17 Wednesday Jun 2015
Posted in Iron Tribune, Kickstarter
Tags
Salve!
The kickstarter for Iron Tribune is in full progress now. With 22 days to go, we’re at 4739 out of $750 needed! As usual in most kickstarter campaigns, the funding amount jumps at the beginning and the end, but stays relatively flat in the middle. We’ve been on a slow, but steady, increase over the first few days, and if you haven’t joined in yet, now is a great time!
13 Saturday Jun 2015
Posted in Iron Tribune, Kickstarter, Steam Empire Chronicles
Wow! It’s the end of day 1 of my kickstarter and we’re barely $100 away from my goal of $750! This is so exciting! Thanks to all my supporters, and if you haven’t thought of joining the effort, $10 gets you the novel, plus any digital only rewards! Click to check out the kickstarter here.
And since every dollar raised goes to adding illustrations, you get the benefit of the ‘stretch’ goals regardless of pledge level. The cost of an illustration for the book is roughly $100-125 per illustration depending on various things, so the money will net me around 5-6 illustrations and maps with support for the formatting. Otherwise, it looks like we’ll reach our goal comfortably this go around!
In other news, they’ll be a new post for The Border on Monday for those interested 🙂 What do people think about the series so far? I’ve been tempted to turn it into a novella, but I’d love to hear some criteria on it beforehand. You can read part 1 here.
12 Friday Jun 2015
Posted in Alternate History, Iron Tribune, Kickstarter, Publishing Day
Salve! The launch of the Iron Tribune Kickstarter has begun! You can access the project here!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danielottalini/iron-tribune-the-3rd-roman-steampunk-novel
$30 gets you a signed print edition of the novel, plus all three of my novels in digital form! That’s four books! I’m really looking forward to sharing this with you. Go on and check out the page with the brand new cover art! This is the concept I went with! I hope you enjoy it! Please share and pass the word to all your friends. This looks to be a great kickstarter event!
09 Tuesday Jun 2015
Posted in Iron Tribune, Kickstarter, Self-Publishing, Steam Empire Chronicles
Salve! I bring glorious news in the name of the Emperor!
Iron Tribune’s Kickstarter stands prepared! The rewards have been created and our artificers are hard at work! You’ll see the first look at the cover for Iron Tribune. It’s my favorite one so far!
Now down for the nitty-gritty details. Our goal, fellow champions of the Empire, is $750 to allay the cost of illustrations and formatting. Any additional money shall go to adding yet more glorious illustrations and perhaps even an exciting poster! Reward levels shall be at $1, $10, $25, $30, $50, and $125. I’ve had to add on shipping for the books, but I believe it’s reasonable (Having learned that lesson the hard way last time.)
Current shipping charges are $15 for the rest of the world, and $3 for the US, which will increase a bit if you get all the print books (heavier!)
Are you ready!?
14 Saturday Mar 2015
Posted in Beta Readers, Formatting, Kickstarter
Hi all,
As I sit here in my office relaxing as my beta readers dismantle Iron Tribune (Hopefully for the best!), I’m also planning Steel Praetorian. So far, I’ve planned out the first four chapters. Chapter one will be included in Iron Tribune, but I won’t even let my beta readers see that 🙂
Here’s my estimated timeline for Iron Tribune to be published.
Here’s what I’m thinking for Kickstarter Funding Levels
I think the funding goal would be $500. What do you all think of this? I suppose I could bump it up a bit to include shipping, or I could have ‘rest of the world’ backers up their shipping as well. Totally would like some feedback please!
08 Saturday Jun 2013
Posted in Kickstarter
Hi everyone!
Roma Central – Old School Style
So for today’s posting, I’m sharing what is happening here at Roma Central within the Kickstarter department. So far, we’ve got several things happening…
So as you can see, I haven’t left my kickstarter friends in the dark! Their rewards should definitely be done pretty soon, and thus will be sent out way ahead of the August due date.
By the way, did you know I have a facebook page? Please go there and ‘Like’ me to get more updates, cool pictures and illustrations, and more! Also, I plan on running a mini-competition to get some more ‘likes’ very soon – with a cool, as yet unreleased, prize!
Oh, and there may be a new kickstarter in the far future for Iron Tribune. Copper Centurion is doing much better than I’ve expected, getting pretty low in the rankings chart (i.e. 7th place, 12th place, etc) But Brass Legionnaire has been 2nd place in the Greek and Roman books page for the last few weeks! Yippee!
Check out the novels already!
23 Thursday May 2013
Posted in Designing a Story, Self-Publishing
Hi all,As many of you may know, I recently completed a Kickstarter program that helped me to fund a large portion of Copper Centurion’s cost. This go around, I offered a reward level that allowed the backer the option to create a character in my upcoming novel, Steam Empire Chronicles #3 – Iron Tribune.
