Friends,

I can't call this a true postmortem, because there are probably a couple more updates coming. I'll certainly send one out when the Kickstarter Budget has been fully spent. But now that the book has been published and launched in two cities, it seems an appropriate time for a little wrap-up.

FIRST (and most importantly), I've been able to get out about half of the rewards, but many of you will be expecting stuff in the mail. If you requested:
1. A snail-mail thank-you note.
2. A CD of Hungry Rats music
3. A collection of Hungry Rats "outtakes"
4. A copy of the book in the mail
5. A coffee mug
Please send me your mailing address.
You can send it to me at connor@connorcoyne.com

SECOND,
I welcome your help in these early days and weeks plugging the book. We had a great turnout at our events in Chicago and Flint, hosted by two great venues, with contributing artists and lively afterparties. Now we just have to keep the momentum going.

Remember: Every cent I earn between now and 12/31 goes straight to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan. The 42 books we've already sold have already earned about $200 for that organization.

If you want to buy a copy (or recommend it to a friend):
- Hungry Rats website: http://hungryrats.com
- Buy Hungry Rats online at Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/hungry-rats/12301832

If you want to hear more:
- Join our Hungry Rats Facebook Group: http://tinyurl.com/hungryratsfacebook
- "Like" me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/connorcoyne
- Drop me an email with any ideas or suggestions you may have: connor@connorcoyne.com

Thanks again for all you have done!

~ Connor

Thanks to everyone for bearing with me through this long process: the book is finished and available for purchase. Just follow the links from:

http://hungryrats.com

NOTE: Hold off on ordering a copy if you have already requested one as a reward for your Kickstarter contribution; I've set these copies aside for you. Correspondingly, if you are coming to the Chicago Launch (9/10) or the Flint Launch (9/16), I will be selling the book at a modest discount, with food/drink vouchers. All other Kickstarter Rewards will follow shortly.

ALSO: Remember all author profits through 12/31/10 will go to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan.

Thanks again!

~ Connor

Dear Backers,

Thank you once again for your generous gift to support the publication of Hungry Rats.

Recent events in Flint have just about turned this project on its head. I have made a decision about publication and have written a letter explaining my course of action. I hope you will check it out. I have posted it on my blog here: http://www.connorcoyne.com/blog/2010/08/hungry-rats-the-rat-man-and-the-flint-serial-killer/
I am ready to receive any of your thoughts or suggestions.

Best wishes,

Connor Coyne

Hello!

Please take a minute to watch the new Hungry Rats promo video, shot in Chicago and Flint. It features the music of Richard Whaling, and was filmed by Sam Perkins-Harbin and the Gothic Funk Press.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-qHJeC2AzN8

If you enjoy the video, please consider sharing it with friends and family. You can use the "share" button at the bottom of the screen to send the video to Facebook, Twitter, and other networks.

Also, we are developing your rewards and hope send out the first of them starting next week.

Best wishes,

Connor Coyne

Hello Everyone!

Well, we did it! $4,022.28 is a very workable budget, and I'm excited to shift the focus to the final editing and design of the novel, as well as marketing. We should have enough of a budget to fund at least a modest tour of the Midwest (the focus will be Detroit, Chicago, Flint, and upstate Michigan) as well as a few stops out east (New York and Philly and possibly D.C. and Boston).

While the budget itself is exciting, I'm just as impressed by the number of people who gave: 50 backers contributed over a 3-month period. That's an average of about 4 per week, and it means that 50 people believe in this project... definitely a morale boost for a very challenging and dynamic enterprise. I can't thank you enough for your support and it is now my job and pleasure to carry this novel to the world with all of the innovation and determination I can muster.

I may use this list to contact you in the future, but it will be more sparingly now that our goal has been achieved. Before I go, though, there's a bit of business to take care of.

FIRST, a few of your payments did not go through... if you got a message from Kickstarter telling you this, please log in and correct the information so that we can complete funding to budget. If you didn't get such a message, or have already addressed it, you may disregard this.

SECOND, you've already helped to fund Hungry Rats. Would you like to help market it? If so, please join our 'Friends of Hungry Rats' Facebook group: http://tinyurl.com/26wqrwj If you don't have a Facebook account, email me at connor at connorcoyne dot com, and I will happily send you updates by email.

THIRD, most of you have selected rewards in exchange for your pledge. These will be distributed between now and August; those of you who requested a 'thank you note,' for example, will be receiving those very soon, while those who requested a copy of the novel will get this around the time of final publication this summer. Kickstarter may send you a request for your mailing address. This is so I can send you your selected reward, so make sure you respond!

FOURTH, all backers have earned a place in the novel's Acknowledgments. If I do not hear from you, I will assume you want to be included under the name of your Kickstarter account. If you do not want to be listed, or if you want to be listed under a different name or handle, please email me at connor at connorcoyne dot come with this information.

