The Kickstarter campaign for the new Dragon Diaries Special Edition HardCover Omnibus finished up last night. Phew! There was a little flurry of activity at the end, which was exciting.

I enjoy these campaigns – even though they’re a lot of work – because I learn from them. To be fair, they seem like more work to me because they don’t call on my strengths. (I do everything repeatedly, because I have to work my way toward the best solution.) Kickstarter campaigns are about marketing and promotion, the two toughest areas for me, so all improvement is welcome in those areas.

I also keep doing them because I like the interactions with readers at Kickstarter, too. People connect in different ways there – or different people connect – and I’ve had some wonderful conversations with readers, and with readers who have been reading my books for years. That can only be a good thing.

I also have learned a lot more about creating books in the past eighteen months. The Dragon Diaries Special Edition Hardcover Omnibus is the first book I’ve set up with colour pages inside the book. It’s also the first one I’ve created with gold foil on the dust jacket and on the case laminate. I used a new-to-me designer for this edition, and she was just lovely. And I hired an illustrator for the first time, to create the character illustrations for the book and the campaign. Many new adventures in promotion for me this time. 🙂

This was my fourth Kickstarter campaign – the first was for the four Dragonfire HardCover Omnibus editions, the second for the 25th anniversary Bride Quest HardCover editions, and the third for the Blood Brothers HardCover editions. My next campaign will be for a new book, not a new edition of an existing book or series, and it won’t happen until 2025. I need to write the book first. 🙂

I have ordered a sample copy of the Dragon Diaries Special Edition Hardcover Omnibus from the UK printer, and it should arrive in mid-July. It’s an expensive book, so I want to make sure that everything is just right. I’ll show it to you once it arrives.

The Dragon Diaries retail editions – the hardcover omnibus with the black-and-white interior, and the three individual trade paperbacks – are available for pre-order at retailers and have an on-sale date of October 29. You can find those retailer links on the landing pages for the books here on the site:

The Dragon Diaries Hardcover Omnibus Retail Edition

Flying Blind

Winging It

Blazing the Trail

The Special Edition HardCover Omnibus will only be available in my online store or future Kickstarter campaigns, but not before October.

Things do keep changing – the gold foil on these omnibus editions wasn’t even an option for Print on Demand books a year ago, for example – and Kickstarter keeps evolving, too. This is my first campaign with Late Pledges enabled. For two weeks after the end of the campaign (that would be now) you can still back some tiers at Kickstarter, albeit at a slightly increased price.

See the Kickstarter campaign for the Dragon Diaries omnibus here.

Now, I’m getting back to my favorite bit of my job – writing!