Millions of dollars

Writing for a living has never been easy.  Most authors struggle financially, and while we've had our "days in the trenches" - where Michael's monthly writing income would barely pay for dinner at at an Applebee's style restaurant, we are now, thanks to you all, financially sound. Given our advanced age, if Michael never released another book, our "money" would out live us.  But we are in the vast minority. Still, opportunities abound, and I'm thrilled to see so many authors rising to new heights and surpassing even our high-bar levels.

We have pioneered many aspects of the "new publishing landscape" that started with ebooks, and grew through the rise of audiobooks and now that AI is threatening at the door, bespoke projects become so much more valuable . . . which brings me to Kickstarter.

We've done well due to this platform of "reader supported authors." We've made over $2.1M through multiple campaigns. But the "publishing" area of the site was always the small backwater category. Games and consumer projects (like Exploding Kittens,  The Coolest Cooler, and The Pebble Watch) were the superstars.

There was a time when five of the top ten most backed kickstarters in fiction were a Michael J. Sullivan project. And I begged other authors to follow our lead and try Kickstarters for themselves. I pleaded with people to "leapfrog past us" - as I knew they would. For a long while, there weren't many "takers" and those who did were happy to receive $10,000 or $30,000.

Then Brandon Sanderson came with his four secret projects and kicked the doors off the place with his that brought in $41M in the campaign and I'm sure millions more through "late backers" and those who upgraded after the fact.

Suddenly, the publishing area was red hot. As it stands now, we have only a few projects that are in the top 100, and I think our highest is standing at 51. Where once a successful Kickstarter was five-figures, there are now hundreds of them that have earned six-figures. I feel honored and thrilled to have provided some inspiration and mentoring to a few people who are topping the ranks and who did indeed drop us down in the rankings. 

There are two recent ones that I want to shine a light on. The first is Running right now. It's the last Kickstarter in Will Wight's Cradle Series.

It has just two days to go and it's already earned . . . get this: $1.9M!! You can back it from this link. Will's other Kickstarters have gone well (and we were directly involved in the launch of the first one - and have done fulfillment for all of the others).  But this has moved into a whole new level.

The other project has a "good cause" component. I'm talking about Peter Orullian's UnBroken Anthology. This is an anthology to end all anthologies with shorts contributed by the likes of Brandon Sanderson, Christopher Paolini, Seanan McGuire, Matt Dinniman and many more . . . including some no account by the name of Michael J. Sullivan, who has a story from his upcoming Cycle series.

It raised $1.3M and we are working on producing the book now.  If you missed out on it, there is a "Late Backer" option, and already 300+ people have joined the 10,755 Kickstarter backers. For those that don't know, all the authors and artists donated their stories and the funds for this are being used to pay off the medical debt for Peter and his wife's cancer treatments. I had a meeting with Peter last night and while $1.3M is a hell of a lot of money, it's still not covering all of his medical bills. At present he's $45,000 short, and that doesn't count a surgery he will need to be performed done to remove some cancerous cells that have returned.  I'm cautiously optimistic that "the difference" can be made up through late backers, so check out the Kickstarter here.  And if you like what you see, hit the late backers button or go to this link here.

So I raise a glass to both Will and Peter on their amazing successes, and I hope to be reporting about more authors and projects in the near future!

 

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Hey all, Robin here. While a bit later than expected, Michael and I are now back in Luray for a bit.

Hurricane season starts on June 1st in the Florida keys. It's supposed to be a mild season this year due to a combination of developing El Niño conditions and extensive Saharan dust outbreaks. Fingers crossed.  We won't be on the island for most of it. Originally we planned on returning to Luray on June 2nd (our 42nd wedding anniversary although we count our time together since 1980 so it's actually been more like 46 years). Unfortunately, we weren't able to hit that proposed date. Here's why.

