Big August Announcement!

It’s August! Can you believe it? Where does the time go?

 

In a few short weeks, volume five of Season of the Witch will be released (that is, if I ever decide on a title). I’ve already begun work on volume six (hopefully due out in October): The Chaos Gate.  My hope is that I can begin work on the first print book in October and include all the material from the first year. But there’s something more important that I need to announce to Season of the Witch  fans:

 

Yep! That’s right. I am launching a Patreon campaign.

Now, this took a lot of thought on my part about how I planned to handle the Season of the Witch series after my pricing realizations. To those who supported me and purchased Jaclyn of the Lantern  and Bethania’s Broomsticks, I am immensely grateful. I didn’t want to lower the price on those items initially because I worried I would seem ungracious to those initial fans who were willing to pay $1 for my work.  However, reaching a wide audience is critical if I wish to continue writing, especially if I wish for it to be more than a hobby, and as a person who is very shy (even on the internet), I have to come up with different ways to build my platform.

For those who don’t know, Patreon is a crowdsourced service where fans become patrons of their favorite creators. Unlike other services (such as Kickstarter) which raise money in one lump sum, Patreon raises money as the artist creates. This provides the artist with recurring funding and the patron the sense of power that comes with being somewhat like the Medicis of Florence. This is their FAQ if you want to know more.

For my campaign, the baseline donation is $1 per novella with two bonus categories. The novellas themselves will remain free, but those who wish to support me further can add a “tip” of $1. At $2, I will publicly thank the supporter (and link to their twitter, blog, books of their own, if they so wish) here on this blog with the release of each novella as well as including them in an acknowledgements section in the book. I added a $5 tier for those who want bonus content, which at this point is sneak peeks and maybe an audio reading or two, but if people sign up at that tier I’ll determine some better goodies based on their requests.

At this point, I have two stretch goals: If we reach the point where $100 is pledged per novella (be that 100 different people or 10 – the glory of Patreon), I will begin work on illustrations for the “grimoires” which will be art books based on the series and if we reach $500, I will begin publishing And So It Was In The Kingdom as a free novella as well.  I will consider further stretch goals if we reach them. So head on over to my campaign page and check it out! I will be more than happy to answer any further questions.

And to those who have always supported me: Thank You! From the bottom of my heart. Please do not think your support is unappreciated by this move. I don’t know all of your names (because Smashwords doesn’t give me access to that information), so I cannot publicly thank you, but know that you are all in my heart.