First off welcome to the new website. I have decided to migrate from my old blogspot location to have a one stop website where you can keep track of me and my writings. I will slowly copy over the old posts that still have relevancy so if you are an old time blog reader of mine or a brand new reader there will be plenty to check out here both old and new.
To catch y'all up to speed the publisher for my first two books has closed up shop so I regained my rights. Along with that I am taking a page from my musician friends and going full out independent with my creative efforts. We shall see how it goes. I still believe the traditional path offers the best path at building a writing career, but it is not the only path so I have officially launched my own publishing venture called Barbadum Books.
Barbadum is Latin for bearded in case you were wondering.
So along with the new publishing venture I am taking to opportunity to do things exactly as I want them. So the old cartoonish cover of The Feedstore Chronicles will soon be replaced. I have the cover art thanks to the photography talents of my friend Alex Keto. Please check out his work at www.alexketo.com.
The thing is even with the art it takes someone with talents other than I posses to turn that art into a professional looking cover. I also plan to release an audio version of The Feedstore Chronicles with yours truly reading it. I have had a lot of people request such an animal so I am going to give it a shot. But even with me reading it studio time is costly as is paying someone to edit the recording itno a seemless audiobook.
For Twisted Roads I am paying an editor to give it the edit it needed to have had originally. Again we are talking a fair amount of money to get a good professional job.
And finally I am going to release a novel I am very proud of titled Waiting On The River. This novel has been around a while and has more near misses than a drunken game of horseshoes. I believe in both the story and its characters, but it is one of those 'tweener novels that marketing departments hate.
Literary or mainstream? Women's Fiction or Romance? And central to the plot is the politically divisive subject of abortion. My aim was to write a novel that does not deal with the legality or morality of abortion, but rather the emotional aftermath from two vastly different points of view.
This new novel needs a cover, again I have the art but not a finished cover. It will need a good professional editing. And all of these projects could use a financial boost to help market them to the world.
Thus I am planning to launch a Kickstarter campaign very soon. Now I know some people see crowdfunding as begging for money, but what we are really talking about here is pre-selling. Everybody that "donates" will get in return a product to read and enjoy. There will be different levels of rewards as they are called from print copies to the new audio version of The Feedstore Chronicles, and of course e book versions of all three. Also those who donate will be privy to material unavailable elsewhere including deleted, never seen before chapters of The Feedstore Chronicles, new short stories that have never been released, possible even some music co-written by me and people with actual musical talent. I have a lot of cool things planned for those who have faith in me and my writing and are willing to extend a bit of help to me in getting things launched.
One of the big things about a successful Kickstarter campaign is getting off to a good start so that people on the fence can see the project has a real shot at getting funded and that others believe in it. It has been suggested that a person should have at least 25% of the funds needed pledged before launching. I will be asking for a total of $3500 to get all of the projects I've mentioned above paid for. Anything above that will got to marketing. I wish that I could just reach into my pocket and funds these things but as life tends to be for us all this last year or so has been rough with many unforeseen roadblocks. All of which has left me cash strapped.
So here is the deal there will be a lots of options as far as what you get as a reward for your donation and I do not have them all set, but I'm asking for vague, no commitment whatsoever, pledges from y'all my most loyal readers. Once I have garnered $900 in abstract pledges I will launch the Kickstarter campaign, but I will let each of you that pledge know ahead of time. And by the way, there will be a special reward for each of you that do donate after pledging this initial support.
So if you are interested in being one of these pledgers please shoot me an email at travis@traviserwin.com and give me a guesstimate to how much you are interested contributing and I can also give you a vague idea of the rewards available for that amount. By the way rewards will start for as little as a $5 contribution and go up from there with such things up for grabs as naming a character in the book, to personal visits to your book club so any level of pledge is greatly appreciated. i expect the average contribution to be in the $25 dollar range which will have many many options of books or audio books so please chime in no matter how much you can pledge. And if all you can do is share a link to this blog post or the actual Kickstarter when it launches, well that is a big help also. So thank in advance for reading and for believing in me.