USA Today Bestselling author Deborah Cooke writes paranormal romance and contemporary romance; she also writes medieval romance as New York Times bestselling author Claire Delacroix.
My Kickstarter campaign for 15th Anniversary HardCover Omnibus editions of the Dragonfire Novels ends tonight, Saturday January 7 at 8PM.
This is the last chance to reserve your copies of:
• any or all of the hard cover omnibus editions. These won’t be available at retailers. Through this campaign, you can also order your copies signed and with the pages gilded.
• an advance copy of the next Dragonfire Novel, Kiss of Enchantment, in April 2023. This book won’t be available elsewhere before November 2023.
• the printed Dragonfire family trees, which are only available through this campaign.
• the BookWorm swag pack, which now includes the printed family trees, a gemstone bracelet of your choice and a pair of book charm earrings with the cover of the Dragonfire Novel of your choice.
• the Complete Dragonfire Series ebook bundle, available only at Kickstarter.
• All Deborah’s Dragons, an ebook bundle only for Kickstarter of all my dragon shifter romances.
• Digital wallpaper for desktop and phone of the art from Serpent’s Kiss.
There are only three days left of my Kickstarter campaign, and this will be my last post about it here. (Well, there might be a recap post in the next week or two. We’ll see about that.)
Today, I have two new bonuses added to the reward tiers.
First, those who order signed hard cover copies of the omnibus editions will have the option of having the pages of their books gilded. This is a new trick I’ve learned to do and it looks pretty awesome. Obviously, you have to order a hard cover omnibus to have this choice, and it has to be a signed copy, since those are the ones that will be delivered to me. I’ll gild the pages (if you like) before packing and shipping the book(s) to you.
Secondly, I’ve added Dragonfire earrings made from my book charms as a bonus for the tiers with the signed hard cover omnibus editions and the BookWorm swag pack. These are my miniature books with Dragonfire covers on them – you can choose which cover you’d like on the books on your earrings.
2022 was a big year in some ways and a teeny one in others.
I had Covid in January and that certainly influenced results. I had to step back and rethink my working schedule, thanks to that illness and its effects. I chose to concentrate on my historical romances instead of writing and publishing in three subgenres, and I enrolled a lot of work in Kindle Unlimited.
New Releases:
One exciting accomplishment in 2022 was finishing up my Flatiron Five Fitness series with book #10, When Annika Met Thom. This was supposed to be a short story, or maybe a novella, but these two weren’t having any of that. I’m really happy with how their story came out and how it wrapped up the series.
It was a busy year for translations for me with eleven new translations published. “Claire” had an additional 32, giving me a total of 43 translations published in 2022. That’s my busiest year yet!
You can find these books under the Translations tab, by language: Português, Italiano, and Español. I have new contracts underway to translate the Dragonfire Novels into both French and Portuguese, so that’s something to look forward to in 2023.
Administrivia:
By the fall, I knew that KU wasn’t working for me, so I republished everything at all portals over several months. I also changed newsletter services in 2022 and I updated all of my ebook interiors. (Wow. There are a lot of them.) My PNR came to live on this website, instead of having a site of its own. There was a lot of work behind the scenes this year and I’m glad it’s done. I also have my first ever Kickstarter campaign running right now, which is an exciting new adventure.
Things were even busier on Claire’s side of my office, but I’ll sum that up on her blog.
2023 is going to be all about new stories. I can’t wait.
I’m writing a daily update on Kickstarter for my backers there and will continue to share some of that here on the blog and in newsletter updates. I’m quite fascinated with this platform and am liking it more as I become more familiar with the possibilities. Kickstarter leans in to fantasy elements in fiction. Since it’s become a place for fans to connect with creators over beloved franchises, I thought it might be a good fit with the Dragonfire Novels. So, even though this is a complicated campaign (which made it less of a good choice for a first effort), this content is a better fit for backers already using Kickstarter.
All industries change and digital publishing is no different. We’ve seen steady erosion in the ability of authors to connect directly with readers through tools at the various retail platforms: the portals, quite naturally, want their customers to remain within their environment. I think it’s past time for authors to forge new and better connections with their audiences. Kickstarter offers one way to do that.