FIFTH, I want to thank everyone who pushed this through, from Elisabeth Blair who lobbied hard for Kickstarter a few months ago when I was on the fence to Sam Perkins-Harbin who helped me conceive and develop the videos and rewards, and from those of you who made large donations that propelled us to our goal to those who made a smaller pledge, even though it's been a tight financial year for many of us. You have made this possible, and I thank you sincerely.

I may use Kickstarter updates from time to time, to announce new media (videos, music, and photos), readings and performances, and of course, the publication and release of Hungry Rats. For more info and involvement, I hope that I'll see you on Facebook.

Gratefully,

Connor Coyne

Okay, so this isn't the last Kickstarter update you'll get but it is the last update you'll get before our deadline (which is some arcane time like 6 AM CST on May 6th). There are some exciting things happening, and I wanted to let you know about them.

1. Our deadline is looming! If you know anyone who is interested in becoming a backer of Hungry Rats, they must do so before this May 6th!

2. Tonight (May 4th) I will be reading Tuesday Funk, the Gothic Funk reading series. If you're in the Chicago area, and you'd like to hear me read alongside some other excellent guests, details are here.

3. Take a look at Hungry Rats Promo Video #2. You can see it here: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7427485/19435340.

4. Kickstarter has been our grassroots fundraising vehicle, but we're using Facebook for our grassroots marketing. If you have a Facebook account, you can join the group here.

Thanks again for your help, and I'll see you on the other side!

~ Connor

I had originally planned on sending out 7-10 updates in a final push on the Kickstarter front, but on Tuesday my wife went into labor for our firstborn -- a lovely little girl named Mary -- and with 5 days left for Kickstarter, that plan is out the window!

No regrets! Thanks to your generosity, we've already raised $3800, and even after Kickstarter's commission and other expenses, it's still far-and-away enough to publish the book. I will be sending out a few updates over the next 5 days (our fund raising will wrap up on Wednesday), and if you want to help spread the word I'm most grateful. At this point, any additional donations will support touring that will promote the novel with a national (as opposed to a strictly midwestern) audience.

For today:

If you know any philanthropists and/or friends of the arts who might be interested in making a small contribution, would you forward them this link?:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/connorcoyne/hungry-rats-an-avant-garde-noir-novel

If you do this, please write them a personal note. Donors typically like to know why they should be interested in the project and how their donation is going to help out. I have written a lot about this on the Kickstarter site. There is a lot of information on the novel at http://hungryrats.com. If you do plan on contacting someone and would like any suggestions or help with the pitch, let me know and I'll help however I can!

Hello!

As we move into the last twelve days of our Kickstarter campaign, I wanted to write you a note to explain where we stand right now, what opportunities are available, and how your pledge will be put to work.

First, there are now forty of you receiving this message -- that's an extraordinary number of people supporting an independent artistic venture in an uncertain economy -- and it is difficult for me to find words to express my gratitude. When Hungry Rats is printed up for circulation this summer, it will be in large part due to your efforts and generosity. Thank you.

Second, we are currently at $3750, which is well over our minimal goal of $3200. I think it is very likely that we will be able to at least break $4000, but even if we don't, we are well-positioned to move forward with a quality publication, available for order worldwide, and with modest but inventive marketing, I think we can do a lot with this number.

Assuming we do break $4000, some of that amount will be immediately absorbed by Kickstarter's hosting fees (5% or $200) and the cost of creating and distributing the rewards (I estimate $240, based on today's outlay). $4000 - $440 = $3560. My projected budget at the start of this campaign was $4300, but there's good news in that some of the expenses will be considerably less than I had anticipated.

For example, it used to be that POD printers all sold packages that came with certain editing- and design- requirements. Today, the industry has matured to the point where it can offer more a la carte services. Since I contracted with my own designer and editor from the start, I have been able to avoid the substantial markup that would come with a package deal. As of now I am committed to an reasonable advance for editing and for design, with further compensation as a commission on each sale. While I had before budgeted a combined total of $2400 for design and printing, today it looks like that number will be more along the lines of $900. Given these adjustments, we arrive at the following tentative budget:

LEGAL / ADMINISTRATIVE: $300
DESIGN: $600
PRINTING: $300
MARKETING/PROMOTION: $2340

TOTAL: $3560

The net effect is that even though the overall budget is $700 less than the initial projection, the marketing/promotional budget has increased by almost 50% with no compromise in terms of print quality. This is important, because I've since learned that marketing/promotion will probably absorb more funds (and more quickly) than I had initially thought.

In particular, there are two areas of concentration that I think will benefit from the added promotional oomph.

