Hello, dear readers! It is that time–we have just under 19 hours left in our first ever Kickstarter campaign. HOLY RUSTED METAL, BATMAN. Here’s a rundown of everything that has happened so far–and what’s still on the table for these last few hours. Our Mission and Kickstarter Goals In 2018, The Book Smugglers turns 10 years old, which inspired us to level up our game. We decided to embark on this Kickstarter campaign because we want to: Pay our short fiction authors more (from $0.06 per word to $0.08), starting with our “Awakenings” season of short stories, publishing in summer 2018 Commission new paid contributors to our website, producing thought pieces and essays ($80 an essay), starting VERY soon Upgrade our website from both a front and back end perspective Improve our administrative, marketing and operational processes (aka hire awesome freelancers and pay for their help) All of this so that we can make more cool stuff and continue to discover and publish new, diverse, exciting voices in SFF. So far we have accomplished the following: $16,500 – LEVEL CLEARED! Original funding goals met include “Awakenings” short stories and nonfiction contributors $18,100 – LEVEL CLEARED! Increased pay for nonfiction contributors from $50 […]