The biggest problem was our boat, The Kobayashi Maru. I'm not sure if Michael has mentioned it yet.  It is a story in it's own right, but I'll leave it for another day. But in a recent attempt at an outing on the ocean it wouldn't start.  Not being experience boaters, we had no idea why, but in short order the issue was narrowed down to a problem with the throttle attaching to the motor.  As such, it was sitting in a "slip" but it really needed to be pulled out to dry land storage "just in case."  That sounds like a really expensive problem with a long repair time - but as it turned out it was only a few minutes to fix - but many days to have a very small part shipped to the "end of the world," and we couldn't do anything until that was taken care of.

The part came in on May 31st, and Troy - you'll learn more about him in the boat post - was nice enough to drop everything and get it installed. Michael went out to the boat on June 1st and he still couldn't get it started, but the next day we went out together and it started right up for me - the boat likes me better - again more on this in a future post.  Anyway, the seas were calm-ish, so we gassed the boat up and then Michael went to get the boat trailer out of the storage lot and over to the City Marina while I circumvented half the island on my own.  It took me a long time - as Michael is the one who normally runs the boat, but I can't maneuver a trailer so we each had to do what we could.  After a boarding by the coast guard - another story for another time - I got the boat to Michael and it was stored safely on dry land.  With the boat secured, we then figured out how many days to "weather protect the house" then start to head up to Luray. Since we were going to be passing through Orlando, we arranged to have dinner with Will Wight and his family the next Saturday. 

Now, I've been in Key West since early February and it never rains. I mean never.  Like many places, we were in a severe drought. For the first two months it only rained on a few nights and never for more than half an hour. While constant days of sunshine sounds wonderful it did get a bit monotonous (I know first world problems and all that).  By the end of May, we were supposed to have about 5.5" and we had only received somewhere around 1.6"

Well anyway, two days before we left Key West we got what I would consider "a good proper rain." It had showered on and off for most of the day, and we had maybe .25" - .50" total (although that varies greatly depending where on the island you are. It often rains in one spot and then is dry just a block away. We were glad we moved the boat when we did, but some of our "outside" preparations had to be put on hold.

Okay, so the day before we left - we got a real soaker - I think by the time all was said and done it was about an inch or two but the bulk of it fell over a span of just a few hours (just before lunch). Since the refrigerator had already been emptied, we decided to venture out to the Square Grouper. Normally we would ride our bikes but given the rain, we decided to take the Jeep.  It was a good thing we did.  It's just a half mile away, but this is what we ran into as we got close to the restaurant.

This was a surprising development - especially because our street - again just 1/2 a mile away -  was completely dry. Most of the people at The Square Grouper were completely unfazed by the conditions - but I'm guessing most of them were "locals" and they'd seen similar (and far worst) many times before. 

Keep in mind that in general, all of Key West is pretty close to sea level (the highest point on the island is only 17 feet), so every inch matters. Our place is a mere 8 feet above sea level - but it definitely makes a difference.

Interestingly, by the time lunch was finished, the street we "waded through" to get to the restaurant was back to normal, so most of the water receded quickly. The only real problem the rain caused was we had to put our storm shutters on he windows the day we were leaving rather than the day before. That meant our morning of departure was pretty labor intensive.

Okay, so the next morning we got on the road by 9:00 AM and planned to get to Orlando by 3:45, plenty of time for our dinner with the"Will Wight Clan: (Will, Mom, Dad, sister, Rebecca, and brother, Sam) at 6:00. Most probably recognize that name from Cradle fame. We've become good friends with them and we had a lovely dinner.  Here is a picture of the two authors.

Oh, I should mention that getting to dinner was a bit of a trial in it's own right. Normally, we would have stopped at our favorite restaurant in Key Largo (The Fish House). But we had Loki with us but not the Tesla - which has a nice "Pet mode setting" which keeps cars comfortable regardless of outside temperature. So instead we settled for Chick-fil-A eaten in a parking lot while the air conditioner cooled us and our kitty.

