Tag Archives: crowdfunding

Crowdfunding Marked by Scorn

The crowdfunding campaign for Marked by Scorn has been running for the last two weeks, and we’re already down to the final 10 days. I meant to announce it here sooner, but things have been busy.

If you’re not already aware of this book, the premise behind it was to put together a collection of stories and poetry that highlight a diverse array of characters in various non-traditional relationships. I have been making my mark highlighting the tales of the under-represented characters in mainstream media for years now. Focusing in particular on racial diversity, as with Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction, and sexuality diversity, like with many of the female characters in my pirate time-travel novel, Adrift (which features 4 women who are not straight and fall in different places along the sexuality spectrum).

Marked by Scorn follows and expands on both of these diverse areas, with stories across 5 continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America), more gender diversity (transgender, gender fluid, and intersex, as well as your more common cisgender characters), and a wider variety of gay, lesbian, and bisexual stories than what appeared in Amok. Many of the South East Asian stories explore what it’s like to have to hide your homosexuality in those cultures.

But these are all stories that transcend the labels, with universal experiences that everyone can relate to. Even if you fit the mainstream culture. As one reviewer put it:

“Altogether, the collection is uplifting, heart-wrenching, sexy, fun, wicked, but most of all, utterly important. Because the one thing that ties all of these stories of breakups and makeups and threesomes and violence and werewolves and partnerships and understanding together—is love. And what could possibly be more important than that?”

While we’re already 20% funded, we still have a way to go to reach the $2,500 goal. If you haven’t already seen the campaign, let me lay down a few basic details about what YOU get:

  • If we reach the goal, everyone who backed the campaign will get a free ebook of Solarwyrm’s first anthology, Fae Fatales: A Fantasy Noir Anthology. This will likely be the last time the book will be available with Solarwyrm, as the editor has moved on to another publishing business.
  • Backers will get their paperbacks at least a month prior to the publication date (July 31) – they’re ready to be sent out as soon as the campaign ends.
  • San Francisco Bay Area backers will be able to collect their paperbacks in person even earlier, if ordered early enough (there are about 20 available copies scheduled to arrive in Oakland in the next 48 hours, and 3 remaining available copies of Adrift, and 2 of Amok before more would need to be ordered).
  • DRM-free ebooks come with all paperback orders of the same book(s).
  • The ebooks will start to be sent out as of Friday May 27 to anyone who has already backed the campaign.
  • There are still a few ebooks available at the early backer price of $4!

Whilst the book is all ready to send out to people, the aim of the campaign is to raise enough funds to pay the 32 writers what is owed to them as per their contracts. Because Solarwyrm believes in paying our contributors.

So if this all sounds awesome to you, go check out the campaign, buy a book or three (the other books listed above are also listed as perks), and help us spread the word so you can get that bonus ebook.

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Launching Adrift by Dominica Malcolm

Now that we’ve finished with the release of Fae Fatales: A Fantasy Noir Anthology, we’re getting ready for the release of our next book.

Let me first introduce myself. Up until now, all the other Solarwyrm posts have been made by Jax Goss. I’m Dominica Malcolm, one of the writers from Fae Fatales. Like that book, I am running a crowdfunding campaign for my novel, Adrift.

Cover of Adrift by Dominica Malcolm

It’s the 21st century, and Jaclyn Rousseau is not where she should be. 1661 disappeared before her eyes, and there’s no way home. That matters not to Jaclyn—she lost her lover, and everything else that meant anything to her, in the West Indies.

In an adventure that crosses time and the Atlantic, a murderous pirate must find a place for herself in this new world.

Can she escape her past, or will it catch up with her?

Unlike Fae Fatales, money is not being raised to pay writers and artists, but instead to go toward marketing, promotion, and advertising costs. 20% of the net profits will also be donated to the World Literacy Foundation.

As a promotion for the launch of the campaign, we are running a giveaway. You can win copies of Adrift, Fae Fatales: A Fantasy Noir Anthology, or Jax Goss’s The Edge of the Map. Check it out!

There is also another way to earn a free ebook copy of Adrift. You will need to head over to the campaign on Indiegogo, and have a login. Once you do, share the campaign link with your unique Indiegogo ID at the end (if you’re logged in, you can just copy the URL from the share section of the page, or the URL bar in your browser, or even use the share buttons on the page). If you help raise $10 or more through the campaign, I will send you the ebook.

If you haven’t yet had the chance to pick up Fae Fatales, you can also get the ebook version for free or at a slight discount through Adrift‘s Indiegogo campaign, when buying the novel. Check out the campaign page for details.

Add Adrift to your shelves on Goodreads.

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Announcing our first two artists!

It gives me enormous pleasure to announce the involvement of our first two artists with our upcoming book, Fae Fatales: A Fantasy Noir Anthology. Our Indiegogo campaign ends in only 10 days, and we have enough for three artists, and are only $14 away from our fourth. We would really love to be able to get an artist for each of the ten stories before the end of the campaign! 

I have approached three artists, and two of them have confirmed. I picked the stories using a randomising function on my excel spreadsheet, so that it would be as fair as possible. 

Our first artist, illustrating Dominica Malcolm‘s beautiful story Siren, is Grace Jensen. Her exquisite work can be seen on her website. We are really thrilled to have her on board, and I for one cannot wait to see what she is going to produce. 

Our second artist, illustrating J.M. Pauler’s gorgeous The Brooch, is Ashley Frary. Her stunning art can be seen on her Facebook page. Don’t forget to Like her! Ashley has done some work for Plunge Magazine, and we are delighted to have her involved in this project. 

I’ve approached a third artist, but am waiting for him to respond, and I have two more waiting in the wings, just needing our funds to hit the targets, so any help you can send our way would be most welcome. Remember, every physical copy of the book will receive a pack of postcards from this artwork, which is an offer ONLY AVAILABLE TO INDIEGOGO BACKERS! So don’t delay! You only have ten days to get this beautiful art in addition to the book for the same price.

We also will still need more artists, if we do hit our target, so if you know any artists, please send them our way.  

 

Call for Artists!

Fae Fatales: A Fantasy Noir Anthology is go! We’ve hit our target, and so this book will be happening and out in the world in the next month or so. 

Our first stretch goal is all about artists! We’d like to commission ten artists, one for each story, to do an A4 illustration of one of the stories for us. We need about $66 per artist. That will mean I can pay the artists $50 each for their work, and include a set of postcard prints of the images with each printed book ought in our Indiegogo campaign.

If this sounds like something you would be interested in, please email me at solarwyrm@gmail.com with links to or examples of your work. It’s going to happen pretty quickly, so basically, as soon as we hit each target, I’ll pick an artist and send them one of the stories. If they want to go ahead once they’ve read the story, I’ll announce it here, until we have ten. Assuming we hit the stretch goal of $2160!

As I write this, we already have enough for ONE artist, so get in quickly! And spread the word!! 

ETA: We hit our target. We’re still looking for TWO MORE artists!

ETA again: I have now filled all the artist slots! Thanks for all the interest!

Thanks!