Introducing a Very Special Cat Rescue Anthology

I know Sparkle mentioned it a few times when it was in the submission phase and later on, when it was being edited, but now the cat rescue anthology that my human has been working on is coming out at the end of the month! Here is what it looks like — it’s called Rescued: The Stories of 12 Cats, Through Their Eyes, and the official release date is Tuesday, January 27!

You already know some of the authors because they are fellow blogging pals: Crepes from Cat In the Fridge, Gemini from The Cat Post Intelligencer, Nerissa from Nerissa’s Life, and Rascal from Rascal and Rocco! Some of you who have been in the Twitter and blogging world for a long time will remember Ryker, the predecessor to Allie, Maxwell and Faraday at A Tonk’s Tail. But there are seven other cats who told their stories in this book, and I know you will love them too! In fact, you can meet three of them now because they have Facebook pages: Magoo, whose human does awesome rescue work in Wisconsin; Tuffy, who is the muse for his human, a cozy mystery author; and Lucky, who I admire so much because he overcame horrible cruelty and now helps other less fortunate animals on his page. Please check them out!

There is also a Facebook page for Rescued, but more importantly, there is also a Pubslush campaign that just began today! Pubslush is like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, only for authors and publishers. You can become a supporter by buying into different reward levels, and the money will go to recoup the book’s expenses.

Go to the Rescued Pubslush campaign now!

I’ll briefly explain the financial stuff behind publishing a book, to show you why my human’s publishing company felt it was important to have a crowdfunding campaign. To put a book out properly, you need to hire a cover designer, pay for things like ISBN numbers (that’s how retailers, online and off, find the book), get the book proofed (which turned out to be a bigger expense than expected), print bookmarks and create other promotional materials, do a “short run” printing for reviews, possibly hire someone to create an eBook version, and more! All these expenses are charged against the book’s account, and they need to be paid back before the book goes into the profit column. And it’s only when the book does that, that the authors get paid royalties. And because the publishing company is new and very small, the authors didn’t get an advance on their royalties, which means they have not yet gotten any money for their hard work!

But there’s more to this book than just the authors getting paid. When my human chose the 12 writers, she asked each of them to pick a U.S. cat rescue that was near and dear to their hearts… and for the first year or so, a whole third of the profits from the book will go to these cat rescues (later on, there will just be single donations for the subsequent years). So that makes it doubly important that the expenses get recouped, and for the book to go into profit! The sooner that happens, the sooner the authors will see money, and the more the rescues will receive. That is what inspired my human to put together a crowdfunding campaign for the book.

Visit the Rescued Pubslush campaign and check out the rewards, and see if you might want to become a supporter! You can also see the book trailer there, and become a fan (it’s free to become a fan).

My human is hoping that Rescued does really well, and if it does, it may set a standard for future books that come from her publishing company.
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Having problems with your human or the other cats in your house? As the internet’s “Dear Abby With Claws,” Sparkle had answers to many annoying problems in her two award-winning books! Visit her author’s page on Amazon to buy one or both of her awesome Dear Sparkle books!