Crowdfunding epic

When I was in high school, the school's librarian and a mentor of mine gave me an advanced copy a new novel from Kevin J. Anderson: Hidden Empire, the first of his long-running Saga of the Seven Suns series. I've hung onto it for years because it's a great memory of Mrs. Allen, and it's been one of those books that I'd like to dip into again at some point.

There might be a good opportunity for others to do the same: earlier this week, Anderson launched an ambitious crowdfunding campaign to bring out a reprint of the entire series. He originally kicked off in 2002 with Hidden Empire, which he followed up with another six novels, A Forest of Stars, Horizon Storms, Scattered Suns, Of Fire and Night, Metal Swarm, and The Ashes of Worlds. He then added on another trilogy, The Saga of Shadows, which included The Dark Between the Stars, Blood of the Cosmos, and Eternity's Mind.

The series is set in the distant future in which humanity has colonized our corner of our galaxy, aided by another alien civilization called the Ildirans. When humans accidentally piss off an alien civilization known as the hydrogues, it kicks off a massive war, one that spreads to other civilizations around the galaxy who have their own issues with the hydrogues.

This campaign is pretty big: Anderson will be republishing all 13 novels in the series through his own press, complete with updated art, and all the bells and whistles that you see in deluxe editions these days. The complete series set has already sold out, but there is a limited, deluxe edition of the first, seven-book series, as well as regular hardcovers, eBooks, trade paperbacks and some bonus novels. Newcomers will also be able to purchase the first installment, Hidden Empire, and Anderson says that the rest will eventually be available on regular bookselling platforms. The project has blown past its initial goal of $20,000 (it's nearly at $186,000 at the time of writing this), and rewards are expected to ship in February 2027.

As with all crowdfunding projects, there's always room for some slippage in delivery dates.

I was intrigued in recent weeks when Anderson announced the crowdfunding campaign. He's a prolific author that I first encountered with his Star Wars novels, and I wanted to get a better idea of his approach to republishing his back catalog and how he's been steadily carving out a niche in a time when publishing and bookselling is facing considerable challenges.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and formatting.

To start, can you introduce the Saga of the Seven Suns series? What was some of the inspiration behind it?

The Saga of Seven Suns is my magnum opus, a science fiction epic that spans 13 volumes, 6200 pages, two million words. I have been working on it for 25 years. This giant story is my love letter to the genre, pulling together everything I adore about science fiction from galactic empires, strange planets, intrepid explorers, exotic alien creatures, space battles, ancient ruins, even killer robots. I think it’s like War and Peace across the galaxy.

Oh, AND IT’S FINISHED! A selling point, to be sure.

I first came to your writing through your Star Wars novels, and then your work on Dune with Brian Herbert. You began publishing this series back in 2002, and I'm wondering what playing in those big space opera universes taught you that you incorporated into this series and world.

When you have a fictional universe that spans many planets and races, you want a story that can run with that…rather than a small creative-writing-class story of a couple’s relationship breaking up over Sunday brunch. For my work in both Star Wars and Dune, I chased the stories across star systems and had my characters explore exotic places, fight dramatic space battles.

I used all the skills from working in those two huge and popular universes to create something even bigger. After all, I had an unlimited special effects budget! Now, thirteen books later, I have played with a cast of characters that grew and grew. And I brought it all to a satisfying resolution.

You've launched a campaign on BackerKit to republish the entire series. It's not the first crowdfunding campaign that you've done: what is it about this publishing strategy that you've found so appealing, and what has it allowed you to do that traditional publishing hasn't?

Crowdfunding has truly been a game changer for creatives. With the money raised from each campaign, I can put together the book or books exactly the way I envisioned it.

I have a lot of experience in design and art direction; I teach a Masters degree in Publishing for Western Colorado University, so I know the production end of the process as well as the creative end of writing the books. This series came out from three different publishers over the years, with editions that didn’t match, and nothing that approached the beautiful deluxe editions that every writer imagines. I have spent so many years meeting fans and drawing them into my circle that I had the platform and resources to find my audience.

Let me give you two examples. My very first Kickstarter was for a new novel in my Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series, Double Booked. I loved that series, but the original publisher had given up on it after four books. I published a couple of short story collections featuring Dan Shamble, and I got the rights back and republished the original four books, but the fans wanted new novels.

So, I ran a Kickstarter, basically to see if they would support it (and to see if it would be worth doing). Boy, did they ever! The campaign for the one new novel raised six times as much as the previous publisher paid for the last novel. I have since run several more campaigns for Dan Shamble books, and the series is now up to 12 volumes. And, because of the obvious, demonstrated support of the enthusiastic fan base, I have just sold Dan Shamble as a TV series, which should start filming next year.

The publishing industry is undergoing a number of consolidations and faces any number of problems: what role do you see crowdfunding playing for authors in the near future? Longer term?

