Tagged: crowdfunding
Ten Little Astronauts Launch Party Video
here’s the video from the Ten Little Astronauts launch party, very kindly recorded by Alex Carter (Lexica Films). It all went smoothly in the end, and it was great to see so many people who supported the book while it was crowdfunding, as well as so many who’d only discovered it since!
I had quite a lot of help getting this together, primarily from Crispin and the staff at P & G Wells, but also from Lynda Robertson and (again) Alex Carter who were kind enough to lend a hand on the evening. A huge thanks to everyone who helped make this happen, even if it was just by being there!
OLYMPIA TV Pilot Now on IndieGoGo
If you’re into comedy, drama, comedy-drama and/or Greek mythology, I highly recommend taking a look at OLYMPIA, which is funding on IndieGoGo right now:
I actually co-wrote an episode for this series a while back, but the project has grown in scope pretty substantially since then. I’m not sure any of my contributions will make it into its current incarnation (and in any case it wasn’t the pilot that I had a hand in) so I feel sufficiently distant from this to say that it looks like a very impressive endeavour that deserves your support if you can spare it.
Greek gods and selfies: it’s a winning combination!
OLYMPIA has just launched, so if you want to see it succeed then now’s the time to make that happen. You can be the hipster who knew about it before it was cool.
The project has a really solid team behind it, and a big part of the reason they’re looking for funding is so that they can go beyond the standard portfolio project and actually pay the people who are doing all the work, which is disappointingly rare these days. I personally can vouch for Claire Rose (who you may have seen on Yesterday’s Nazi Murder Mysteries) and Alex Carter (who filmed and edited one of my own videos). Other names are new to me, but their previous credits include titles such as Avengers: Age of Ultron, which I feel is kind of a big deal.
Long story short, I’ve chipped in for this and it would be just fantastic if you felt like helping it along too.
Guest Post: Oli Jacobs on Genre Fiction
The following is a guest post by Oli Jacobs, whose book Deep Down There is currently funding at Unbound. I’ve had my eye on it for a while, so have a read of this then go take a look!
Nifty little Lego scene courtesy of Oli Jacobs.
Mention the likes of sci-fi and horror to your average layman, and they’ll probably think the same things – aliens & spaceships, monsters & gore. Most readers who don’t dabble in genre fiction already know why they don’t like it; they know the tropes, seen the marketing, and don’t consider it as something to invade their nice little world of romance or crime (or, indeed, both).
Well guess what, layman or laywoman, you’re about to be shocked to your very core. For, you see, genre fiction has evolved within the last few years, especially in the literary world. Science Fiction has become Science Fact, meaning that the so-called Outer Limits are now very much over the horizon. Horror has become an everyday reality, with a cocktail of 24 hours news and the internet presenting us with all manner of modern monsters and terrors.
And in many up and coming indie authors, these scenarios are being twisted to bring their works to readers who would normally steer away.
The master of this particular domain, Damon L. Wakes, has done this with his clever spin on an old classic. Ten Little Astronauts takes the classic Agatha Christie And Then There Were None, and throws it into the empty arena of space. Much like the franchise movie approach of taking something and blasting it into the galaxy, Wakes presents a known tale and adds the cybernetic enhancements of sci-fi onto it, effectively giving a gateway to those that know the classic, and fancy something a bit different with it. It is much like giving an old, much lived-in abode a fresh coat of paint – suddenly we are presented with a whole new tale that doesn’t feel as invasive as an Arthur C Clarke epic. Continue reading
Ten Little Astronauts One Week Away!
Ten Little Astronauts is now in print, just in time for its trade publication date: December 13th. The copies I’ll be taking to book fairs – including the Hampshire Writers’ Society Members’ Book Fair on the 11th – arrived just today!
This seems like as good a time as any to share the cover with everyone, especially because it’s already showing up on Amazon, where (among other places) you can now pre-order copies. Naturally supporters of the book got a look at the cover as soon as it went to print. Continue reading
Supporter List for Ten Little Astronauts Closing Imminently!
If you’d like to support Ten Little Astronauts but haven’t already, this is your absolute last chance. The supporter list will close at midnight on September 17th, UK time. If you’ve never even heard of this book before, here’s a video – filmed on board a submarine – to tell you what it’s all about:
Everybody who supports a book at Unbound gets their name listed in the back to record their contribution. But with Ten Little Astronauts set to launch next month, the thing has to be typeset and printed which means – inevitably – they have to call time on adding new supporters.
If you’re reading this before the deadline, please do consider spreading the news however you can. Post it on Facebook. Send out a tweet. Print out this blog post, fold it into a dainty origami swan and foist it on somebody while shouting “HONK! HONK!” I promise I won’t judge you (though can’t speak for anyone else).
Remember: if your name’s not on the list by midnight on the 17th, it won’t be in the book!
Ten Little Astronauts is Fully Funded!
