Time for a quick update! 

I have been visiting family here in West Virginia for the past week. We had our family reunion here. It was a small gathering this year but it was still a lot of fun. We planned some cool crafts for the kids, including a "firework" painting and glitter wands. Us adults had fun playing Apples to Apples and Cranium. I'm excited to use some of the photos I took while I've been here in some new images, especially the ones I took around our camp fire. 

I am also super excited to announce that my Kickstarter campaign to fund the self-publication of The Ringleader has officially started! I worked for weeks working out all the kinks in my rewards, description, and my video and it is finally ready. You can check it out here:

My goal is to raise $5,000--that will allow me to self-publish 150+ copies of The Ringleader, plus produce and ship all the rewards that my backers will receive. I will only get funded if I reach my goal by July 31--so there's only 24 more days to go! Only you can help make it happen! Just visit Kickstarter and back my project for as little as $1. I know money can be tight, so know that any amount you can back is greatly appreciated! 

Want to know more about The Ringleader? Be sure to visit my new page about the book here. There you will find a PDF preview of the first couple pages. As the campaign progresses, I will be adding updates here and on Kickstarter. 

Hello all! I'm excited to announce that I am starting a Kickstarter project so I can self-publish The Ringleader--you know, the art book featuring my Circus series that I keep talking about? I am so close to finishing it and Kickstarter will give me the funds to do it properly.

Never heard of Kickstarter? Well, it's basically a crowd-funding website that specializes in creative projects. What happens is the creator of a project (in this case, me) sets a monetary goal that he/she needs to meet in order to produce a specific project. If someone likes said project, they can "back" it for as little as $1. For each monetary level, the creator of the project offers rewards or incentives that vary by project. The rewards often include copies of the final project. The cool part is that money only exchanges hands if the project gets funded in full:

I started looking into Kickstarter at a suggestion from my Aunt Lynne. The first step was to do a lot of research about how the projects work. I looked at tons of projects (mostly from the publishing category since that's where my art book would fit under). I read countless proposals, watched lots of different project videos and looked at the wide range of rewards that different creators offered. 

Probably my favorite project was an illustrated novel for adults called Caelum Sky by authorstrator Andrea Radeck. She has these awesome illustrations of this little red dinosaur character who is super cute. Sadly, I missed the chance to be backer for her project, but I plan on watching for the release of her book so I can buy a copy. 

Once I got a feel for how other people had outlined their projects, I was able to start brainstorming how to set up my own. I believe I am going to set my goal at around $5,000 which would be enough to cover the rewards and a publishing run of 150+ copies of The Ringleader in hardcover (and with a  dust jacket). For rewards, I am offering bookmarks, Limited Edition mini prints, as well as copies of The Ringleader, when it gets published. 

Probably the trickiest part has been creating a video to showcase my Kickstarter project. While not necessary, having a video greatly increases the chances of a successful project. Thankfully, I discovered that my Mac has a program for video editing (iMovie) and although it is not the fanciest program, it has allowed me to edit the video to make it more engaging by adding image stills and voiceovers. I am getting pretty close to being done with editing the actual video portion. Then I will have to decide if I should add music or not. 

My goal is to finish it up by the end of next week so I can launch my Kickstarter project. Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Tumblr for updates!