Kickstarter in the Time of COVID-19

It’s official: the Kickstarter campaign for Life Among the Paiutes did not fund. Despite my best efforts, and the efforts of friends, family, and complete strangers who believed in the book, we weren’t able to reach our funding goal. Boo.

April 2020 was admittedly a weird time to launch a campaign for a book. Lots of big publishers postponed publication dates this spring, and many authors who had started their book tours and publicity campaigns in early March found those efforts quickly curtailed. I saw all this happening, but I love Paiutes. I’m proud of the work I did, and I adore the cover created by Steph Littlebird Fogel.

So I decided what the hell and pressed on with the campaign. Kickstarter was struggling, unemployment was rising, people were turning to cozy reads. I don’t know. Maybe it was the timing; maybe it wasn’t. But the end of the campaign is certainly not the end of this book.

Publication date: May 19, 2020

So publication moves forward. The official publication date is set as May 19, 2020; that’s when you’ll be able to order hardcover and paperback copies online pretty much anywhere you like, like Indiebound. The ebook is only available through the publisher’s website, PracticalFox.com, because many retailers have restrictions on public domain works being turned into ebooks. A few bad apples in the early years of ebooks made shitty copies of old books, so those that have been recently designed with care get to suffer the consequences. If I may offer totally biased advice, you’ll want a physical copy anyway. The cover is so pretty in person.

I also have on hand the early bird copies that I ordered for the Kickstarter campaign right here at Practical Fox HQ. So you can order directly through the publisher’s website for those as well. I’ve got shipping materials and everything, so I know those 75 or so copies will go out in a timely fashion. I’ll have a preorder page set up on that site this week, so look for an update soon.

Moving On

This is not my first book, nor is it my last. I’ve already got another in the works: a translation of Une Voyage autour Ma Chambre, or A Voyage Around My Room. It was written in the 1790s by a French author who was confined to his room for 42 as punishment for dueling. Seemed right for these quarantimes. There are 42 chapters, one for each day, so I’m posting them on my Patreon page every day. If you become a patron for $5 a month or more, you can read those as they go up at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time each morning.

I’m also looking for my next book to pull out of history and publish with a pretty, modern design. If you have a favorite book from 1924 or earlier that you think deserves more attention, contact me.