The hotel we booked has a pet policy, but it turns out they wanted $250 to keep Loki there for the evening, so I used Rover and on short notice found Loki a really nice overnight stay with Angela G, for just $27 and of course I provided her with a very big tip.  But we hit some traffic, and had to drop of Loki, so we got to the hotel/restaurant with less than 20 minutes to spare.

Anyway, the "second part" of the trip would be about 12 - 13 hours and our plan was to do it all in one drive, but as nightfall approached on day two, we were still 3 - 4 hours from home so we stopped for the night in Statesville VA.  With the sun down, a mountain climate, and being further north, the car was quite comfortable so Loki spent the night in the Jeep.

Just minutes before arriving home, I got a text message from a "Night in Avrlyn" guest that was checking in to see if 6:00 PM was a good time for them to stop by for dinner and an overnight stay. Doh! This was someone I had been talking with via email before the whole boat, flood, and 3-day road trip delay came up and I totally forgot they were coming! Luckily, Michael left the cabin in a really orderly state, but he did have to sweep and vacuum a few dead bugs from the guest quarters while I went to the grocery store, bought supplies, and made dinner.

They departed the 8th, so the 9th was pretty much back to the grindstone - exactly a week later than we had planned.  Neither Michael nor I get much work done while in Key West, but we're both quite productive here.  I'll be posting about what we've been up to, as I'm sure you'll find that much more interesting than our travel trials.

The Ride

In Celtic mythology, the Tuatha Dé Danann are associated with the Sidhe (shee) or faerie people. They are ruled by two courts, the Seelie (nice) and the Unseelie (not so nice) faeries. Legend holds that at night, at special times of the year, the Seelie Court rides. They are kings, queens, druids, bards, warriors, heroes, healers and craftsmen with supernatural powers. They live in the Otherworld, a place of magic and beauty, but are known to interact with people especially on the night of the ride. 

A few nights ago Robin and I were invited to go with the Sidhe on their ride. 

The day before, Robin had gone on a mangrove clean up. People here in Key West get together once a week, and are taken out on the ocean to the mangroves where they clean up trash. We’re not talking about Styrofoam cups. They get all kinds of thigs: washing machines, refrigerators, and engine blocks which are sold for scrap. As well as BBQ grills, lawn chairs, boat cushions, life jackets, and even a single K2 snow ski. It is primarily a locals activity as cleaning trash from the ocean isn’t appealing to tourists. Being that it is nearly June, (the start of Hurricane season) the island is down to mostly locals. While on the clean up, Robin made friends with a young woman who mentioned that with the full moon nearing, whether Robin was going for "the ride."

Robin had no idea what this woman was talking about, so she explained. Just as every evening on Key West has a sunset celebration at Mallory Square, every full moon is celebrated with The Ride. As the sun sets on the first night of the full moon, people gather at White Street Pier with their bicycles, then everyone sets out in one long procession that travels a winding path throughout the city and ends at the Southernmost Point. By the way they gather, and greet one another with hugs, it is clear that most on the ride are locals.That said, anyone who wants to join is welcome, but to our knowlege this isn’t advertised anywhere, so in a way you need to be invited. As such, it felt like a secret gathering, and as  many of the riders dressed in flowing gowns, tutus, capes, bejeweled diadems, crowns and feathered headdresses, they looked a bit faerie like. Bikes were illuminated with multicolored lights that swirled, while enchanting music played from mounted speakers. 

Everywhere we went, people stopped wide-eyed, smiled, waved, and applauded. A few of the enlightened, often those trapped in their cars by the parade, shouted at us, “Happy Full Moon!” Others, the drunken tourists, shouted, “What is this? What’s going on?” “Full moon? Really? Cool!” 

When the parade reached the Southernmost Point and the sea, everyone went for drinks at a nearby bar to continue the celebration. Now, maybe this was just another of the many quaint and quirky aspects of this island, but with all the banners flying from the bicycles, the music being played, and the regal costumes worn by those who seemed most in charge, I have to wonder if the magical and magnificent Sidhe never left the world at all. I think they’re hiding out in Key West.

Photography by Virginia Wark.