Hello Foxes!
Exciting news – the special ops edition of Everfire, where it gets a hardcover version, illustrated dust jacket, annotations and bonus material, is ALIVE!
Head on over to Kickstarter to check it out in all its fiery glory.
For an added perk, early backers get a FREE pdf printable bookmark featuring original art by me:
It’s so much fun putting these special books together. The cover is illustrated and designed by me, and I think I’m starting to get to a point where my enjoyment of illustrating covers outweighs my anxiety over the execution. This one went through a few iterations, including different poses for the character, but in the end I settled on the intense ‘looking straight at you’ gaze, since the book itself is quite intense. As with just about everything I do, I have to constantly remind myself that it’s not meant to be perfect, that the beauty of art is often found in its flaws.
It’s going to look SO GOOD in print – I can’t wait to see it and show it to you! (Make this happen by backing the campaign 😉)
In other words, why back it rather than buying at retailers? The story is, after all, the same, so if you don’t want a hardcover or a pretty dust jacket…
This one is an epistolary story comprising a series of emails Gabby’s best friend sends when Gabby disappears on her secret mission. It’s about the pain of being left behind, something we don’t see much in all these ‘chosen one’ stories where the hero goes off to save the world, nary a thought for the people they lose touch with beyond their immediate family. And perhaps it digs a little into the inevitability of growing up and growing apart from childhood friends. Lives diverge. Not everything survives.
Cecelia’s story is coming first to Kickstarter, and I will release it to patrons at a later date. It may not ever be available on regular retailers, so if you want to read it asap, Operation: Magic School is the place to get it!
You know how I sass and ramble in these newsletters? Well, now you can get more of my nonsense perfectly sensible comments in the books! If you love asides, footnotes or inside information (this is a spy theme, after all), the annotated edition is for you.
Okay. This is the real reason we’re doing a Kickstarter. I think more adult books should have art in them. Not just one pretty polished commission either (although that is lovely) but sketches, doodles, art throughout. It makes the reading an experience.
To that end, I am attempting to illustrate every single chapter header. Individually. Hand-drawn. Some might be silly scribbles. Some will be random. Most will directly link to the chapter’s action, though.
And because I love book formatting, I also mess around with things like using dingbats fonts for dinkuses (the ornament separating a break in the text within a chapter, usually denoted as three asterisks). Operation Chocolate Overload, if you look closely, has different pastries and chocolates for dinkuses throughout. Operation Magic School will be back-to-school themed.
All bonus material and illustrations will be featured in the ebook and hardcover editions.
Absolutely exclusive to Kickstarter. I may make special editions available via pop-up stores or Patreon shops in the distant future… but not like this. Every special ops hardcover edition funded through its respective Kickstarter campaign will be numbered, personalised and digitally signed just for you.
That means you can’t get a numbered edition of Darkhaven Operation: Chocolate Overload. That ship has sailed. But you can get a numbered edition of Everfire Operation: Magic School.
(And you can of course get the Operation Chocolate Overload hardcover if you missed it last time. Just not numbered or personalised.)
As you can imagine, these editions are a LOT of work. Honestly, a Kickstarter campaign barely begins to cover it. But having a time-limited exclusivity period helps me sell enough copies to justify running free with my wild ideas for fancy, quirky books. And in this case, we’re building something: each campaign for a special ops edition of a Lightless Prophecy book gets us another step closer to book four, Soulshards, which I know many of you are waiting for.
Now more than ever, in a world saturated with mass-market art and AI drivel masquerading as creativity, we need authentic human connection. A Kickstarter campaign gives me the chance to conceive something awesome and you the chance to be a part of bringing it to life.
If you’ve never backed a Kickstarter before, don’t be scared! Simply make an account and pledge to the tier that offers the rewards (books) you want. You won’t be charged for your pledge until the campaign ends – and only if the campaign reaches its funding goal. You can change your pledge right up until the end of the campaign.
Along the way, you’ll receive backer updates from me with more previews and exciting news. It’s like you’re part of the story! Honestly, backing authors on Kickstarter is the best way to buy books.
Thank you for being excited enough about this to read to the end, and I hope to see you over on Kickstarter!
Read and be weird,
Kel
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