Upcoming Epic Fantasy Kickstarter Delayed

Ugh. The five words in this post title were very hard to write.

I was so looking forward to (finally) releasing my one and only epic fantasy novel middle of this year. For reasons (which I’ll summarize below), I’m shifting the Kickstarter campaign to Feb 2025.

This project (mysteriously referred to as LAE until I’m ready to release the title) has been kicking around since 2011 (maybe earlier). It nearly found a home with THREE publishers over the past decade, but ‘issues arose’–if you wanna know ‘what issues?’ you’ll have to buy a copy with my Afterword explaining all that haha.

Part of me is like, “Dangit. Another delay.” While the other part of me is more philosophical: “Well, it’s waited for over a decade to see the light of day; what’s another 9 months?”

Why the delay? Three reasons:

1. I’ve had my sights set on a specific Awesome Artist for two years now. When I reached out to him, he’s so booked out he can’t start the project until October! (I’ve still hired him, because…well…Awesome.) It means he’ll have the final cover and poster art to me early November, meaning I could run a November Kickstarter. Except…
2. Wise advisors warned me against launching crowdfunding during a US election. Especially this US election.
3. Other wise advisors mentioned Nov/Dec as the months people are doing their Xmas shopping (and in countries like Australia, quite fatigued from a full school and work year). Since I wouldn’t be able to deliver their rewards/purchases in time for Xmas, there wasn’t much point placing the campaign at that time of year.

January is a nothing month. Let’s face it. We don’t do anything. We have retail fatigue. Thus I am looking at February for LAE’s Kickstarter launch.

Beta readers and proofreaders have been doing their thing to this book. It’s in excellent shape and it’s had GREAT feedback from those pre-readers.

So. In about 8 months time, I’ll be inviting you to get ready for the Kickstarter to help me fund LAE (mostly funding the costs of The Awesome Artist whose services/expertise are understandably not cheap). And you will be among the first to get your hands on a book that’s been 14 years in the making.

Oh, and because there is that part of me who’s feeling a bit whiney about another delay for LAE, (and if you’re so inclined), hit me up on the socials or email and pat my shoulder reassuringly, will ya? A good “there there” never goes astray. 🙂