Before the Plunge

The Cade and the Last Starship Kickstarter campaign launches Tuesday.

It’s gonna be awesome. We’ll fund within 48 hours easily, and then we’re going to just rip through the stretch goals we’ve got planned. I’m really excited about some of them. Three of the main characters play a ttrpg, and I’m looking forward to being forced to write up both the system and a number of adventures for it. It’d be great if we got enough funding to do an audiobook!

Oh, who am I fooling? We’ll be lucky to fund by the end of the month. Stretch goals? Yeah right. We’ll barely get enough backers to make it fly at all. Actually, even that might be a stretch. Sure, we made almost 200% of our goal last year with Madelyn of the Sky, but that was a fluke.

Shut up. Just shut up. It’s fine. People like my writing. They’ve told me plenty of times before. Why wouldn’t the campaign go well?

Because they backed the first one, found out how miserable the stories are, and there’s no way they’ll back a second campaign.

Nope. I’ve poured my heart into this. Cade is a fun character. His explorations are exciting. The six-book saga tells a heck of a story that raises the stakes every book, and it begins with the fate of the last of humanity. Once people get to meet Cade, they’ll love him and the setting. They’ll be grabbed by the mysteries, and the payoffs for those mysteries are all satisfying.

Really? Really? Listen to yourself, Jon. Just listen. You hate people like you. You think your writing’s great? Of course you do. You’re a little biased.

…

So yeah. That’s where my head has been the last couple weeks, swinging wildly from optimism to pessimism, with very little in the middle.

I know in my head that realistically, the campaign will fund. Cade and the Last Starship will see the light of day. We’ll be shipping books just like we have all this past year. I also know that realistically we’re not going to break any records. I’m hoping we grow from last year, but we won’t be making 1000% of the campaign’s goal.

(How cool would it be if we did, though? Just think of all the stretch goals. And how much fun and annoying would it be to ship all those packages? My hand’s going to be so sore signing all those books!)

(Shut up. We’re being realistic right now. You’ll barely fund if at all.)

See? That’s where I’ve been.

But we launch Tuesday. I’d love it if you’d go click “Notify me on launch.” That honestly encourages me so, so much.

And in the meantime, I’m gonna have a little mental breakdown.

See you on the other side.