Steampunk Thursday: Who's a pretty boy then?

Can't wait to tell you more about this current work in progress - a work in progress by Herr Doktor, nonetheless!

Warhammer Wednesday: Coming Soon...

Tie-in Tuesday: Monstrous Biographies - Zack Binspin

Coming this March...

And so's this...

The YOU ARE THE HERO Kickstarter - The Aftermath

I feel strange today. Slightly bereft. My email inbox is missing those 'New Backer Alert!' messages.

That's right, today I'm on the come down from running my first ever Kickstarter project.

YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks - achieved funding at 3.02pm GMT yesterday, Sunday 6 January. It had been a crazy, stressful month, during which it felt like I did very little other than promote and run my Kickstarter. And it probably felt like that for a lot of other people too. But at the end of the day, the project funded. All I have to do now is write the book!

Thank you to YOU if you pledged your support, or retweeted my messages, or blogged about the project, mentioned it on message boards, interviewed me, allowed me to guest post on your blog...

I learnt a lot from the experience - not all of it good* - and made new friend and contacts - which is always good!

• The project ended up with 449 backers overall who pledged, on average, £47.71 - which was just under the VAMPIRE pledge level of £50.

• Almost a third of the money raised came directly through people checking out Kickstarter.

• A total of 2,278 people watched the Kickstarter video, which means that in the end, just under 20% of those people actually backed the project. (1,289 people also 'Liked' the project on Facebook.)

• The three most profitable days (in decreasing order) were Day 1 (£1,971**), Day 3 (£1,579) and Day 25 (£1,536).

• As predicted, the most popular pledge level was TROLL (£25 for a copy of the book) and second was CYCLOPS (£30 for a copy of the book but with a dedication in the acknowledgements).

• 44 people backed at the MINOTAUR level (£100 for a copy of the book signed by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, as well as myself, and various other accessories).

• A total of 10 fans will be interviewed for the book and five of them will be going for lunch with Steve, Ian and myself.

So what will happen now? Well after I've had a little lie down, I need to arrange further interviews and then get back to collating information for the book.

If you pledged but forgot to add post and packing, you can now do so via the Paypal button at the top of the sidebar on the right of the YOU ARE THE HERO blog here.

One question remains... Would I do it again?

Yes, I would!

In fact, I'm already planning my next Kickstarter, and have ideas for one or two I'd like to run after that. But don't worry, I'm going to leave you all in peace for a month or so... Well, a couple of weeks at least. ;-)

* I've never been accused of spamming before but I've made up for it now. More than once, too, unfortunately!

** Bizarrely (and entirely coincidentally I am sure) 1971 is the year I was born.

Thought for the Day

"A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive."

~ Erica Jong

YOU ARE THE HERO has funded on Kickstarter!

As of about 30 minutes ago, YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, funded on Kickstarter!

I have to say I am delighted and thank you to everyone who pledged and gave their support in so many ways.

I will post again in more detail, but for now I think I'm just going to collapse in a heap somewhere and wait for my heartrate to return to normal.

But the best news is that YOU ARE THE HERO is definitely going to happen!

Now I just have to write the thing... ;-)

YOU ARE THE HERO - 6 Hours to go!

It's 9.00am GMT which means we've only got 6 hours to go until the YOU ARE THE HERO Kickstarter comes to an end.

We've also taken the bold move of announcing a second stretch goal of £23,000 and if we achieve it in time, every physical copy of YOU ARE THE HERO will be a hardback rather than a softback.

So please do all you can to push this project to the last, and help make YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks - the magical artefact all of us want it to be!

Thank you.

Read about YOU ARE THE HERO on the Forbidden Planet International blog.

YOU ARE THE HERO on The Trollish Delver.

YOU ARE THE HERO on Kicktraq.

YOU ARE THE HERO on the Fighting Fantasy Project.

YOU ARE THE HERO on Titan - The Fighting Fantazine Blog.

YOU ARE THE HERO on RPG Kickstarters.