K is for Kickstarter

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of short stories, poems, and art.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        K is for Kickstarter, which is how I published this book.  For those who aren’t familiar with Kickstarter, it’s a crowd-funding platform, and the process is that creators post a campaign for a project they hope to do.  Backers can pledge to help fund the project in various amounts, and if enough pledges are made to fund the project fully, everyone chips in their part.  However, if there are not enough pledges, the project does not go forward, and the backers don’t get charged anything, so nobody gets stuck backing a project that can’t be completed.  The most obvious use is when you want to create something that requires money up front: Kickstarter allows you to make sure you can raise enough money to complete the project before you begin.  For me, though, Kickstarter serves as a good way to gauge interest in my sometimes niche projects.

        Bittersweetness & Light is a collection of short stories, poetry, and art, so it doesn’t fall fully into any one of those categories.  It’s speculative fiction, which is certainly very popular, but not always taken very seriously by publishers.  It’s got this theme of hope and light, which is often considered fluffy, frivolous, and definitely not Serious Literature.  So am I the only one who thought this would be a book worth making?  Kickstarter allows me to get a sense of whether I’m all alone in this, before I actually put together the whole shebang.

        And in this case, the campaign was indeed successful, the project was indeed fully funded, and there are indeed people out there in the world besides me who want to read a book of warm-hearted stories, magical poems, and whimsical art that celebrate the goodness that really does exist.  Hooray!

        K is also for Knitting, one of the poems in the book, which you can read where it was first published here in New Myths online.  And K is for Keep Dancing, one of the block prints that appears in the book, and which seems like a good illustration of the Kickstarter principle of people joining together to help support a project they love.

        Marketing Moral: Back me on Kickstarter!  One of the crazy things about being an author is that by the time one book is being launched, you’re already deep into work on the next one.  I’m currently planning to run my next Kickstarter campaign in September, for a book to be released some time in the spring or summer of 2026.  The new book will have the same format of poetry, short stories, and art, but the common theme this time will be re-imaginings and inspirations based on classic fairy tales, classical mythology, and other traditional stories.  Sound interesting?  If you join my mailing list you’ll be among the first to find out when the new Kickstarter is launched.  Join my Infrequent Newsletter here.  (I send emails only about once a month, so don’t worry about your mailbox filling up with spam from me.)

        Proper Moral: Keep dancing!  To quote a song from “Swing Time” (lyrics by Dorothy Fields, 1936)…

Nothing's impossible, I have found,

For when my chin is on the ground,

I pick myself up, dust myself off,

Start all over again

Don't lose your confidence if you slip.

Be grateful for a pleasant trip,

And pick yourself up; dust yourself off;

Start all over again.

        You can see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers performing the song here.

        Have you ever backed anything on Kickstarter?  Consider taking a look (here) and see whether you just might discover some really amazing small-time, independent project that could use your support.

[Picture: Keep Dancing, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2022 (see originals here), from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025.]