I’ve been thinking about Kickstarter and new editions of my books, and am revising my plans for campaigns to run this year. The current economic situation made me reconsider my plans, but now I have a new strategy.

As much as I love the shiny books with foil, they end up being pretty expensive to produce – and they have to cross borders, which means they’ll likely incur tariffs now. I know I wouldn’t be in a hurry to buy pretty books without being sure whether there would be tariffs or how much they might be. Also, since my books are in series, to collect the whole series in the pretty format, you need to buy multiple books. I don’t think in this economy there will be as many people fired up about spending $80 per book, no matter how pretty they are. Production costs drop with a print run of several hundred books, but hmm, I could end up with 1000 hardcovers in my garage pretty easily. The mister likes to park the car there. And such editions often are printed in Asia, which might mean more tariffs.

On the other hand, I really enjoy the Kickstarter campaigns. I like creating the new editions and though the campaigns are challenging for me to set up, I think they’re a good exercise for me in improving my marketing skills. Plus I love the interactions with readers and backers.

In my January campaign, the new editions of my time travel romances were in trade paperback, and those books were drop-shipped from the printer to backers. Since this printer has facilities in the US, UK, AU and EU, that meant that fewer books had to cross borders to be delivered. It also kept down the shipping costs since the books shipped once (instead of twice, as they must when I sign them). Each book had a page in the front for a bookplate, and I sent signed bookplates to backers to place in their books. So, the books ended up with a signature and for a fraction of the cost of shipping entire books to me and then to backers. So, this will be my model going forward, at least for the short term.

I have two historical romance campaigns in the works at Kickstarter. First up, there will be new print editions of The Champions of St. Euphemia. For the hardcovers, the dust jackets will be new images, type and object based, and there will also be new images on the case laminates. The trade paperbacks will be similar to the new editions for Blood Brothers: the outside of the cover will have the new type and object based image, while the illustration of the couple will be duplexed, i.e. printed on the inside of the trade paperback cover. The books will have new interiors and chapter headers. There will be bookplates that will be signed and mailed separately to backers, and a special page in the book for that bookplate. These books won’t ever be available at retailers, just directly from me.

There will also be new maps for the series included in the print books and available as digital downloads. Backers who buy all five books in either print format will also get a luxe foiled bookmark and a set of stickers featuring the couples from the illustrations. There are more details to work out, but I’m planning to run this campaign in July – the designer is working on the covers now and I’ll show you them as they’re finished up. I should have actual books before the campaign so you can see them.

The second campaign will run closer to the end of the year, though deliveries won’t happen before Christmas. It will be for my Regency romance series, the Ladies’ Essential Guide to the Art of Seduction. Right now, these books are available in mass market paperback, which has become markedly less cost effective now in print-on-demand. (That’s due to increased paper costs that came into effect on April 1.) We’ll do them in trade and hardcover in the campaign with new covers (no people) and some additional character art. There will be signed bookplates and a bookmark for this campaign, too. I may try a different printer for those: I’m liking the idea of a slipcase for the series, so need to learn more about sources for that.

The new book in this campaign will be The Daughter’s Disguise, Ophelia Pearl’s story and book #7 in the series. It will be available first from Kickstarter, in both ebook and print. I’ll put it up for pre-order at the portals after the campaign, and it will ship from there in summer 2026.

These campaigns also give you the opportunity to buy previous Kickstarter editions, so if you’ve missed a campaign, you can still add those books to your keeper shelf. They probably won’t have all the add-ons, though.

Right now, you can follow the campaign for the new editions of The Champions of St Euphemia, right here, and KS will notify you when it launches.