Tag Archives: commissions

Crowdfunding: Old Races Short Story Project

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This is the landing page for my second major crowdfunding project of 2011, the Old Races Short Story Project. I’m posting it here and now because The Rose & Bay Crowdfunding Award is open for nominations, but it’s also a really good way to do a year-end round-up and look at what I’ve accomplished in non-traditional publishing methods over the past 12 months.

So on to the ORSSP write-up!

Project Proposal: I set out with a goal to to write 6 short stories set in my Old Races universe, to create content for a possible future print publication collection of Old Races stories. I had in mind a financial goal of $3,000 ($500/story), but the especially important aspect to me was obtaining an audience for the stories to make certain I wrote them.

Project Conclusion: Over 180 patrons donated over $4,000 toward the ORSSP, making it not only a success in terms of getting me to write the stories, but also a clear financial success in and of itself.

Proof of Fiction Committed: There are teasers available for five of the six stories. For the sixth, my patrons have generously agreed to let me post the entire story publicly.

“Salt Water Stains the Sand”, a tale of the djinn, is available here.

Teasers for the other stories are available here:
The Death of Him, a story of the selkies
Awakening, a story of the vampires (set after the Negotiator Trilogy)
Falling, a story of the gargoyles
St. George & the Dragons, a story of the dragons
and
Legacy, a story of the humans

Really, it went so well I’m more than half tempted to do it again this year, except I already have a great deal on my plate in 2012. :)

Crowdfunding: “No Dominion”

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It’s that time of year again: The Rose & Bay Crowdfunding Award is open for nominations, and part of the process is making certain nominees have a landing page for people to go read about their crowdfunding efforts in 2011. I’ll be doing two landing pages for 2011: the “No Dominion” Kickstarter campaign, and the Old Races Short Story Project.

First up: “No Dominion”!

Project Proposal: I set out with a goal to raise $4000 through Kickstarter.com to fund the writing of a Walker Papers tie-in novella about Gary Muldoon, Joanne Walker’s septuagenarian sidekick:

NO DOMINION Recently widowed after nearly fifty years of marriage, Gary Muldoon had given up on adventure. Then shaman Joanne Walker climbed into the back seat of his cab, and since then, Gary has trifled with gods, met mystics, slain zombies and ridden with the Wild Hunt.

But now he must leave Joanne’s side to face a battle only he can win. Because as their long battle against a dark magic-user races toward its climax, it becomes clear that it was not illness that took Annie’s life, but their enemy’s long and deadly touch.

Though lovers be lost, love shall not…

     …AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION.

Project Conclusion: Over 500 patrons contributed over $20,500 to the “No Dominion” campaign, earning them the following:

3 novellas
5 short stories
3 chapters of a book that doesn’t exist
& 1 CE Murphy photographic calendar

…which, frankly, was rather more than I expected. :)

Proof of Fiction Committed: There are two pieces of free fiction associated with the “No Dominion” campaign. Neither is actually from the “No Dominion” novella, because that novella begins in the middle of RAVEN CALLS, the 7th book of the Walker Papers series, which isn’t due out until March 2012, and I didn’t want to spoil anything. Instead, I’m offering up the following:

Magic Hath An Element, the first chapters of URBAN SHAMAN, as seen through Gary’s eyes instead of Joanne’s, and Forgotten But By A Few, the first “No Dominion” campaign short story.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Old Races Short Story Project: Mission Accomplished!

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I’ve just shut down all the links for buying in to the Old Races Short Story Project. If, for some reason, you have waited until the very last minute and *desperately* want to buy in, you can email me (cemurphyauthor at gmail dot com) up until midnight Pacific and we’ll arrange something. But it may involve mockery. :)

In the end I had about 180 patrons for the ORSSP, and it made in the region of $4K for six short stories. That’s a pretty damned good market value, around $.11 a word, so thank you. Thank you all very, very much.

It was also a huge success in terms of creating content for a possible future Old Races collection, which was my original goal with the project. And as those of you who’ve subscribed know, it’s gone a long way toward setting up the Old Races universe for future books, should I decide to return to it with book-length fiction. So that was an added bonus, and I’m pretty delighted about it. :)

I’m working on getting cover art done for the ORSSP, and when I’ve got that I’ll send out the .mobi and .epub files to all patrons, so it’ll be easier for those of you with e-readers to peruse.

After this year’s mad rush of crowdfunding, I’ll probably only be running/participating in one next year (the ElectriCity graphic novel! Squee!), so y’know, again: thank you. Thank you for supporting me as a writer, both by buying the books I write and by participating in these direct-market projects I’ve been running. You guys are absolutely, madly awesome, and I’m tremendously grateful to you all. Thank you.

And Happy New Year!

Kickstarter quandry!

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This is insane. :)

The “No Dominion” Kickstarter campaign is at just below $13K right now, with a week left to go. And I have reached the peculiar point of now being afraid to mention it much, when in fact normally one would be going OMG HOLY CRAP HOW HIGH CAN WE GO?!?!?!