We did it! Ten Little Astronauts has all the funding it needs to make it into print (and then some!). Unbound has just moved it over to the paperback list, which means it now has 131% of its target. That’s pretty incredible, and it’s all down to the people who pledged or just generally helped to get it in front of enough readers to make this happen. Continue reading
What Now for Ten Little Astronauts?
The Christmas deadline for funding Ten Little Astronauts has now passed, but since nobody’s in the Unbound office over the holidays there’s technically nothing stopping people from contributing. If you meant to pledge before Christmas and are currently kicking yourself for missing your chance, don’t do that. There’s still time, and your support can still make a difference.
Artwork by Joe Wright
It’s pretty much certain that there are still people out there who’d pledge if they simply knew about the book – so if there’s a friend you’ve been meaning to tell about it, it would be absolutely great if you could do that – but personally I’ll be focusing on other things for the next little while. Once Unbound opens up again in the New Year I expect to hear from Scott Pack about what the options are for Ten Little Astronauts – at 72% funded and with 245 people already lined up to get a copy, I think it’s in a pretty good position right now – but until that happens there won’t be much news.
In the meantime, I’m hoping to get this year’s flash fiction anthology – We All Saw It Coming – wrapped up while it still is actually this year. Ideally I’d like to get the ebook out before 2018, but the paperback may be a little longer. I might also do a little work on the interactive sci-fi story I offered as a reward for the first 150 supporters of Ten Little Astronauts. I’ve been looking forward to working on that for a long time!
As always, thanks to everyone who’s put in a pledge for Ten Little Astronauts, or even just passed it on to somebody else. The response to this book has been just mind-boggling, and everyone who’s done anything to help it out has had a hand in that. Thanks!
Ten Little Astronauts Artwork by Joe Wright
Joe Wright just sent over this absolutely fantastic Ten Little Astronauts artwork! It’s based on a scene from the novella that a very small handful of people will have heard me read at the International Agatha Christie Festival.
Artwork by Joe Wright
Chances are you’ll have come across Joe Wright’s work before, as he also produced the image I’ve been using in almost all my promotional materials for Girth Loinhammer’s Most Exponential Adventure. This one’s very different in terms of style, though:
I was trying to make something that was reminiscent of old sci-fi pulp novels, which I understand isn’t exactly the aesthetic you’re going for, but I think it’ll help catch the eye.
It may not be a direct representation what’s described in the book (in which the U.N. Owen is not much to look at), but for the overall tone I think this is a great match. The pulp style harks right back to the time of And Then There Were None, and the image itself certainly captures the tension at this point in the story. But to find out what’s really going on here, you’ll have to pledge for the book!
If you’d like to see more of Joe’s work, one handy place to look would be his profile on deviantART. He’s a writer as well as an artist, and regularly takes part in the same Flash Fiction Month event as I do: you’ll see his stories referenced in a number of my own, typically those written as part of a challenge involving another author’s entries for the event.
Ten Little Astronauts Has (well over) 225 Supporters!
Ten Little Astronauts has been making spectacular progress recently. So much so that it’s actually a little difficult for me to keep up: by the time I actually managed to record the 225 supporter book draw, the count was up to 233. That’s a good chunk of the way towards the next draw, which will be coming up at 250 (if we reach 250!). That next draw, by the way, will be for a brand new story written specifically for the winner: quite a prize!
This is the kind of sudden surge of interest that the book needs to reach 100% by Christmas: a tight deadline, but one that’s looking more achievable than ever now that we’re already more than two-thirds funded. Right now Ten Little Astronauts is just a hair away from 70%, and if we can reach that today there’s a chance that Unbound themselves will even step in and start promoting it more.
Basically, whether you’ve put in a pledge or not, doing something to share the book would make an absolutely massive difference to its chances of success. Tweeting it or sticking a link on Facebook helps a little, but actually sending a personal message to someone you think would enjoy a sci-fi murder mystery in particular would help a whole lot more. With so many people behind the book already, I know there must be more out there who would be willing to support it: the only challenge is reaching them in time!
Last Chance to Support Ten Little Astronauts
It’s the eleventh hour. Aragorn is making his “It is not this day” speech. The rebels are approaching the Death Star. Neville Longbottom has destroyed the final horcrux and Harry Potter is preparing to battle Lord Voldemort. I’m not familiar with Twilight, but I’m sure there’s some confrontation between Heartthrob McSparklepants and a bad guy of some kind.
The point is, there are just days left to fund Ten Little Astronauts. At 63%, it’s the bulk of the way there and it has a solid chance of reaching its target, but only if the people who want that to happen make it happen.
At this point, you’re either behind the book or you’re not: there’s no time left to “get around to it.” 213 people (at current count) have pledged for a copy of their own. Countless more have shared it, told their friends about it, and generally helped it along in less direct ways. If it’s not your kind of thing, I get it. If you can’t afford to chip in for a copy right now, I definitely get it. But if you’d like to help my career as an author all the same, doing something – anything – to spread the word about it before that Christmas deadline would make a spectacular difference to the book’s chances of success at absolutely no cost to you. Continue reading
Damon L. Wakes 