Actually, I see crowdfunding along with the entire indie writing and publishing explosion as a perfect alternative to the giant publishers consolidating and consolidating.

Some might look at the Big 5 (all that remains) publishers as limiting your options as an author, but I see the direct creator-audience connection made possible through crowdfunding as giving us limitless options.

Something stood out for me in your introduction for the project: you spent years working to get the rights to the books back. Can you tell me about that process? What was involved in getting those rights back, and why was it important to you to publish these yourself, rather than going to another publisher?

One publisher had released the original seven book series, and another publisher released the sequel trilogy, and then my own WordFire Press did a prequel novel, Veiled Alliances and a connector novel between the two series, Whistling Past the Graveyard.

Remember, I published the first book in 2002, so almost a quarter century has passed, and some of the volumes were unavailable, even impossible to find, so readers couldn’t pick up the whole series without searching eBay or used bookstores. With the books out of print, I wanted to get the rights back so I could redo them, just as I had done with Terra Incognita (though this was a MUCH bigger undertaking).

The publisher of the sequel trilogy graciously reverted the rights on my request. The publisher of the original seven ignored my requests for the better part of a year, and then refused without explanation, even though three of the seven books (Horizon Storms, Of Fire and Night, and Metal Swarm) were clearly out of print.

We appealed, again to no effect, and finally I had to bring my agent into the mix, and he pressed harder, showing them the terms of the contract they were violating, and finally after more than two years, they relented. It was frustrating; there was no reason they needed to hold on to rights to books they weren’t keeping in print.

But now I finally had the rights back and we could plan the campaign. But if you have a look at it, you can see it is not a quick and easy thing to set up. My team worked for a year and a half just to get the pieces ready for launch.

There are a lot of authors out there whose books have fallen out of print: is crowdfunding a viable option? What needs to be taken into consideration if someone decides to go that route?

Very good question, one I’m dealing with right now. I have a lot of old, out-of-print titles that I am reissuing myself at WordFire Press.

We have quite a few data points. While the reissuing process gives the books a fresh look and a new audience via regular channels, they aren’t huge sellers. I have two dark fantasy books coming up, Stake and Tucker's Grove. We were just going to re-release them in the normal publishing catalog, but now I see that a crowdfunding campaign can give them a significant boost and lots of publicity.

We are planning to run a “dark fantasy by KJA” campaign to release both books together as a Kickstarter or BackerKit campaign, and I think we would raise significantly more money than if we just republished them. There is an entire audience of readers who only get their books by crowdfunding campaigns and don’t normally shop on Amazon or other online bookstores.

This will certainly be much smaller than the Seven Suns campaign, but probably much more than if we had just published them.  And then we’ll put the books up for sale on normal channels afterward anyway. Win-win.

These new editions look really nice: can you walk me through the design process?

Hugo-Award winning artist Stephen Youll had painted the covers for the sequel trilogy and the first five books of the original series, before they just changed the design. The fans were always frustrated not to have the covers match (and so were Stephen and I!). So I commissioned the missing two paintings from him (and they are amazing).

Next, I wanted clean, expansive cover designs that would showcase the amazing art, rather than covering it all up with type. I came up with a good, consistent design idea and then worked with my wonderful designer, Janet McDonald, to develop the set. I have a satiny white background for the original Saga of Seven Suns books, then pewter for the connector volume, then oily obsidian black for the sequel trilogy, The Saga of Shadows.

I even wrote a new book for the series, Roamers Wrath, which is a real bonus for this campaign. So now, all thirteen books look like a beautiful matched set. We did deluxe editions with astronomical endpapers, striking sprayed edges, spot color printing in the interior. I designed the interior pages myself and laid all the books out. We created 150 signed/numbered limited deluxe sets of all 13 books (and those sold out within 12 hours of launch), and a similar deluxe set of just the original seven novels.

You've got new covers, interior illustrations, and sprayed edges. I've written about how these have become popular features with readers: why do you think readers are drawn to these?

We also have regular hardcovers and trade paperbacks (which look very nice, too) and eBooks for those who really just want to read the story. But there’s a high-end set of fans/readers who want a gorgeous edition to show off on their shelves.

Some of them even shelve the books backward to show off the sprayed edges instead of the spines! They enjoy the lavish reading experience, and want to hold a work of art instead of a disposable paperback book. I produced a range of editions to appeal to every reader.

What are you hoping that fans and new readers will discover with the books in these new editions?

The Saga of Seven Suns is really my masterpiece, and it’s been beloved by fans for many years. I hope a lot of them will want to come back and get a matching set for the first time ever, but I have been building my readership for years and years, and a lot of my newer fans might not have read this series. (And it was especially hard because even finding the books was hit or miss). I hope this campaign brings both new readers and established fans back.

Anderson's campaign will run through November 5th.