of Heart of Steel so far, he's great for creature-heavy works. Learn more about him here.
The other bit of news concerns the Kickstarter campaign for my upcoming weird western novel Hungry as a Wolf, the sequel to Sheep's Clothing. This will also be a thing, and to prove it, I have a preview of my project available on Kickstarter hoping to attract some feedback so that I can have the best chance possible of raising the funds I need. So, if any of you have experience in using Kickstarter and/or are interested in seeing Hungry as a Wolf published and want to help, please check out the campaign here. I will have the campaign open to feedback until March 17th, so any help you can offer (advice-wise or financial-wise) will be greatly appreciated. I'm not asking for much compared to other publishing campaigns, and I'm not asking anyone to fund a sabbatical from work or a research grant.
I mean, the book is already written. I just want it to look its best. Besides, I write fantasy. I've researched the heck out of the bits that need researching. All that is done. I just have the final polish to work out.
So that's this week's blog post. Next week, I'll be launching my Kickstarter campaign and getting my first real taste of crowdfunding, and keeping up regular updates for the month that will be running. You can also keep up on my Facebook page here if you are so inclined.
First bit of news concerns the Heart of Steel audiobook. Yes, this will be a thing, and I've chosen the narrator for it and everything. The voice of Heart of Steel will be Peter Reynolds, whom you may or may not recognize for his narration of "The Things", a perspective flip of the 1982 movie The Thing, and selections from Fallout: Equestria, which is what happens when some crazy person crosses over My Little Pony with Fallout (yes, really). He's also done voice work in tons of video games, and to judge by the QA sample he's done of Heart of Steel so far, he's great for creature-heavy works. Learn more about him here.
The other bit of news concerns the Kickstarter campaign for my upcoming weird western novel Hungry as a Wolf, the sequel to Sheep's Clothing. This will also be a thing, and to prove it, I have a preview of my project available on Kickstarter hoping to attract some feedback so that I can have the best chance possible of raising the funds I need. So, if any of you have experience in using Kickstarter and/or are interested in seeing Hungry as a Wolf published and want to help, please check out the campaign here. I will have the campaign open to feedback until March 17th, so any help you can offer (advice-wise or financial-wise) will be greatly appreciated. I'm not asking for much compared to other publishing campaigns, and I'm not asking anyone to fund a sabbatical from work or a research grant.
I mean, the book is already written. I just want it to look its best. Besides, I write fantasy. I've researched the heck out of the bits that need researching. All that is done. I just have the final polish to work out.
So that's this week's blog post. Next week, I'll be launching my Kickstarter campaign and getting my first real taste of crowdfunding, and keeping up regular updates for the month that will be running. You can also keep up on my Facebook page here if you are so inclined.
March 3, 2015
Hungry as a Wolf: Kickstarter Proposal
So, I've started a project on Kickstarter. At the time of this writing, it isn't anywhere near ready to see daylight, but I have the bare bones down.
Things I still need:
A Project Photo
I have a frontier woman outfit in my closet (cosplay nerds unite!) and will wear that in my project photo, with my other two books on display.
A Project Video
Not sure how I'll swing this. I will see what the motion video capabilities are on my phone and see if I can rope on of my friends into helping out.
The Story
That's the rough draft of my pitch story. If any of my readers have experience in using Kickstarter or other crowdfunding sites, any assistance in polishing or tightening it up will be greatly appreciated.
Things I still need:
A Project Photo
I have a frontier woman outfit in my closet (cosplay nerds unite!) and will wear that in my project photo, with my other two books on display.
A Project Video
Not sure how I'll swing this. I will see what the motion video capabilities are on my phone and see if I can rope on of my friends into helping out.
The Story
I'm Elizabeth Einspanier, author if Sheep's Clothing and Heart of Steel. My current project is Hungry as a Wolf, a sequel to Sheep's Clothing, and I'm nearly done!
Hungry as a Wolf will be the second book in my weird western series, focusing on Wolf Cowrie, the half-breed gunslinger, as he faces off against a horde of intelligent ghouls possessed by the spirit of a hungry demon in the Black Hills in 1875. I researched the history of the area and as much of Sioux culture as I could for this novel, as well as nailing down the racial politics and overall culture of the Dakota Territory in that time period, and made the historical elements and the folklore behind the story as accurate as I could.
