Tag Archives: Children’s Books

Monte and Molly Kickstarter Dreams

The text for my children’s book project with Ed Delaney is more or less finalized. Everyone that’s read it so far uniformly loves the idea and thinks that I’ve gotten the voice and tone right. I may tweak it a bit (already have from what I sent out), but the hard part for me is done. Now it’s up to Ed to do the drawing and for us to work on layout.

Here’s what I hope to put out:

12 page softcover book (8 x 10)
E-pub/PDF/Mobi
App for iPhone/Android that includes an audio component

In order to get there I’ll need to make sure that Ed gets paid for his hard work. I’ll need to pay the developer for the app. I’ll be paying someone to do the audio for the app. Let’s just ball park and say that I’d need to raise $1500 to make that happen. That’s not out of bounds.

Here’s what I’m thinking about for levels of donation and rewards.

$1 – A heartfelt thanks and a high quality wall paper of the crew!

$5 – Your name in the backer’s section of the book, wallpaper, and an adventurer’s club button

$15 – Your name in the backer’s section, an autographed e-book, and a button.

$25 – An autographed print copy, e-book copy, and all previous rewards.

$50 – The app plus all previous levels.

$100 – Limited edition tee-shirt plus all previous award levels.

$250 – Limited edition 8.5 x 11 print of Monte, Molly, and Cyril plus all previous levels.

Chasing Monte and Molly

Ed and I have been talking and here’s a soft game plan. We want to work on M&M in the background for the next six weeks or so, releasing little nibbles like this. Then come December we’ll be gearing up our Kickstarter. I envision a softcover book (maybe a few hardcovers for special supporters) being the end result as well as an e-book version and maybe an app. If you’re a developer who’d be interested in joining us in the chase drop me a line.

As we get closer the the Kickstarter we’d love you to help us spread the word, but don’t wait til then. Share these posts with friends. And if you’d like to have one or both of us on your blog or podcast to talk about our entrance into the world of children’s books then I think that can be arranged!

Monte – Draft Two

Mom and Dad are busy a lot, so mostly it’s just me, Molly, and Cyril. We go all kinds of places and see things other kids never believe. Cyril taught me real sword fighting, but he says I can’t have a real sword until I’m thirteen. That’s a long way away, but I can make do with Glamdring until then. I’m not scared of much. I can’t swim too good, but I’m learning. I don’t like school much, but we’re takin’ a year off for travellin’ and Cyril will be our tutor too. I don’t think I’ll get bored.

Molly – Draft Two

Molly Draft Two

My brother’s a little spastic, but I love him. He thinks he’s King Arthur, and it’s kinda cute. The main thing that gets on my nerves is he jumps first and thinks later.

I like working on anything with wires or gears and my favorite thing to do is make something work differently than it’s s’posed to do. Like I made a clock that told you what time it wasn’t. Anyone can fix a clock, but can you make a clock that flashes a new random time every second?

Monte and Molly's Babysitter

I wanted to write a children’s book with some scary elements, but unleashing Monte and Molly into a world filled with mummies, vampires, mad scientists, and the like without any safety net seemed like it would be too dark. As a result we’ll be giving them a “nanny”. This is no Mary Poppins though.

Cyril – Equal parts bodyguard and nanny, Cyril has been charged by the Zealander’s to take care of Monte and Molly. He can never quite seem to keep up with the “tykes”, though he’s never more than a few steps behind them. Not much is known of his past. While he’s quite large, well over six feet, most of his height is in his torso (about 2/3s from the waist up). He is broad shouldered and barrel chested, leading the kids to joke that he might be a robot being run by a much smaller man on the inside.

He is a natty dresser, given to wearing the same dark suit and sunglasses. His white hair is brushed back, never a lock out of place. As big and slow moving as he appears to be, his hands are fast and can palm a bowling ball. He will occasionally entertain the tykes with a bit of close up magic, making coins, scarves, and small toys appear and disappear at will. He does not go around armed, typically able to disarm any opponent with charm and failing that intimidation. On the odd occasion he’s had to resort to violence in front of Monte and Molly he always apologizes.