Because at $15K I’ve promised another novella, but with all the little stuff I’ve thrown in, another novella at $15K isn’t really cost-effective. I mean, there are four short stories, and a chapter of HEAVEN CAN WAIT, and not only have I got a novella listed at $15K, but I also (rashly, but I fear I’m still rather enthusiastic about the idea o.o) promised 2 more chapters of HEAVEN CAN WAIT at that dollar amount too. I mean, on the positive side, I did make it clear those were deadline-at-my-discretion, but even so, I’m finding myself in this weird position of going “crap, I hope it either peaks at about $13.5-14K or goes all the way to like $17 or $18K…” And I hate to close it down early because I said I’d run it for six weeks and I by God think I should, so I’m a bit flaily here!

Truth in crowdfunding, lads, that’s what this is. :) So guide me, intarwebs! Shall I sit here being mum or shall I see just how darned far this horse will go?

Also, can I just say HOLY CRAP 360 BACKERS!!! That’s just shy of TWO HUNDRED more than have signed on for any of my other crowdfunding projects! I don’t know if it’s because it’s Walker Papers/Gary vs Old Races, or if it’s because it’s Kickstarter, or if I’ve flogged it more or if it’s been RT’d more or what, but HOLY CRAP!

(I will of course write the second novella if the campaign hits $15K, because I said I would! Just in case this made anybody wonder. It’s just that only in retrospect am I appreciating the flaws in my plans. :))

Teaser: HEAVEN CAN WAIT

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I have the sudden rash impulse to write a little back-of-book teaser for the book you’d be getting if you Kickstarted the whole “No Dominion” campaign up to the improbably high-end rollover amount of $30K.

Everybody knows Jumbletown isn’t like other cities. Stuff falls through from other places here, and mostly, it can’t leave. Head north to Detroit or south to Tampa Bay and it’s just ordinary world out there, no fae or vampires, no Civil War soldiers or little grey men. A lot of Jumbletown’s new arrivals are dangerous. A lot of them aren’t. Some of them settle down, make families, make a life…but their children can’t leave.

And then there are girls like Cori May, born in Jumbletown and untouched by the magic that’s trickled through. Her friends think she’s lucky: she’ll be able to leave someday. Cori thinks ordinary (or leaving town, for that matter) pales beside girlfriends with rainbow wings or the power to stun with a touch.

But it’s the very ordinariness of Cori’s human soul that draws the fallen angel Mirael and the demon Sebastian to her. For both, capturing Cori’s love–and her soul–offers redemption. For Mirael, plucking a pure mortal soul out of the Jumbletown mire would win her a chance to return to the Heaven from which she fell. For Sebastian, who may know more about Jumbletown’s creation than he’s letting on, seducing that same pure soul would be a one-way ticket up the ranks of demons in his home world of Hell.

But neither demon nor angel imagined falling in love with Cori, and when it comes to the final battle for her soul, perhaps…

…HEAVEN CAN WAIT.

I’ll write the first chapter if the Kickstarter campaign hits $12K. I’ll write two more chapters if it hits $15K. Those’ll be freebies, available for everybody to read. After that, I’ll write another chapter, posted weekly starting after April 15, 2012, for everyone subscribing at $25 or more, for every $1000 dollars past $15K. If the campaign actually breaks the absurd $30K rollover point, I’ll write the whole thing. :)

(And yes, you can up your donation amount if you want to–just go to the campaign page and, um. Okay, well, I know it’s possible because a bunch of people have done it already, okay? I don’t think it’s very hard, even, but I don’t actually know how to do it… :) “and click “Manage Your Pledge.” Enter a new amount in the pledge amount box. Note that you are not adding to your existing pledge; the amount you enter will be the total amount collected if the project is successfully funded.” (via the kickstarter FAQ & Gabriel Who Can Read Instructions :))

(Also, because I appear to be adding a whole lot more stories to this campaign than expected, I’ve upped the high-end rollover stuff–extra novellas, or an extra novel–from $10 to $25. I feel slightly like a git for changing it mid-campaign, but subscribers at $10 will still, without question, get the novella and three short stories, which I think is pretty fair. She said nervously.)

Hat-tip to Trent, who asked if the “Jumbletown” he kept seeing on my to-do list was a story idea (it wasn’t, Jumbletown is a freecycle site in Ireland), and to Corin, who suggested the angelic storyline. :)

Old Races short story commission

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She was too young, even for a man with no age, but she caught his eye. Slim, dark-haired, with long fingers caught in the skirt of a shapeless dress, she was clearly not a child of wealth. She no doubt belonged to the riverboat upon which she stood, a shabby thing that had seen better days. Even so, in the fire’s light they both bent toward beauty.

It was her gaze, fixed on the sky, which arrested him. Others watched the fire, drawn in by its glow and movement, but she looked upward as though she could see what soared above the smoke. That was quite impossible: even knowing who danced there, Daisani could barely see them himself, but the girl watched as if she knew. Such seeing eyes were enough that he might have gone to her then, despite her youth, but tonight; tonight Chicago was burning.

Want more? This short story is up for commission through fundable.com. Fundable is a site which takes pledges for financing a project. If the project reaches its financing goal–in this case a base of $750 with paypal fees included, so a total of $826–then fundable accepts the pledges and the project goes forward. If the goal isn’t reached within 25 days of the first donation, then the project is canceled and no one pays anything. There’s a $10 minimum donation fee, which is fundable.com’s idea, not mine; I’d have probably set it at $5. Sorry about that.

“Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” will be a 7500 word Janx and Daisani story. Contributors will have exclusive access to the story for at least three months before it’s produced anywhere else.