First, guerrilla and viral marketing via the internet has benefit of low overhead, and is ideal for niche projects like an avant-garde novel. I'll be exploring both straightforward tactics (eg. online advertising) and buzz marketing through sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Second, nothing quite substitutes for touring a book for exposing a project to a new audience and generating word-of-mouth... also, because of the collaborative development of Hungry Rats, I think we can plan a very special and memorable tour, taking in both bookstores as well as less conventional venues. Most likely, I will be doing this with Richard Whaling and Elisabeth Blair, and we'll be saving every nickel and dime we can by staying with friends and packing brown bag lunches. There will still be expenses along the way, of course, but given careful planning, I certainly think we have enough budgeted to take in most major midwestern cities that will have us (and that is within a day's drive of Chicago). I already have leads on launch events for both Flint and Chicago, and I'd like each of those cities to have a full-blown event, featuring the musical and artistic collaborators who have made such a difference in this project already.

Depending on how we do in the next 12 days (or an unexpected glut of sales out of the gate, but you never want to budget based on that), we could very easily add a few sites on the East Coast to that list, possibly for early in 2011. We've already been offered opportunities in New York City and in Philadelphia, and I'm pursuing leads in other cities. I don't yet have a clear enough sense of expenses to say what the threshold would be for the Left Coast, but I am confident we could find venues in some combination of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and/or Seattle. This is, at the moment, the ambitious and less-likely option, but it's worth keeping on the table.

I have to stress that even if we don't raise another dime, this project will launch, on schedule, this summer, to some grassroots hype in the Midwest, and that is something I am very happy with and proud of. If you do have friends, relatives, coworkers, or allies that you feel comfortable sharing this with, I promise I will continue to make the very best use of any pledges that I can. In particular, there are several "big ticket" rewards that haven't been claimed yet... if several people would like to go in on this together, we can certainly find a way to accommodate that. Likewise, if someone wanted such a reward, but was more interested in visiting Milwaukee or Muskegon than Chicago, I'm sure we could find a way to work that out as well.

It's 12 days to go and all of the stops are out! Please let me know if you have any ideas as this campaign starts to wrap up, and once again, thanks for all you have done. It will be nice to finally set the fundraising aside and concentrate fully on the final design and execution of the book; I'm looking forward to sharing that with you.

Connor

PS. One last note; some of you haven't claimed rewards. That's fine, and it's your right, but I do encourage you to claim one! They were designed to make this project more fun and meaningful for you -- the backers -- and are definitely considered in the calibration of the budget. In particular, if you have donated over $50 already and haven't chosen a reward, take a look at Sam's gorgeous T-shirt, featuring "the mainstream" as a view of the afterlife through the warped eyes of the Malady family.

We've got thirteen days to go until fundraising closes, and Sam Perkins-Harbin and I have put together some new rewards for our backers. There will be a couple more rewards announced in the upcoming days, but this is definitely the largest batch!

$40 - T-SHIRT

Most exciting is the T-shirt designed by Sam Perkins-Harbin, with a rendering of the Malady family's take on the afterlife.

$40 - BOXERS AND THONG

Okay, it might seem cheesy, but just imagine how surprised your other will be to discover your Hungry Rats skivvies!

$40 - TEDDY BEAR

The North Woods were rife with these feral miscreants.

$40 - HAT

Because sweaty brows is an occupational hazard for amateur sleuths, serial killers, and Michigan lumberjacks.

$40 - TOTE BAG

The back features Gustave Doré's classic face-off between Riding Hood and the wolf.

$30 - COFFEE MUG

The lumberjacks needed their coffee, hot and secure.

And here are a couple other treats:

$10 - BUTTON

$10 - STICKER

Now these items will probably be available later, and at somewhat lower prices; I'm offering them now in conjunction with Kickstarter to help fundraising for the novel. At this point, funds are going for a book tour, in the hopes that it will be collaborative and take in music and performance art, in addition to straightforward readings. At this stage, your donations are helping us make a trip to the East Coast, and possibly even the West Coast!

Please note that designs may change slightly... for the better! These are preliminary images to give you a sense of what the rewards will look like, but we're continuing to refine and improve them.

Elisabeth Blair has been doing a great job in her role as Editor, and I have posted the revised version of Chapter One on the Hungry Rats website. You can read it here.

While Elisabeth and I have been working hard on the edits to get the manuscript into perfect shape, Sam Perkins-Harbin of Forge 22 has created a masterful and beautiful cover. It features his sister, Emily, as a stand-in for Meredith. You can also see Emily in our two promotional videos.

As with the edits, the cover is an ongoing project, but I am delighted to know that, even if we went to press tomorrow, we'd have a cover to be proud of. Scroll down to see Sam's work.

Hungry Rats is scheduled to be available to the public late this summer.

First, I'm pleased to announce a new contributor to the Hungry Rats project. Nick Carone, a screenwriter from Chicago, is putting together an original work of fiction set in Flint during the Ratman murders. I have put his photo and a short bio up on the website under "contributors." While a number of artists, musicians, and designers have added their stamp to the project, Nick is the first person to do so through prose writing.

