It should come as no shock to any regular readers of this blog that Kickstarter (which I profiled in my Insurgent Creative series of articles back in early December) is absolutely revolutionizing creative work. The record-breaking success of the Double Fine Adventure (earning a million dollars in a single day) has opened the flood gates — and the great thing is, as Kickstarter recently shared on their blog, almost a quarter of the first-time backers that Double Fine brought to the site have stuck around, pledging over $875,000 to over 1200 other projects so far. The rising tide truly lifts all boats.
Of course, the increased use of Kickstarter has lead to a small problem: too much awesome. In the past few weeks, a number of really great projects have launched. I figured I’d take this opportunity to spread the signal a bit.
First off, my friend Tim Byrd is using Kickstarter to relaunch his pulp-inspired all-ages novel series, Doc Wilde, the first book of which was originally published by Penguin/Putnam. Here’s the video:
[iframe src=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1310269043/the-astonishing-adventures-of-doc-wilde/widget/video.html” width=”100%” ]
Second, the folks over at Evil Hat are producing a series of novels related to their Spirit of the Century neo-pulp property. They’ve got a Kickstarter up for the Dinopocalypse Trilogy, which is going gangbusters — so much so that they’ve “unlocked” additional books beyond the trilogy, featuring other heroes from the setting. Authors include Chuck Wendig, Brian Clevinger, C.E. Murphy, Harry Connoly and Stephen Blackmoore. The video:
[iframe src=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evilhat/spirit-of-the-century-presents-the-dinocalypse-tri/widget/video.html” width=”100%” ]
Thirdly (see? I told ya — too much awesome), Academic super-researcher Jess Nevins (author of The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana and the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes) is fundraising for a third volume, The Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes. The video for his project:
[iframe src=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1651697370/the-encyclopedia-of-golden-age-superheroes/widget/video.html” width=”100%” ]
And (you knew it was coming) fourthly, Darren Watts (formerly of HERO games and IPR) has a new company, Silverback Press, which is specifically dedicated to releasing games via Kickstarter. First up from him is Champions Live Action, a superhero LARP based on the much-beloved Champions RPG. The video:
[iframe src=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1832603818/champions-live-action/widget/video.html” width=”100%” ]
…and there’s more coming every week. A revolution is occurring — one creating a world where creators go directly to their audiences to fund projects, gathering enthusiastic fans into an unstoppable force. It shows no signs of slowing. Kickstarter themselves are making more effort to reach out to the creative community: they’re doing an entire slate of events at PAX East this weekend, featuring demos from Kickstarter creators, panel discussions and more. Here’s hoping they decide to do the same at GenCon this August.
Lastly — I’ll take this opportunity to reward those of you who have read this entry all the way to the bottom to publicly announce that yes, Adamant will be launching another Kickstarter soon: More fiction, as part of our continuing FAR WEST property. Keep your eyes peeled for the official launch.