At this point, I am editing the third draft according to feedback from my beta readers, and I plan to hire a professional editor and a proofreader for that added layer of polish. Additionally, I plan to hire a cover designer from Fiverr so the finished book looks great. I already have my editor and proofreader chosen.
Once I have the necessary funding, my timeline will look something like this:
One month with the editorRewrites and tweaksOne month with my proofreaderLast polishCover artist and pre-release promotionRelease!I acknowledge that this is a rough layout of how things will go, but barring any disasters I expect Hungry as a Wolf to be out late 2015 or early 2016.
My budget for this project will be $745 USD, which will include editor fees, proofreading fees, cover designer fees, and the first small run of print copies and rewards for contributors. Anything you can contribute will help me get this project off the ground. Thank you for your time.
That's the rough draft of my pitch story. If any of my readers have experience in using Kickstarter or other crowdfunding sites, any assistance in polishing or tightening it up will be greatly appreciated.
February 24, 2015
Countdown to Hungry as a Wolf: Kickstarter vs. Indiegogo
In this week's blog post I'm going to compare the two top contenders for crowdsourcing my third book, Hungry as a Wolf. It's a weird western novel and the sequel to my novella Sheep's Clothing, which seemed to be pretty popular(ish), and in any case it turned out Wolf Cowrie had another story in him.
Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the two biggest and most popular crowdsourcing sites I've been able to find, and the two best suited for a creative project like this. Since 2015 looks like it's going to be The Year That Everything Happens (between dental work and moving house) I need to save as much money as I can. Currently, I have a few hundred dollars in my business account--a tidy sum, but not quite enough to do what I need to, and I like to have a bit of a safety net just in case.
On to the comparison!
PopularityKickstarter Kickstarter is the most popular and best-known crowdfunding site out there. It curates its projects for applicability, meaning that not every project qualifies, so there's a higher chance that successful projects will be featured.
Indiegogo Indiegogo is a distant second to Kickstarter in popularity, having only about a sixth of the fanbase. However, they have much looser guidelines, allowing you to fundraise for any kind of project or financial need. It doesn't curate projects for applicability, meaning anyone can try to raise funds for whatever.
Funding ModelsKickstarterKickstarter has an "all or nothing" model, which means that I only get the funds if I reach my funding goal. On the one hand, this cuts down on flexibility, but it can also spur potential backers to work harder to donate if they know that the project won't happen if they goal isn't reached.
IndiegogoIndiegogo offers the option of flexible funding. What this means is that no matter what percentage of the goal is reached, the project gets to keep all of that. This allows for more flexibility in projects where the project can still be launched even if the whole amount is not reached. However, even if the goal is not reached, creators must still deliver all promised donation perks.
FeesKickstarterKickstarter applies a 5% to all successful campaigns, while failed projects incur no fees.
IndiegogoIndiegogo applies a 4% fee to successfully funded projects, making it a slightly cheaper alternative to Kickstarter. Like Kickstarter, failed Fixed Funding projects incur no fees.
PublicityKickstarterKickstarter is much more popular than Indiegogo in this regard. In the United States, where I am, Kickstarter is by far the best-known crowdfunding sites, and in many ways, it has become synonymous with crowdfunding itself.
IndiegogoIndiegogo is better suited to smaller projects, but considering how much Kickstarter is dominating the crowdfunding market, their chances of viral marketing success drop off hard.
ConclusionsWhile I was thinking of doing Indiegogo due to their flexibility and their shallower learning curve, it's starting to look like I'll have a higher chance of success if I go with Kickstarter. I'll keep Indiegogo in mind in case Kickstarter isn't successful, though.
Next week: Working out my Kickstarter Campaign Pitch!
Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the two biggest and most popular crowdsourcing sites I've been able to find, and the two best suited for a creative project like this. Since 2015 looks like it's going to be The Year That Everything Happens (between dental work and moving house) I need to save as much money as I can. Currently, I have a few hundred dollars in my business account--a tidy sum, but not quite enough to do what I need to, and I like to have a bit of a safety net just in case.
On to the comparison!
PopularityKickstarter Kickstarter is the most popular and best-known crowdfunding site out there. It curates its projects for applicability, meaning that not every project qualifies, so there's a higher chance that successful projects will be featured.
