Duck Prints Press LLC is delighted to announce that the Kickstarter for our second anthology, And Seek (Not) to Alter Me, has commenced!
InAndSeek(Not) toAlter Me, 16 authors and 16 artists have come together to create an exquisite, full-color collection of artwork and stories inspired by William Shakespeare’s play MuchAdo About Nothing. We encouraged contributors to stretch their imaginations, think outside the box, and put their own unique—and queer—twist on Benedick, Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Don Pedro, and the whole gang! In true Shakespearean fashion, our creators utilize gender, sexuality, romanticism, and a host of costume changes to tell unique stories—some featuring original characters, some characters from the play—that show Shakespeare’s work in a whole new light.
So—grab a cup of tea and reread or rewatch your favorite version of MuchAdoAboutNothing to refresh your memory. Our stories and artworks feature wlw, mlm, poly relationships, trans characters, gender swaps, canon divergent tales, AUs…there’s even a two-page comic! Settle in with this delightful collection and enjoy visiting Messina (and elsewhere!) and falling in love with Leonato’s family and the troops of Don Pedro’s army (and many others!) again and again and again!
And Seek (Not) to Alter Me is a stunning zine, printed in full color, A4 size (8 ¼ inches x 11 ¾ inches/21 cm x 30 cm), approximately 150 pages long. It includes 16 stories, each up to 5,000 words long, and 20 full-page interior artworks. Creators share their visions with us, discuss their inspiration, and take us along on a journey to experience what this play and these characters mean to them.
It’s my first published original fiction, and I couldn’t be more excited! We’re on the doorstep of getting funded (about $300 away) with 3 days left! This anthology is in a style similar to a fanzine and it has queer stories for everyone, no matter your preferences!
If you haven’t checked it out yet, please make sure to do so, and if you can support it, great! If not, please reblog this to help spread the word so we can sprint across the finish line!
Every single person involved in this project is a fanauthor or fanartist! And that’s true from our ownership (hi, I’m Claire, better known in fandom as @unforth) all the way through those who do our graphic design, our typesetting, our planning…everyone! (Well, except our lawyer and our merch vendors). Some, like Aria, are public about their participation in both fandom and this book; others have opted to separate their fandom selves from the publishing selves. Some of the folks who are open about their inclusion?
I’m writing all this ‘cause it’s occurred to me people don’t know, but Duck Prints Press explicitlyexists to help fancreators make the transition into paid publishing work, and we onlywork with people are active in fandom!
ANYWAY. All that said! We’re thrilled to share that we’ve reached our base funding goal!! “And Seek (Not) to Alter Me” will see print!! It’s such great news, and a huge relief.
But! We’re still hoping to reach some of our stretch goals.
We’re at $12,150 right now.
If we can hit $12,500, we’ll be able to print the books (and include in the e-book!) art for the back cover by front cover artist Gio Guimarães! Backers at Levels 3, 4, 5, and 6 will also receive a second art print (at no additional cost to the backers!). To be honest, we’re pretty certain we’ll hit this goal – so confident, in fact, that we already have commission Gio, contract signed and everything.
More ambitious – if we can hit $16,500, we can give all our authors and artists a raise from 1 cent per word/$50 per page to 2 cents per word/$100 per page – doubling how much we pay them! We’d loveto be able to do this, and we think it can be done, but we need your help!
Do you love this project? Do you want to support our authors and artists? If you haven’t backed yet, consider doing so – just $15 will get you the e-book in PDF, ePub, and Mobi format, or you can take advantage of this one-and-only time to get the book in print format, for $40!
If you can’t afford it (we get it! times are tough!) or if you already have backed – help us spread the word! Reblog, retweet, share, and boost our posts on one or more of our social media accounts!
As always, you can find our Kickstarter campaign here – get yours before it’s too late! 3 days left…our campaign ends on Thursday, April 14th at 11:30 a.m. Eastern!
(and don’t forget, you can buy our current titles and merch on our website, support us monthly on Patreon,or give us a one time donation on ko-fi - though, if you’re a ko-fi user, consider giving us a follow because in the next week or two we’ll be setting up our ko-fi to support monthly subscriptions and merch sales, so stay tuned…)
We’d love a strong final push on this KS project, so help us spread the word - signal boosts always appreciated!!