However, I thought it would be easier – and better – to have the characters (or several of them) introduced through a novella – in this case, Antioch Burns. I’d like to share with you what I’ve discovered from my experiences.
Then I waited.. and waited..
You get the point. So I started out writing the novella, and to my surprise recently got a very large ‘info dump’ of information that will be extremely helpful in writing this particular character. But I did have to go back and rearrange some parts of the story – which was fine, I was just three pages in.
2. Accept the fact that people may not commit – Yes, even if people say they want to help, they may not. Oh well, nothing I can do.
3. Remember that every character you get is a blessing! Look at it this way, I don’t have to come up with a very detailed background for this character, nor a name (easier in some genres, harder with Roman background) – Also, I don’t have to come up with characteristics or habits, as someone has already done that for me. Indeed, I was able to start spinning the story in a direction I think I like.
4. In the end, it’s all about how well you spin the story – Just remember. In the end, you’re the boss!
By the way, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out my novels Brass Legionnaire and Copper Centurion. I’m exceptionally proud of both of these novels, and they’ve reached #2 and #6 on the Steampunk Amazon Chart in the last week or so. In addition, Both novels have been consistently ranked top ten in multiple ebook categories (Greek and Roman, Myths, and Alternate history being a few).
Ciao!
02 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Kickstarter, Self-Publishing
Kickstarter (Photo credit: Scott Beale)
Hi everyone,
I figured I should type this up since I may be asked to give a talk on it at next year’s EPICon Conference in San Antonio, Texas. Hopefully this post will help those of you interested in creating a successful crowd-sourced funding drive. One of the most common places to do this is on Kickstarter (Sample Link provided), but other commonly used sites are Indiegogo, or GoFundMe. There are many others, but Kickstarter is currently one of the largest.
So what do you need to know before starting out on Kickstarter? First, know the rules. You are not getting free money, and you are not guaranteed success. Just like you have to market your novel, product, business, etc, you also have to market your Kickstarter. Kickstarter is great for novels because you have something tangible to offer people when completed. Kickstarter funds can be used to help cut the cost of certain parts of the publishing process for self-published authors, or to provide additional monies for marketing, development, etc for both self-pub and small pub authors.
Before you start a Kickstarter Campaign, it is critical to do your research.
Look at other, successfully funded books on Kickstarter. What do they do? I can point out a few signs that generally signal a kickstarter will be successful.
“But Daniel, my book cost me about 2k to edit! Shouldn’t I ask for all of that?”
Sure, if you want to fail right away and get nothing. (This may not be true as you will soon see). For self-pub authors, smaller amounts are better, especially if you are a debut author. For my first novel, I was truly blessed because my aunt helped out. A lot. But by the time I ran my second one, I had both followers, supporters, and fans who I could turn to. This is the caveat I wrote about earlier. IF you have a wide backing of support, including people clamoring for your next novel (Not one person, but many), then you can get away with asking for slightly more. I would say the best range to stay in is the 1k-2k range.
Creating a great title is important too. That’s what people will see first and what will grab them. Brass Legionnaire doesn’t tell people anything about what I’m doing. Copper Centurion – the 2nd Roman Steampunk Adventure does tell people what I’m doing.
Finally, justify your costs. What will the money provide? I described how I originally wanted to fund the novel with just my own money, but wanted kickstarter funds to make it better. I shared how I wanted more maps, more artwork, and additional promotional materials. And people understood.
I’ll end there for today. Hope to bring more to you very soon this week!
By the way, just to let you all know, I’ve finished Roma Aeronautica. Now I suppose it is time to start typing Iron Tribune!
10 Sunday Feb 2013
Posted in Advertising, Author Interviews, Self-Publishing
Tags
Hi all,
As promised, here is the link to the Radio Interview that I just did. Since then, I’ve read a lot about how people think they are a scam and what not, but the way I see it, I’ve gained some confidence in myself, gained some practice at how to effectively talk about your story, and can now use this audio file to help expand my readership. I’m also going to turn it into a youtube video to provide another way for people to find me.
kickstarter logo (Photo credit: AslanMedia)
Also, the Kickstarter project for Copper Centurion is almost done! This is the LAST day for anyone to contribute to the cause! There are some awesome rewards available, such as a digital copy of all the artwork from books one and two, as well as getting a handwritten thank you note. Of course, my favorite is the one where you get to name your own character, but that is just me :-).
Ciao!
– Daniel
20 Sunday Jan 2013
Posted in Self-Publishing
Happy Long Weekend everyone!
Hopefully people are out enjoying their long weekend, but if you are stuck at home (or, like me, poor, grading work, and stuck at home) then take a moment to check out the cover for Copper Centurion. I’m really excited to be bringing this to you. Those of you who look closely may spot some clues to some parts of the story! But I’m not giving any more clues!
