Summer in Orcus

Backerkit Survey Reminder
over 6 years ago – Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 08:12:44 PM

This is just a quick reminder to get us your Backerkit surveys by October 3rd, especially if you are planning to add on items! We need to get final tallies so that we get get the last things into production for a November shipping start. We've heard from all but about 48 people (less than 6%).

If you have not seen a survey yet and have been waiting, log into Kickstarter and check what email address you have on your account. That is where the surveys and reminders will have been going. If you need to change your email address from whatever it is listed as in Kickstarter you will need to send us a message as we need to change it in Backerkit manually.

If the email is correct but you are STILL not seeing surveys, send us a message through Kickstarter and we will respond with a link to the survey.

Thanks everyone!

Surveys Going Out Soon & Backerkit Process
over 6 years ago – Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 01:51:46 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Ten Days to Go and Last Stretch Goal
over 6 years ago – Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 05:53:58 PM

Here we are, a mere 10 days from the end of the Kickstarter and time for another update.

Earlier this week we finally tipped over the $22K mark and so put the “one free print” stretch goal into the history books. Thanks to everyone that helped us get there, including the Kickstarter Featured Project listing we got a week ago.

Once we get the finalized versions of the interior art we will do an update with all the prints you will be able to choose from when it comes time to go through your Backerkit survey and make your selection. You will also be able to add on prints at that time.

So what’s next? We’ve gone over the financial numbers and everything that we have already committed to, and don’t see enough room for another physical thing without having to introduce some new levels and the resulting chaos that would cause. However, just because we can’t offer another physical thing, doesn’t mean we can’t add on a virtual one.

Many years back, we edited and published the first novel Ursula ever wrote, Black Dogs, as a two-part print edition. For a whole host of reasons (mostly lack of time) we have been slow to tackle the conversion of much of our backlist into eBook format, but we know more than a few of you have been requesting Black Dogs for some time.

Now will be that time.

We’ve gotten the okay from Ursula to release the eBook editions for free to the Kickstarter backers as part of the final stretch goal, which we are going to set at $28K (since we are already almost at $23K and we expect the usual last week frenzy). This will be added to all levels from $8 (Baba Yaga) on up.

If you are not familiar with the story, we want to stress that Black Dogs is not like Summer in Orcus in many ways. While it too centers around a young girl, in this case named Lyra, it is an altogether harsher world which she inhabits; and she both comes from and passes through some dark places to get where she is going. The writing is both clearly very early Ursula, and at the same time, very clearly all Ursula (or T. Kingfisher, or whomever you care to reference).

So, be thee warned. If you are planning on passing Summer in Orcus on to a sweet, innocent young adult in your life (highly recommended) then please read Black Dogs before you do the same with it. If you thought Raven and the Reindeer had a bit too much murder and throat-cutting… well… Black Dogs has things that are arguably way more disturbing.

On completion of the Kickstarter the eBooks for Black Dogs will also be made available for sale via regular channels as well, so this is not an exclusive now-or-never thing. Just a nice thing we can throw in to thank all 550+ of you for getting us this far.

Week 2 Update, Congratulations Ursula, and more about Lauren Henderson
over 6 years ago – Sat, Aug 12, 2017 at 10:47:12 AM

It’s been two weeks since we launched the campaign, so time for an update. We passed the $20K mark early this past week and pledges continue to trickle in daily. We got a bit of a boost from being one of the Kickstarter Featured Projects, and appreciate all the work everyone is doing to spread the word to their friends and family.

Before we get into the salient Summer details, we’d like to take a moment to congratulate Ursula on her second Hugo Award, as announced earlier today (or later today or perhaps even yesterday depending on your relativity) in Helsinki, Finland. Her short story The Tomato Thief, the sequel to her Nebula and WSFA award-winning Jackalope Wives, won the Novelette category. Our heartfelt congratulations to Ursula, and condolences to Neil Gaiman if she beats him to the nachos at the after party again.