My plan is to use Kickstarter campaigns to repackage existing content in 2023, so I can get my bearings there. I have a lot of content, after all, and there are plenty of options available to feature it in new ways. I have three more campaigns in the planning and will let you know when they can be followed. After that, I hope to use Kickstarter to launch new content. It’s much harder to have a big launch day than it was years ago, but production costs have only gone up. By giving readers an early peek at Kickstarter, I hope to cover the costs of publishing before that launch day, maybe have more reviews and see my books leave the harbor of my office under full sail.
I’ve started that process already. While this campaign’s focus is the hardcover omnibus editions of The Dragonfire Novels, I’ve also added an early ebook of the next Dragonfire Novel. Kiss of Enchantment is Orion’s story and will be published in November – but those who support that reward tier at Kickstarter will be able to read the book in the spring.
Kickstarter is also fun. Not only are there many many interesting projects (I could buy tarot card sets until the end of time there) but the community itself is very warm and welcoming. I like that creators share each other’s campaigns and back each other’s campaigns, and I like the intimacy of writing an update to my backers every morning. Although the campaign requires my attention while it’s running (and probably will for a while afterward), the focus makes it easier than having an online store – which is open 24/7 forever. I’m going to remove the physical content for sale from my websites today. In future, all signed books will be available through Kickstarter campaigns. I’ll still sell the big digital bundles directly in some cases, with BookFunnel fulfillment.
And I like making the swag. 🙂 With a campaign at Kickstarter, I have the opportunity to create new swag specifically for a group of enthusiastic readers. One of my projects this time is printed Dragonfire Family Trees. It looks as if there will be more than twelve of them, printed on 6×9″ postcards. I want these myself (!!) and we’re just $200 away from adding them to the campaign.
Here are the Mermaid Gemstone Bracelets that are included with the Early Bird BookWorm swag boxes. I finally got a picture of them. They’re more turquoise than they appear to be here – like an azure sea! – and this mermaid reminded me immediately of Quinn’s talisman in Kiss of Fire. She’s not wrought iron and the charm is too small to be a doorknocker, but the shape is evocative to me.
You can back Kiss of Enchantment at Kickstarter, either as a reward on its own or as an add-on, for $10 CA, which is about $8 US. I’d really appreciate it if you do.
The Kickstarter campaign for hard cover omnibus editions of the Dragonfire Novels has reached its funding threshold!
::throws confetti::
What does this mean?
1. The four hard cover omnibus editions will definitely be published, which is extremely exciting, and
2. We have two stretch goals…
The first stretch goal is to reach 25 backers in total. (Right now, there are 16.) They can be at the $1 pledge level, but when we reach that threshold, all backers at all levels (even the $1 pledge level) will get the digital wallpaper of the cover image from Serpent’s Kiss, sized for both desktop and phone. That’s it in the image above.
The second stretch goal is to reach $2500 CA of pledges in total. (Right now, the campaign is sitting at just over $1900 CA of funding.) Once we reach that threshold, I’ll have the Dragonfire family trees printed on 6×9″ postcards. There will be a set of 12 postcards altogether, and they’ll be added to the Book Worm swag pack. They’ll also be included with all SIGNED omnibus editions. Above is the working version of the first of the family trees, for The Roman Line I. These family trees will be similar to the ones you can download from my website, but in color, and printed on postcards.
There’s one other change this morning – I’ve added a new reward, which is an early ebook copy of Kiss of Enchantment. This will be the next Dragonfire Novel but won’t be published at the portals until November 2023. How can there be another Dragonfire Novel after the Dragon’s Tail Wars have ended? In the Dragon Legion Novellas, nine Pyr were left in other places and times by the darkfire crystal. Drake and his men assumed those lost warriors were pursuing their firestorms. Now, we’re going to find out. Kiss of Enchantment is Orion’s story – you might remember him leaving the group in Kiss of Darkness. He was following a spark, and we’re going to see where it led him. 🙂 By backing this tier at Kickstarter, you’ll get to read Orion’s book early.
If you’ve already supported the campaign, thank you very much for doing so! If you haven’t, here’s your chance to add these enormous hardcover collectors’ editions to your keeper shelf, to have your name included in the acknowledgements and to support my dragon shifters. Come on over and take a look at the reward tiers to choose the one that suits you best.
Deborah Cooke & Her Books 