Kickstarter

The Object began as a free online serial novel at www.whatistheobject.com.  A collaborative effort between author Winston Emerson, musician Matthew Wayne Stillwell, and artist Justin Comley, our goal was to offer a compelling reading experience to a Louisville audience and beyond, complete with stunning illustrations and original scores appropriate to the atmosphere of the story.

Soon The Object: Book One will be available both in paperback and Kindle form, and in January 2013, we will begin the free serialization of Book Two, with new episodes posted weekly.  (Book Three is slated to begin in August 2013.)

During the month of November, we will be appearing for interviews on websites, blogs, and hopefully local television and radio to promote the book.  We are also in the process of scheduling a local book tour in Louisville, Elizabethtown, and Bowling Green, Kentucky.  Depending on the success level of this tour, we may continue to branch out to other cities.

This is where you come in.  In order to schedule an all-important book tour, we need the capital up front for publishing costs, travel expenses, food and gas, and placing a bulk order of paperbacks.  Book tours simply don't work if you have no book to sell!

We've set a goal for $1,000.  This amount will allow us to publish the book, travel between Louisville and Bowling Green for a book tour, and order approximately 150 copies, some of which will be sent out immediately to the reward recipients, the rest of which will be sold, sent to reviewers, and used for promotional giveaways.

To put it another way, we're low-balling our goal to help ensure success, but the more we can invest in this launch, the more success we're likely to have.  Ad spots to promote the book signings, web development we can't afford for our blog . . . we're still growing, and we know where we can improve.  All we need is the money to do so.

Matt, Justin, and I have been planning, preparing, and organizing this project for sixth months, and I've personally studied the publishing market for hours on end, every single day, since the beginning of the year.  In March, my novel A Circle in the Woods rose to #293 on Amazon's Bestseller List (Kindle) on the strength of my marketing efforts.  Looking back on it, I had no idea what I was doing.  My knowledge of the market has grown extensively since then, and I'm confident that The Object now stands at the precipice of extraordinary possibility.

I just hope we've inspired the same confidence in you, and I hope you'll take to heart that your contribution to this book launch will aid in the realization of a life-long dream that goes well beyond this particular project.  I've never wanted to do anything besides write novels, and Matt and Justin share the same passion about music and art.  That's why we've been working for free all year--and perhaps part of the reason people are responding so well to our story.

If you take a chance on us, we promise to deliver results.  We have a specific, orchestrated plan.  We will implement that plan.  And then we will do all anyone can do: hope readers enjoy it.

We hope you'll check out the website, where you can currently read Episodes One through Ten for free, and consider backing this Kickstarter campaign.  We'd rather have your support as a reader than as a financial backer, so please do stop by, say hello, and see if you can answer the question: What is the object?

Thanks, everyone.  We really appreciate your consideration.

Winston, Matt, and Justin