Jul. 19
11:23 AM
Fables, Heroes, and Kickstarters
Kickstarter is pretty great. I've only backed one or two projects to date due to a wallet moth infestation, but I like the format, as well as the seeming security of the platform--a year or three back I plonked down some cash to pre-order a small press anthology that was in the red (Wheatland Press's Polyphony 7), as they needed x pre-orders or else they wouldn't make it to print, and I never received a book, a refund, or even a response to my "uh, wheres my dollars?" emails, so yeah, Kickstarter seems to be an improvement just as a secure pre-order system, to say nothing of all the other perks. It's been neat to see projects flourish via this specific brand of crowd-funding, be they novels, films, anthologies, board games, whatevs, and it'll be interesting to see the long-term impact of the approach. One thing that would be classy as hell would be if one of these potential fiction anthologies or magazines, assuming they planned on holding open submissions, had a bold-faced "if you fund us, we cannot consider your fiction for inclusion" policy, but I'm not going to wait underwater on that one.
Right, so the reason I got on the subject is that the publisher Stone Skin Press has launched a Kickstarter, because of course they have--like I said, it's a great way of setting up pre-orders, getting pre-release attention, etc. Stone Skin has four fiction anthologies in the wings, which you can read more about at the Kickstarter, and I've got stories in two of'em, both of which I've mentioned around here before: my hardboiled Weegee-and-conjurewoman story "Saturday's Children" will appear in The New Hero II, and my fable "The Fox and the Quantum Physicist" will appear in The Lion and the Aardvark: Aesop’s Modern Fables. I'm especially chuffed about the latter, as it was the source for one of the book's interior illustrations by the brilliant Rachel Kahn--they've posted said illustration at the bottom of the Kickstarter page, as well as the one for Julia Ellingboe's story, and I'm honored to have had my scribblings inspire such a delightful work of art. The Kickstarter has already reached its funding goal, by the by, but there are still a few weeks left to contribute, and the rewards seem pretty nifty (including prints of the illustrations), hence my mentioning it here. Stone Skin seems off to a promising start, just to go on the caliber of the writers they've lined up (full ToCs at the bottom of the Kickstarter page--I'm in crazy good company), the artists they've solicited, and and my own experiences working with them, so here's hoping all prosper from their crowd-funded approach...