Midwasteland: The Kickstarter Experimet

I'm not sure how well known Kickstarter is, but readers of this site and my work will soon become very familiar with it. As I've been hinting, I'm going to try to publish Midwasteland, a post-apocalyptic novel set in the Chicago-land area, through Kickstarter. Basically the way it works is I set a goal (in this case $5000), and then offer a series of tiers with different rewards based on the amount of funding each person or entity pledges. Once the goal is reached, so is the project and people receive their rewards. If the goal is never reached, no money changes hands. It's an all or nothing way to connect with my fans AND give them reasons to buy. So...what are going to be the rewards for my book? Here they are:

-$5 pledge: a copy of the eBook

-$10 pledge: the above plus a signed copy of the paperback book

-$50 pledge: the above plus a DVD to accompany the signed book. This DVD will provide a hosted tour of the settings of the book as they are in real life Chicago and the surrounding area. It will also include an interview with the author detailing his creative intentions with this novel and a brief bit about his life.

-$250 pledge: the above plus the author will also agree to write one short story (between 10 and 15 full computer pages) on a topic, character, or setting of the funder's choosing. These can make for unique gifts or corporate media.

-$500 pledge: the above plus I will agree to name a non-major character after the funder or his friends/family upon release of the book. Please note that this is for real names only (no requests to name a character Wanker McSillypants).

-$1000 pledge: This is the corporate tier. For this, a donating company will get all of the above plus, as I have peppered the settings of the book with ruins and/or remains of generic businesses, I will replace those generic businesses with mentions of real world companies (a presence or planned presence in the Chicago-land area is required to be considered). This is a wonderful way to have your business woven into an original storyline (non-intrusive to the story of course) and to have it mentioned for promotional and posterity's sake!


I plan on launching this project on the Kickstarter website this coming Monday, the 16th, barring any unforseeable delays. I will need some help spreading the word, so please, if you like my work, please pass along links or post status updates on your social media pages once it goes live! I love writing and I do it as much for all of you as I do for myself.

And if you have any thoughts, criticism, or compliments, please feel free to post them in the comments!