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!