Kickstarter

Hello supporters! 

First let me apologize for the long time since last update. As funding was drawing to a close, my family and I were preparing for a move across seas from our home in North Carolina to the forested north of Sweden - the homeland of my wife. This move was in the planning for many months but in the last month, in particular, we were in a mad rush to unload ourselves of our worldly belonging, finish making arrangements and shipping a crate of our records and valuable possessions. It was a bit a stressful, but we arrive in Sweden on April 28 and breathed a breath of fresh air! 

We were staying with in-laws until we got on our feet with jobs, a car and a place of our own to live. We enjoyed our time out in the middle of the Småland forest, but settled into a farm of our own after about a month of staying with the in-laws. Sadly, it took until just a few weeks ago to get internet access at our house. So, it has been difficult to get to work until now! But, I am happy to say I am working on I AM SCIENCE about 70% of my time and have some developments for you.

I am putting those backer dollars to work with a fantastic artist on the cover design and potentially some interior artwork as well. I am holding off on the shirts because of this. I am hoping that we make an even awesomer t-shirt design based on the new cover design. (Instead of my not-so-artistic original design!). More details about the design and artist and a special preview for backers of the cover as it gets finalized.

Stories: This is proving more difficult and interesting than I imagined before. There were LOTS of stories and I have been categorizing them all in a spreadsheet, pulling out narrative elements and trying to figure out how to tie them all into a continuous theme. I will not be editing individual stories as the original context and voice remains so important to the project. But, I will be picking a selection of stories based on diversifying the different experiences had by those who contributed to to the success of I AM SCIENCE. I will be sending out emails, or contacting storytellers via twitter or blog comments if I cannot find your email address, to ask for permission to use your story and whether you would like to expand or edit it for the final eBook.

Second, let me apologize for not getting your rewards to you yet. For those getting t-shirts, as I mentioned above, I've held off until we get an awesome cover design to base the shirts on. For those getting stickers, I have a contact in NYC who will be helping me (since postage is really expensive from Sweden). I will be sending her the addresses and the stickers to mail out for me. Obviously, books will be sent when they are done. I am still shooting for a September deadline as originally intended, but will keep you all posted of obstacles.

Please let me know if you have comments or concerns about the project and now that I am fully internetified I will be in touch more often. If you are near the southeast coast of Sweden, let me know and I'll buy you a fika or an öl!

All the best, Kevin!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you guys know what is going on with I AM SCIENCE and where things are. First, many of you know that I am moving to Sweden and that I am a consultant. Preparing for the move to Sweden has taken a lot of me lately (ie I underestimated). Who would have ever thought it would be so hard to just leave a country and a life behind and up and go somewhere else!? lol (If anyone donates $600 I'll ship them 1000 comic books, worth over $3000, seriously! I can't get rid of this massive collection from the 80s and 90s.)

As far my business is concerned, I am finishing up two major projects for clients as fast as I can while taking care of the moving arrangements. Thus, I have not been able to jump immediately into the I AM SCIENCE project. But this is my next "full time" project that I intend to start within 2-3 days. I anticipate it taking 2 months. So I am aiming for a July/August release. Hard copies will be ordered after that time. I am still figuring out how to release versions for Kindle and iPad, but a pdf will be available immediately online once the project is finished!

In the next two weeks I plan to get the artistic wheels in motion and hire out cover art as well as artistic interpretations of various stories. Also, I have already, and will be sending out shortly, the bumper sticker rewards and a thank you note. I think I have everyone's shirt sizes and will do my best to get those in the mail too. I was originally going to have them done here and ship it all out as one package, but time is running out and shipping from Sweden will be expensive. So I will use an online shirt making service and drop ship to you individually. Wear them with pride and let everyone know how you are science! 

Thank you all so much for your support! I really view this as a full time freelance project and not just a side project. I am documenting all muy expenses and will make that report available at any time if you request it and also as a full report/blog post when the project is completed. I'm honored to be a part of such a generous community that values storytelling and personal experience. Can't wait to get this off the ground and plan to be done in time for the next academic year starting in Fall!

Just as a side note, if you or anyone you know would like to continue contributing to the project, please feel free to use my paypal donate button at http://zelnio.org and mark I AM SCIENCE in the comments section! 

Wow! I'm amazed we have almost raised nearly $6000 and we are halfway through the funding period. To stoke the fires a little bit, I am adding a new reward. It is a beautiful, unique mosaic by brother, who is an artist in Des Moines IA. He created it for me especially after asking me what molecule I thought was important. DNA is an abvious choice, so I decided to go with something that is really just as important to life - Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP)! Without it our biochemistry would be heaping pile of FAIL! It is 20.5 inches by 10 inches.

If you are ordering from outside the US, please add $15 for international shipping to your pledge. I am very proud of this piece of art that has been hanging in my office for a few years, but feel this is a very worthy cause to donate it to. Please check out my brother's Facebook page for more really great mosaic art.  :)

First, THANK YOU SO MUCH!! This project not only means a lot to me, but clearly the science online community deemed it a worthy addition. I am very stoked to start on this and roll it out soon. 

Second, I am challenging the community to help me raise $10,000 for this project! I know, it seems a very high for a book project, but let me explain. I originally asked for $3500 to fund me for about a month full time to work on it and do a small print run for promotional purposes and get it into areas where students don't have fancy gadgets like Kindles and iPads. Now that we have raised $4600, I'm now seeking out partnerships with outreach organizations to get copies of the book deposited in school libraries in urban areas, but also Native American reservations, historically black universities and rural communities. 

The stories that will appear in I AM SCIENCE are inspirational and uplifting. You have shown me and the world that anyone can be a scientist and have a life at it, even if it isn't in academia, even if you don't ace every test, even if you married and had children young and are now returning to school, even if you survived abuse, poverty and adversity agt every corner. The wide variety of stories provides material for a wide variety of people to relate to, so they know they are not alone. 

So, every dollar we can raise will get more books into more hands. But additionally, I would like to provide a modest stipend to to people who will help to make this book really great, artists will illustrate inspirational tweets from the #IamScience hashtag and provide cover art. Obviously I don't need to tell the KickStarter crowd this, but I feel talent should be paid for! And while I or anyone else won't get rich off this, it takes time to do a great job and time spent on one project is time taken away from potentially projects for some people. Hence, I would love to make it worthwhile for artists to make I AM SCIENCE a stunningly brilliant piece of work beyond the stories inside.

Once again. Thanks SO MUCH for your support and we still have 20 days to make this spectacular. 

All the best, Kevin