Monday, August 27, 2018

Hardcover crowdfunding launches today at noon EDT


Today at noon, this IndieGoGo campaign will go live.


No, it's not the project for making the hardcover copies of the Riyria books (although that project will be launching early next year), but something came up out of the blue and we need to act fast. You see, Del Rey has put the hardcover edition of Age of Swords out of print, and we have a small window to do something about it.

I discovered the out-of-print status when I tried to order copies to replenish our online store, and I wasn't able to get any. After a little digging, I found that the only way to get copies were through Amazon Marketplace resellers and they had jacked up the prices to $89 - $191 for both new and used copies. That's an outrage!

To make matters worse, I won't earn a dime from any sales of the hardcovers from here on out. But, honestly, that doesn't upset me as much as the fact that people will either have to "do without" or pay outrageous prices to have hardcovers on their bookshelves.

So, here's the deal, Robin found out how much it would cost for us to buy up the remaining copies, send them to a warehouse, and hire a logistics company to ship them out. It's not cheap, but it is doable if we can raise $11,360. 


So, we're doing what we've done in the past...turn to crowdfunding. We started out by making a Kickstarter project, but as it turns out, you can't use that platform for an existing product. So this campaign will be run on IndieGoGo.  It's pretty straightforward; you'll be able to get signed hardcovers and bonus perks like a short story, screensavers, and public acknowledgment for helping to make this project successful. You'll be able to receive one, two, or all three of the hardcovers that are currently released in the Legends of the First Empire series, and because we'll be getting the books cheaper than we normally do,  we'll pass some savings on to you and give 20% off the list price.  (I'm essentially extending the "early-bird" discount that I've used in the past to apply to everyone.)

So, if you haven't picked up hardcovers yet (or are looking for a gift for a friend or relative...Christmas and Hanukkah will be here before we know it), now would be a great time to get copies. And we'll also keep these books out of the reseller channel, and without the ability to buy new stock, they won't be able to rip off more people with their price-gouging techniques.

Oh, another thing I should mention...there is a limited number of special perks which will be for a one-night stay with Robin and I in our cabin in Luray (maybe you saw a bit about it in our recent post).

Okay last thing, unlike Kickstarters, we get funding from IndieGoGo even if we don't hit our goal, so we'll be able to buy a subset of books if necessary, which means you will get your copies no matter what funding level we reach. But buying a fraction of the remaining stock will mean that the resellers will be able to get more, and I'd hate to facilitate their bad behavior.

Anyway, check out the campaign starting at noon, and if you like what you see, please consider backing the project.





5 comments:

  1. Hi Michael,

    I love the idea and hope that you can rise enough money to buy all the remaining hardcovers (I just did a small contribution myself).

    I also wanted to let you know that, in some cases, these crazy prices are not due to the reselling having bad intentions, but due to their ignorance: Amazon has an algorithm to automatically assign a value to the item that it's being sold (taking into account things such as the number of copies that a certain product has for sale). Sometimes, inexperienced sellers trust too much in this algorithm, which results in crazy prices.

    I'm not trying to justify what is happening here (I know there are too many people making profit by reselling things that are out of circulation). I just though this information could be interesting to share (it explained a lot of "crazy" things I had seen in the past).

    Good luck with the campaign!

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  2. I find it really odd that you want to crowd fund $11,000 and then show us pictures your huge, beautiful home and tell us about all the extra rooms and all the fun activities you get to enjoy while your there. If you really had an ounce of care for your readers, you'd pay for the $11k yourself. You obviously have the money and I can assure you that you have far more than the vast majority of your readers!

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