The mainstream press has neglected a whole area of work rich in potential. Dismissively branded as "fan fiction" or "derivative work," Hungry Rats seeks to promote these inspired and often startlingly original works on equal footing with the novel itself. After all; every fiction establishs a universe that is wholly unique and self-contained. Why not explore it from the angles of film and music, photography and painting, poetry and prose, for as long as it is interesting?

If you are interested in collaborating on Hungry Rats (and don't limit yourself; I'm interested in everything above, and everything else from biology to theater to sociology to journalism), please drop me a line and let me know what you're thinking!

This is all new to me, and I'm learning the ropes as I go.

Sometime yesterday, it occurred to me that sending out marketing suggestions five days in a row is "a bit much." You're already doing tremendous things to help bring Hungry Rats to the world and I don't want to take your time for granted. In particular, I understand how difficult it can be to keep your inbox from getting cluttered (I have about 1660 emails "in waiting")!

So, if you are interested in helping me with marketing/promotion strategies -- things like word-of-mouth, social media, and brainstorming -- I would like to invite you to join a Facebook Group I created for this express purpose: http://digg.com/u3SuEV
If you don't have a Facebook account, contact me and I'll be happy to send you marketing info by email instead.

Here on Kickstarter, I'll be going back to about 3 updates per week, focusing on the story, its composition, collaborations, and (occasional) major marketing steps.

Come and join us on Facebook!
http://digg.com/u3SuEV

Thanks again for all of your help!

Connor Coyne

This week, in lieu of the standard updates I've been sending, each day I'll be writing a quick-and-easy suggestion for how you can help promote Hungry Rats in the Wild, Wild 'Net. Unlike the lumberjacks, we aren't dealing with yellow fever here; we want to spread this thing as far and fast as we can.

TUESDAY:

Today's "task" should be easy and fun...
Go to the video -- http://www.youtube.com/watch... -- and click "like" if you liked it, and then click to leave a comment. You will have to login to either your YouTube or Google (Gmail) account, but you can post from that point.

I am personally more concerned that the comments are constructive and interesting than that they are exclusively positive (don't get me wrong, positive is *good*, but I'm not just fishing for compliments here!).

While you're there, you can give the video an added little boost by clicking the "share" button to transmit to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Orkut, StumbleUpon, Live Spaces, Bebo, and hi5. There's also a button to send by email.

Thanks again for helping to promote this video, and I'll post something new tomorrow!

Best,

Connor Coyne

This week, in lieu of the standard updates I've been sending, each day I'll be writing a quick-and-easy suggestion for how you can help promote Hungry Rats in the Wild, Wild 'Net. Unlike the lumberjacks, we aren't dealing with yellow fever here; we want to spread this thing as far and fast as we can.

MONDAY:

If you have a Facebook account, please consider posting the following in your status bar (and remember to include the bit at the end, so that your friends can pass it along, too!):

--------------------------------------------

"Ratman, are you out there?"
http://digg.com/u3Seur
Avant Garde Noir, Serial Killers, Flint and the Michigan North Woods, Evil Lumberjacks

Help spread the word about Hungry Rats by copy-and-pasting this entire message to your status bar.

--------------------------------------------

I am very excited to announce the first installment of one of the most dynamic aspects of this project. Gothic Funk Press has finished producing the first of several promotional videos for this novel. It features text from Hungry Rats, includes a new song by Richard Whaling, stars Emily Perkins-Harbin as Meredith Malady, and was shot by Forge 22 and myself.

This video is to act exactly like a movie preview: by giving viewers a compelling glimpse of the story it encourages them to take a closer look, and hopefully to order the book. The video is an example of "viral marketing." Viral marketing is a strategy that uses new technology in combination with the oldest form of advertising: word-of-mouth. If enough people are excited about Hungry Rats, and spread the word, the project builds buzz. This can more than compensate for our limited budget, but I can't do it without your involvement. I repeat: I can't do it without your involvement!

Please do all or any of the following to help share Hungry Rats far and wide.

1. Watch the video, and give it a thumbs up! Leave comments. You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoEaYl45z7E

2. Use the buttons at the bottom of the YouTube screen to share the video by email, Facebook, Twitter, or other networks.

3. You can also embed the video on your blog or website by posting the "embed" code from the YouTube page.

4. Many people forward emails to friends and family, so share the Hungry Rats videos with these people!

5. Overall, these videos are of central importance to marketing the novel... They are our best chance we have to increase excitement in the novel, and so a few enthusiastic emails and postings can make just as much of a difference as a donation. If you like the video, please consider sharing it with everyone you know, and encourage recipients to pass it down the chain.

Thank you for all of your help!

Connor Coyne