Partnering with Tiny Tusk:

We are excited to announce our partnership with Tiny Tusk, a small Austrian publisher, who among other amazing books publishes a handful of Light Novels! We are glad to be partnering with them to release two of their stories in English. In case you missed the initial announcements, here is a link to the video. We will shortly release separate blog posts for both books, so stay tuned.

Girlem:

And we already have an update for you regarding the first of the new books! Translation is more than halfway complete! We hope to finish the rough translation before the end of the month after which pre-orders will go up. Because the book is much shorter than the others we released before, we still have to figure out pricing for this one. Again, we hope to launch pre-orders some time in January.

General Announcements:

The issue we had with Amazon deleting our KDP account has been resolved. You are now able to order our eBooks through Kindle again. Thank you for your patience.

Unfortunately our translation plugin for the website has decided to break, which is why this months blogpost isn’t a 2-in-1 like usual. We are hoping to get this issue sorted out but that might mean setting up an entire separate website for the English version. We’ll keep you updated.

And that’s already it for now! As we said, stay tuned for our official blogposts regarding our new books, as well as the series pages.

– Dave

Due to popular demand we‘ve added a handful of tiers through which you can receive the German version! More details below!

As a German company we were expecting to receive a handful of requests as to whether this Kickstarter would also give potential backers the opportunity to receive a German version of this book. Originally, we decided against a German version because we figured not enough people would back the German version, but also because we didn’t want to bloat our campaign with over a dozen reward options! However, there were a lot more requests than expected so we decided to give everyone the option to also get the German version of the book.

What are the new tiers?

We added three new tiers, the Digital German, the Physical German, the German Collector’s Edition, and the German All-in-One. These all cost the same and contain the same benefits as their English counterparts, only in German! For both the Early Bird tiers we decided against doubling these, as we want to maintain their exclusivity status, by not adding double the opportunity for backers to get them. However, you’ll still be able to get the German version with those tiers. After the campaign ends successfully, we will send out mails to all the backers for these tiers, asking them which version they prefer. Should we not get an answer in time we will default to the English version, however. Please be mindful, that completion of the German rewards may take longer than the English ones, as the English version is just a handful steps ahead in production, which I will also get into later.

What if I already backed the English version, but want to switch to the German version?

Then you can do just that! Sadly, I don’t have a way of definitively verifying it for you (and give you a handsome tutorial with screenshots and all) but according to the Kickstarter help page you can change your tier, as long as the campaign has not ended!

Well then, hopefully I have not forgotten about any of the important stuff, so let’s move on to some more status updates.

Our book proofs

Sadly, our book proofs for both the English and the German version have not arrived yet, and I am afraid they won’t until the campaign ends. For the book proofs we took advantage of the German Print on Demand service called Books On Demand, whom I’ve had some experience with before. Unfortunately, it seems they’ve had some trouble integrating a new printing and logistics center into their workflow which leads to many, many delays. So far, the entire process of ordering a book on demand has taken around 10 days for me usually, which is why I don’t expect my order to be completed in time. I don’t want to let you go without another tidbit however, so here I present to you the tentative full cover wraps for the English and German version:

These are basically complete, except for the thickness of the spine, but if you have any feedback that would be appreciated of course

About the German Version:

Lastly, I though I should let you know about the current status of the German version. A week or two ago it left the copy-editing process, which means it is now due for proof-reading, which we’ll be tackling next month. After that comes the layout, which means the book should be ready for print in early July.

That was all for today, I hope we read each other next week with some more pleasant news!

– Dave

The first fourth of our Kickstarter is already over and we also have our first fourth funded! It’s going a bit slower, than I anticipated but (trying to be positive here) we could also call it steady progress. The Kickstarter is set to end on June 14th, and I’m expecting a handful of generous donations around the end of this month (when everyone received their paychecks) as well as hopefully towards the end of the campaign. 500€ still seems to be a rather low goal to me. Speaking of which …

I miscalculated

What I didn’t know, setting up this campaign, was that shipping costs will be counted towards the donation goal! This means, it’ll be easier to reach the goal for this campaign, however if we just barely hit the goal the funds might not be sufficient to cover the full printing and shipping costs, as well as the Kickstarter fees. Of course, this screw-up is entirely on my part and there will be no repercussions on the side of the backers. However, all of that begs the question:

What if the Kickstarter fails?

Of course, that’s something I consider every day, as I receive static project updates via email, and check the progress myself. Though I’m trying to stay positive I have to prepare for the possibility, which also is in the interest of everyone who backs this campaign.

Let it be said, that in the event this campaign fails, I still plan to pull through and realize this project albeit in a limited capacity. As you can see from the main campaign page, The Heroes’ Storyis but the first of many books to be published by Pixelite Novels. As such, it was planned from the beginning to have the book sold through our store. Regardless of this campaign’s success the book will be available for purchase afterwards. So, should the project not come to fruition you can still buy the book through our store. However additional goodies, such as the bookmarks and postcards will like not be realized, and the initial printing of The Heroes’ Storymight be lower than originally planned. Also, a second volume of The Heroes’ Story might take longer to be published due to lack of financial success.

Pixelite Shop

What can you do?

Promote, promote, promote!

Of course, promoting the book falls under the responsibility of the publisher, however as the whole Bigolas Dickolas affair on Twitter showed us: Word of mouth is much more effective.

You’d be surprised how many people who don’t read books have bought mine after I told them about it! So, please, check out our social media accounts, give us boosts in whatever forms these platforms allow and let’s hope we will see this project through together.

Twitter – Instagram

Now on to some more pleasant matters:

Project status

As my plan is to release the book no matter what, I’ve been steadily working towards having it completed ASAP. Really, the only thing missing is your support, as well as having the book printing when the time has come. In fact, I have ordered some book proofs for both the German and the English version which should hopefully arrive within the next week. Of course, I’ll be showing them off here and elsewhere, as soon as I can get my hands on them.

About the German Version

Speaking of which, in case you missed it: The Heroes’ Storywill receive a release in two languages. However, you won’t be able to get the German version of this book through this campaign, instead please see our online store for both the regular and the Collector’s Edition.

That’s it for the first update, and hopefully we’ll see each other next week with some progress to report, as well as hopefully some book proofs to show off!