Work on Summer in Orcus continues at a good pace. We are finalizing the print layouts as we wait for the final revisions on the interior artwork. Once those are done we’ll create the eBook layout and get everything copy edited and into print. We’ll start working on the final designs for the bookplates and stickers shortly and will post updates when we have them. All is on schedule for October delivery.

We wanted to take a moment to talk more about the work of Lauren Henderson, who did such a fantastic job of bringing the characters from the book to life. We had worked with Lauren on a couple of previous book projects (The Blood Jaguar and Rat’s Reputation, both fantasy stories by Michael H. Payne) and when T. Kingfisher approached us about Summer in Orcus, she was our first suggestion. The author’s only comment (aside from a gleeful “Oh, heck yes!”) was that she wished she had included a boar in the story so that Lauren could have drawn it.

We were delighted that Lauren had the time to fit the project into her busy schedule, and she was excited to have an excuse to make the time to sit down and read Summer in Orcus (which she had been wanting to do ever since it started being posted). T. Kingfisher gave us and Lauren free reign to illustrate what we wanted, with the easily-achieved caveat that Reginald and the valet birds with their little bowler hats had to make an appearance somewhere.

We gave Lauren some general direction: suggesting a number of scenes that we thought would work well, providing input on sketches, and giving her a general idea of our concept for the final look of the cover. (The author provided input on the sketches as well, but it was generally limited to non-verbal expressions of glee which we won’t try to reproduce in text.) The little rough sketches for the top of each chapter was a late addition to the project, driven largely by Lauren’s desire to keep on drawing every wondrous thing. It was a delight to work with her again, and we’re excited to showcase her work to such a large and passionate audience.

We encourage you all to check out her art via her DeviantArt page, or via her Tumblr. It is thanks to all the support we get from backers like you that we can keep providing a canvas (and a livelihood) to such great independent creators like Lauren and T. Kingfisher.

One Week Update
over 6 years ago – Tue, Aug 08, 2017 at 07:49:27 PM

It has been just about a week since we launched, so we figure it is time for a status update in case you haven't been to the page recently. Apologies if you already know all of this...

• We reached our funding goal of $6,500 within the first 24 hours.
• We then went on to almost immediately pass our first stretch goal of $9,500. This upgraded the hardcover editions with cloth-wrapped boards and a front cover foil embossing of a frog candle as drawn by the author. The softcover editions were also upgraded to include de-bossing of the front covers to make the title and characters stand out a little more. (Maybe with the addition of french flaps too, we're still waiting to get numbers back from our printer on that.)
• That same weekend we also passed our second stretch goal of $11,500, which added custom-printed acid-free bookplates to all hardcover and softcover books. These will be signed by T. Kingfisher and will be provided un-affixed so you can add whatever name you desire and stick them wherever you choose.
• A little after the end of the weekend we passed our third stretch goal of $15,000, which added TWO copies of an all-weather vinyl sticker featuring the frog candle design. These will be free to all the levels that are getting shipped a physical book.
• Yesterday we announced our fourth stretch goal of $22,000, which will give everyone getting a physical book the choice of ONE free 8" x 10" black and white print of any of the interior illustrations by Lauren Henderson.

The bookplates, stickers, and prints will also be available for purchase during the backer survey phase, so if you want extras or prints of other illustrations from the book, you will be able to order them then. People who have purchased just the eBook will be welcome to add things on as well, and will just need to pay a little shipping.

We're working on a couple more stretch goals, as we expect to surpass the fourth one sometime in the next week or so. We've also got some informational features planned for release over the next few weeks: some thoughts from T. Kingfisher about the book, some information about the artist, and some information about the publishers.

It's hard to believe we still have three weeks to go in the campaign, but we are all excited to see how many people we can get hooked on this excellent little story and the wonderful art done by Lauren. Thanks for all your support, and keep spreading the word!