Kick ALL the Starters, Part III: Fund ALL the Crowds!

[Mamorien]

And now on BBC Television, a choice of viewing Kickstarter, a cut so deep you might need stitches.

Once upon a time, in space above the magical land of the ponies...
The Maretian is one of those rare fan fiction works- a sequel that finished before its predecessor story did, which had a print edition before its predecessor did, and which was generally more successful than its preceding work. Now, with the old print edition no longer available, it's time for a new, American-printed edition, re-edited and with (a little) additional material...

... or, for those frightened of 480,000 words and about a thousand pages, we also offer the option of a tighter abridged edition.

The Maretian was originally written as a daily update challenge from January to October of 2018, and with only a handful of misses it met that update. The story takes five characters from the fan fiction story Changeling Space Program and drops them into the lap of Mark Watney, the eponymous astronaut castaway of The Martian. Now the six characters have to survive on a hostile world in a universe where magic is a rare and limited resource, where the atmosphere is thin and unbreathable, and where rescue- by either homeworld- is years away from being possible.

Together the six castaways have to find ways to survive long enough for rescue to come... and, in the meantime, they learn about each other, and about themselves.

(Note: although one of the inspirations for this story is a children's cartoon, this is NOT a story suitable for children. After all, Mark Watney is in it. It should be treated as R-rated for strong language and occasional frank discussion of sex.)

WHAT'S BEING PRINTED

WHAT'S BEING PRINTED
We've licensed the original three cover illustrations from the Nonesuch (Russian) editions of 2020, and we commissioned a fourth cover from the original artist. These covers will be used to grace two options for the Maretian story: an unabridged three-volume edition of the story (almost 500,000 words), and a single-volume 250,000 word edition that gets rid of the filler, redundancy, and failed experiments that came up in attempting a daily-update story.

Since the leftover copies from the Changeling Space Program Kickstarter are now exhausted, we're also offering a second edition of that as an add-on, both for those who missed out and those who are just now discovering the story through this project.

Other add-ons include a rainbow-steel coin in lieu of the more traditional astronaut mission patch and a full color mini-artbook of the illustrations made for this project plus other artwork from both Maretian and CSP.

If the base goal of $7,500 is achieved, all of these books will be printed in paperback through Bookmobile.com, a short-run specialty book printer, the same people who produced our previous Peter is the Wolf Book 2, Changeling Space Program, and Remember Fort Libris project books.

SPECIAL BENNIES

SPECIAL BENNIES
In addition to the books and coin, a limited number of special add-ons will be offered- first come, first serve.

First, for this new edition, Kris Overstreet intends to write a few short additions (total between 8,000 and 10,000 words) to the story. Up to five backers will be able to buy the privilege of selecting what parts of the story will get expanded in this way, adding just a touch more to the epic.

As many as twenty-seven new illustrations (not counting the nine already in hand) may be added to the book, depending on circumstances (see Stretch Goals below). Thus, twenty-seven chances will be offered to choose which moments get illustrated. (Note: all of the illustrations for this add-on will be put into the book, even if the stretch goals for the illustrations are not met.)

And finally (because Kris took forever to throw out the proofs from earlier projects), extremely generous pledgers will be able to add-on to get the printed proofs used for final edits and error correction for each book. These proofs will be totally unique (well, not totally- they're printing proofs, so of course they'll resemble the books).

STRETCH GOALS

STRETCH GOALS
$8500
In preparation for this project, nine illustrations have already been commissioned and obtained. Nine more will be commissioned and added to the book(s) when we hit this goal.

$16,000
As said before, all of the books are in paperback, partly because of the expense of printing hardcovers, partly because the Nonesuch editions were hardcovers themselves. However, if we hit this goal, backers will be offered an add-on to upgrade their pledges for the 3-volume unabridged Maretian to hardcover editions. (For the 3-book set, the upgrade will be $100. We recommend adding that amount as "Bonus Support" when you make your pledge if you want to push the total over the stretch goal line.)

$17,000
Readers report that a large part of the joy of reading The Maretian lay in the educational bits thrown into the author's notes of many chapters- things that discuss the science of Mars and the places where the original Martian book falls a little short on scientific accuracy. If this goal is reached, Kris Overstreet will edit and expand those notes into a commentary book to be titled, "How to Science Your Way Off Mars," estimated to be between 120 and 160 pages. This book will be in paperback ONLY and will be added to the list of add-ons if the goal is reached ($12).

$18,000
Upon hitting this goal, an additional nine new illustrations will be commissioned. (Between the original nine, the two tiers, and the overlapping add-on that lets readers choose or add illustrations of specific scenes, the maximum number of new illustrations will be 36.)

$21,000
If support for this project gets this far, we'll commit to printing a second HARDCOVER edition of Changeling Space Program, with a certain error in the pages fixed. An upgrade add-on will be added ($30).

$24,000
Prior discussion with readers has made it clear that there is very little interest among the old readers for the abridged version at all- it's basically being made for new readers or readers whose budget won't stretch for the full set. But, if this project makes it to this top stretch goal, we will print a hardcover edition of the abridged version ($30 upgrade).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wlp...f=activity