Kickstarter

Okay, so... I am speechless.

As I mentioned in my blog, as a family we've decided that if I can hit a target "salary" for the year, I can stay home once my daughter starts kindergarten, so I can continue doing art and writing while she's in school and being mom when she gets back... at 2:30 when she's done with school, not at 6 PM, when I'm done with an office job.

I expected this Kickstarter to make me my goal, maybe. Not this... extravagance over the top. I have lined up an aggressive schedule of projects for the months to come, anticipating a far more modest turn-out, but this... I'm beginning to think I can really do this. That's the overwhelming part.

We are at $3300 or so, with 24 hours to go. Thank you all.

(If you want, you can read my blog posts about the plan to stay home, or on livejournal if you prefer; they're called "The Implicit Kickstarter," "Follow-up to the Implicit Kickstarter" and "Squee and Gratitude.")

I'm currently sifting through my recipe books trying to decide on which five to use for the Cookie Recipe incentive. One of them has to be the mantecaditos, since Spots likes guava... those of you who can't find guava preserves in your grocery ethnic sections can use a different fruit preserve though (of course) you will lose the Cubanness of it. -_-

So, news: the layout is done, pending addition of people's names. The e-book coupons are ready for issue. I have decided to go with the e-book painting for the print cover for several reasons, not least of which is that the ensemble montage feels truer to the ensemble feel of the book; plus, the solo woman back-shot feels overdone in cover images. I'm still planning on doing that painting, but probably as a publicity print. The thank-you postcards have been ordered. And finally, this weekend I'll be writing that epilogue story and doing violence to my old notebooks, choosing pages to rip out for the $100+ backers.

That brings us up to date on the news. We are 2 days to finish and $129 short of the patch incentive. Tell your friends! :)

(P.S. Have a picture! It's a scene from the book. :) )

We are three days out from the project goal, and 149% funded! Thank you, everyone! We are going to hit the deadline with style. :)

Speaking of style is a good lead-in for me to talk about Dave Bryant of Catspaw DTP, who's typesetting Spots the Space Marine. Dave's been doing layout for my books since Cornwuff Press engaged him to typeset my first short story collection, Alysha's Fall, in 2000. Since then, he's done five more books for me: the two artsy collections, The Aphorisms of Kherishdar and companion volume The Admonishments of Kherishdar; the two books about the Jokka, the novel The Worth of a Shell and the short story collection Clays Beneath the Skies, with foreword by Hugo-Award-winning editor Susan Marie Groppi of Strange Horizons; and the dark science fiction novel Even the Wingless.

I love the elegance of Dave's eye; he inevitably produces volumes of understated taste, to the point where I give him his head on any decision I'm not sure about. By now he's good at guessing what I like, often before I even know! He remembers that I favor roomy margins and good whitespace, has a sense for the kind of embellishments I like, and always has great suggestions for unexpected additions (for instance, he's responsible for the stylized anchor on the right-hand page number, recalling the Marine logo). And he has no problems when I get picky about things I am sure about: when I complained that the dingbat on the footer was too fussy, he promptly sent a selection of new ones for me to examine, and then sent another sample set when I said that the results were too dark, and could he show me a faded version. (He even sent three levels of gray so I could pick which one looked right to me.)

I've always found Dave to be the consummate professional: timely, very knowledgeable and with great attention to detail. I highly recommend him to anyone seeking a layout professional. You can have a look at some of the interiors he's done on this page, including three of my own books. I am planning to use him for my next book project in March, too! Why mess with a good thing? :)

Below I've attached what looks to us to be the final draft of the layout for Spots. The book is ready, pending my addition of everyone's names to the back when the project concludes. I'm very excited! I hope you enjoy the previews. :)

Five days to go. I'm currently in discussions with the layout pro now, passing files back and forth. Have a preview...

Good news, everybody! (Now I feel like Professor Farnsworth.) After about an hour and a half of back-and-forthing, my most excellent layout pro and I got the book under 550 pages, while still retaining many of its prettifications, like roomy margins and page breaks per chapter. This gives me a spine width of about 1.25", which I think is quite reasonable. So we are going with the single volume, as planned--thank goodness! We did have to enlarge its dimensions, however: the book is now 7x10. I figure this is still a reasonable trade paperback size, and (bonus!) also large enough to command authority if you want to throw it at someone.

The not-so-good news (from my perspective, anyway), is that I will have to price the book higher than I wanted in order to keep from making those negative royalties. But there's not much I can do about the economics of the situation, and the single volume will still be cheaper than buying two volumes separately.

We're in the home stretch of the project now, with only five days to go. I still have that patch incentive ready if we crack $2500! I have sneakily added a $250 reward: a personally baked pan of brownies (with gluten- and sugar-free versions available)! So spread the word, if you're so inclined! And thank you all for your support. I am all tickled at how many of you are pulling for Spots. :)