Kickstarter

HOLY COW—it's been less than a week and we've hit the first bonus goal! This morning at 3:08 A.M. we crossed the $15,000 mark (!!) and so that means I'm excited to announce that in addition to there being a printed book, I will commission Winona to create a special 13" x 19" "Happy Ending" art print! (Described in Update #1)

Safe for work and family (so long as they are cool with cute, fully-clothed guys kissing, that is), it will be one of the "art print" options that the $100+/$250+/$450+ backers can choose from and will be sent out to ALL backers as a high-res image file as well as in computer/mobile phone wallpaper form! WOOT!

This also means I'm adding to the pledge rewards at the $250+ and $450+ levels. Kickstarter won't allow me to edit a reward description after a backer has chosen it, but when I send out the surveys, $250+ backers will now be able to choose THREE prints out of the four now available and $450+ backers will get ALL FOUR. 

And in more news, due to requests from backers, I've added an additional reward at the $100+ level. There were again folks who wanted to pledge $100+ but who felt they didn't need two books. So, I created a $100+ reward where you only get ONE copy of the book signed by both me and Winona but you get to choose TWO art prints out of the four available. If you've already selected the other $100+ reward, no worries—you can log in to your Kickstarter account at any time during the 24 days remaining and change which reward you'd like.

And speaking of 24 days, well, we're over $15,000 and there are still 24 days left to go out of this 30 day Kickstarter project! Some of you (lovingly) chided me in comments that I way underestimated the interest folks would have in Artifice when I listed the original goal at $7000. And, well, y'all are right! I'm blown away and flabbergasted by the response we've gotten!

But I always try to listen to our awesome readers and so, even though it feels totally crazy, I'm putting up this Bonus Goal chart which includes our progress so far as well as all the bonus goals I've dreamed of (but thought could never happen):

Yep, this seems... crazy ambitious to me. But considering what we've accomplished in just 6 days, I'll never underestimate our amazing and wonderful readers again. (And boy it'd be fun to be able to do that romantic comic... ;) )

As you can see, the next bonus goal would be me releasing a humorous blooper reel from the Kickstarter video I made when we hit $20,000 (which will be fun! :D) and then if we hit $25,000 (!), I'd commission Winona to create the linework for an additional full-color, 5-10 page Artifice comic PDF picking up after the events of the last scene in the webcomic which will be sent out to ALL backers in 2013.

But again, even if not a single more dollar is pledged, I want to let you know how deeply grateful I am for your kind words, for getting the word out (Artifice's readership has doubled this week thanks to your mentions on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and blogs/forums!) and for your incredibly generous support. Not only will I be able to print a whole bunch of Artifice books that I can send to our readers (and even try to get into stores and libraries!), but you've also made it possible for me to commission this special "Happy Ending" poster I've really wanted to be able to make.

There aren't words to express how you've made me feel. But I can at least say these six:

Thank you so much. You're awesome. :)