So- I’m trying something new. Scary times, right? A friend has been nudging me for a while, saying I should really set up a Kickstarter campaign. From what she explained, there are two things that caught my attention. epic fantasy does very well on KS, and two, KS LOOOOOVES nice big flashy things, like deluxe editions. Well, that got my attention, and my newfound terror! At first, I went and took a look at it. The site looks okay. Then I looked at her campaign link (I’ll put it below, because she’s an amazing writer!). So, Melinda’s campaign looks like a graphics Valhalla! Needless to say, I took one look at that– and ran, vowing never to speak of such things again! (overdramatic much?? 🙂

But eventually, I circled back around. Asked some questions, joined a fb group KS for authors. Got some amazing and kind advice from Anthea Sharp, who runs the group and knows KS inside and out. Then, Melinda offered to help walk me through the setup, noting that to start, all I need is a prelaunch page, which is basic, and a banner to go with it. Okay- I can do that.

Right?

Wrong!

I made a banner. She was like. nope. tried another. Second nope. talked to a potential VA who made a few (and I know that epic fantasy is different than other genres and the flashy stuff doesn’t work. Most of it was flashy and –definitely– didn’t work. So then I joked about Melinda making it. And to my surprise, she was thrilled to help– evidently, she LOOOOVES doing this stuff. so, since then, she has been my angel of mercy, and we spent a couple of hours getting a banner that works. I think it came out really well!

SO- we then started talking about the campaign itself. Reward tiers and what I wanted to put together.

At first, I was just going to do hard covers. But then, after a while, I’ve decided… and this could still change… that I’d rather put out nice fancy deluxe edition covers, with some bonus content or author commentary, etc. We spent a while using an AI program to generate some concept ideas. Ideas I could show to an artist. I know some people are touchy about the use of AI. I respect both sides of the argument– which isn’t for here. I will just note that I do occasionally use it as a tool, for places such as this. Otherwise, I would be spending painful hours trying to describe something to the designer and wasting both their time and mine, as well as their patience.

here are a few of the design ideas, concepts.. I’m sure that what i get back won’t be identical to any of these! I’m excited to see what the designer comes up with. I also plan to have fancy sprayed edges and interior pages. I forget what they are called:)