Indiegogo Indiegogo is a distant second to Kickstarter in popularity, having only about a sixth of the fanbase. However, they have much looser guidelines, allowing you to fundraise for any kind of project or financial need. It doesn't curate projects for applicability, meaning anyone can try to raise funds for whatever.
Funding ModelsKickstarterKickstarter has an "all or nothing" model, which means that I only get the funds if I reach my funding goal. On the one hand, this cuts down on flexibility, but it can also spur potential backers to work harder to donate if they know that the project won't happen if they goal isn't reached.
IndiegogoIndiegogo offers the option of flexible funding. What this means is that no matter what percentage of the goal is reached, the project gets to keep all of that. This allows for more flexibility in projects where the project can still be launched even if the whole amount is not reached. However, even if the goal is not reached, creators must still deliver all promised donation perks.
FeesKickstarterKickstarter applies a 5% to all successful campaigns, while failed projects incur no fees.
IndiegogoIndiegogo applies a 4% fee to successfully funded projects, making it a slightly cheaper alternative to Kickstarter. Like Kickstarter, failed Fixed Funding projects incur no fees.
PublicityKickstarterKickstarter is much more popular than Indiegogo in this regard. In the United States, where I am, Kickstarter is by far the best-known crowdfunding sites, and in many ways, it has become synonymous with crowdfunding itself.
IndiegogoIndiegogo is better suited to smaller projects, but considering how much Kickstarter is dominating the crowdfunding market, their chances of viral marketing success drop off hard.
ConclusionsWhile I was thinking of doing Indiegogo due to their flexibility and their shallower learning curve, it's starting to look like I'll have a higher chance of success if I go with Kickstarter. I'll keep Indiegogo in mind in case Kickstarter isn't successful, though.
Next week: Working out my Kickstarter Campaign Pitch!
February 17, 2015
Heart of Steel Release Day!
As of 8:00 this morning, my SFR novel Heart of Steel is available for purchase! (WOOT!) Currently, it is only available via my CreateSpace estore here, but in 3-5 business days it will be available on Amazon.
To mark this happy occasion, I've also arranged a blog tour through Goddess Fish Promotions to get the word out. Here is the list of stops (starred entries include reviews):
Susana's Morning RoomJourney of a Bookseller*Brooke BlogsBooklover SueWriter WonderlandHope, Dreams, Life... LoveDeal Sharing AuntBeyond RomanceRomance Novel GiveawaysThe ButtontapperFrom Me to You ...Video, Photography, & Book Reviews*Dena Garson - Real... Hot... RomanceThe SnarkologyTwo Ends of the PenWake Up Your Wild SideRomance That's 'Out of this World'*Linda Nightingale... WordsmithMixed Book Bag *3 Partners in ShoppingThe Avid ReaderSexy Tales, Passionate AdventuresRoom With BooksLong and Short ReviewsShooting Stars ReviewsA Book Addict's Delight Please pop by and comment on these blogs for a chance to win a $20 gift certificate to Steampunk Emporium! I will post on Facebook as soon as Heart of Steel is available on Amazon, but I imagine the estore will work just as well. If you like quirky romance with a twist, I'm sure you'll enjoy my latest book!
To mark this happy occasion, I've also arranged a blog tour through Goddess Fish Promotions to get the word out. Here is the list of stops (starred entries include reviews):
Susana's Morning RoomJourney of a Bookseller*Brooke BlogsBooklover SueWriter WonderlandHope, Dreams, Life... LoveDeal Sharing AuntBeyond RomanceRomance Novel GiveawaysThe ButtontapperFrom Me to You ...Video, Photography, & Book Reviews*Dena Garson - Real... Hot... RomanceThe SnarkologyTwo Ends of the PenWake Up Your Wild SideRomance That's 'Out of this World'*Linda Nightingale... WordsmithMixed Book Bag *3 Partners in ShoppingThe Avid ReaderSexy Tales, Passionate AdventuresRoom With BooksLong and Short ReviewsShooting Stars ReviewsA Book Addict's Delight Please pop by and comment on these blogs for a chance to win a $20 gift certificate to Steampunk Emporium! I will post on Facebook as soon as Heart of Steel is available on Amazon, but I imagine the estore will work just as well. If you like quirky romance with a twist, I'm sure you'll enjoy my latest book!
