In case you missed it — the GULA crowdfund, and the rest of the lovely Book Bazaar, is live now! We’re going into Day 3 and nine of our 22 projects have already funded, which is incredible!
Just tuning in now? The Book Bazaar is a cohort of indie authors all crowdfunding book projects at once – some of us are brand new to crowdfunding, and some are old hands, but we’re all helping each other out to see our projects come to life. GULA is mine, a book-length epic poem about poverty, capitalism and the fall of the empire.
Hello everybody and welcome back! There’s going to be some more activity on this blog in the next few months as I get back into the swing of things, but first up: let’s get some more information about GULA! In case you missed the prior post, GULA is an epic modernist/post-modernist poem about the fall of an empire and the shadowy undercity that makes it possible. I’m going to be crowdfunding the paperback for this starting on November 12th through BackerKit, with an amazing cohort of fellow authors called the Book Bazaar (check them all out here!)
You say epic poem. What does that mean?
‘Epic poem’, for most people, conjures images of the Aeneid, the Odyssey, etc. or maybe even more modern versions like Omeros. GULA is a bit different. It’s not quite a verse novel, either, if you’re familiar with those (Aleutian Sparrow, The Poet X) but instead, a sprawling, abstract exploration of the concept of ‘Carrion City’. It also isn’t as long as most of those listed! The current draft is at about 25 pages, although it’ll be longer in paperback form — so it’s book-length from a poetic perspective, not a novel perspective.
What do I get if I pledge?
Excellent question! First off — my tiers are set in Canadian dollars. So if you’re American, keep in mind that the price for you is about 80-90% of this. (The trade-off, of course, is that all physical rewards will have shipping fees associated.)
Our first tier is the e-book of GULA — coming in three formats, PDF, EPUB and MOBI. You can pledge to this one for as little as $7 CAD, and you’ll be among the first people to get a copy of the book, especially since sending e-books is so fast.
The second tier is an e-book trio. GULA is my third exploration of the involved themes; the first two attempts were CARRION CITY and THE SINGULARITY. The e-book trio is $15, so you get a pretty good discount – especially since these are special editions of both only available through this crowdfund! (What do the special editions include, you ask? Shinier formatting, extra entries, and the mighty, mighty author afterword.)
That brings us to our main event — the shiny, shiny GULA paperback. Printed and perfect-bound at a local Ottawa print shop, GULA is going to be absolutely stunning to look at and I can’t wait to share previews. This tier goes for $20 CAD and comes signed by the author.
Finally, for $50 CAD, you can get all three e-books, the paperback and one of two art prints — either The Heart of the Matter or How Does Your Garden Grow? both previewed below. (If you’d like to get both, just check out the handy-dandy add-on feature! You can add whichever print isn’t included in your tier that way, as well as any other books you might want to buy.)
Cool! So when should I pledge?
The campaign opens up on November 12th and ends on December 3rd — but the faster you pledge the better. There’s a few reasons for this. One, it helps me out a ton! The faster a project starts moving, the easier it is to get more funders, etc.
Two, my prints are limited. I’m only selling 60 of each, so if you want one, you wanna be sure to hop into the campaign as fast as you can. And three — if you pledge within the first 48 hours, you get a special edition e-book of Revenant’s Hymn for freeeeee! This special edition includes some extra content and a retrospective afterword celebrating the upcoming 4th anniversary of the book.
Elliott Dunstan 