Greetings, Adventurers!

It’s been awhile since you’ve heard from me, hasn’t it? Let’s recap:

- Sept. 9th we hit our funding goal and Mushroom and Anchovy was greenlit!

- You haven’t heard from me since (oops).

In the interest of transparency, I’ll be honest with you all: I have not yet submitted the manuscript to Inkshares as of yet, and there are a few reasons for this.

1. Mushroom and Anchovy needed a great deal more work than previously thought.

Especially part 3. My god. Obviously, I don’t want to sell you an awful book. While I’m sure the fine folks at Inkshares wouldn’t allow it to be delivered to you in such a state, I want to at least make their work a bit easier and give them something worth editing. Because... yikes. 

2. November was the hardest month this year for me.

I’m not going to lie: I had a pretty difficult autumn and it has taken its toll. The winter solstice yesterday left me with some hope for the next season, which is great, because from the fall equinox til just a couple weeks ago has been brutal. I also got another part-time job and have spent much of my time lately managing my family’s rapidly changing schedule. 

3. I’m still a bit burnt out from the campaign.

If you follow my social media accounts, particularly my Facebook page, you’ll likely notice some radio silence. I really haven’t been doing much. I haven’t even worked on my blog. It’s been a very introspective time for me, and outside of work, I haven’t been very social, either. The campaign was like a full-time job, and even though it ended three(?!) months ago already, it still feels like yesterday. 

I had hoped to have the manuscript sent in by October 31st, but that simply did not happen due to all the factors mentioned, and a few more. I am still actively working on it, day by day, and my new date for completion is January 31st. It is my hope that Mushroom and Anchovy will be under Christmas trees across North America for 2018, and while I have no way of guaranteeing that, I’ll do my utmost to make it so.

Also in the interest of transparency, I want to mention that I do not have your money. Unlike Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites, Inkshares does not send the money to the creators; the company uses it 100% for production. If you’re worried about my silence, please do not be. I am incapable of taking the money and running!

I do apologise for these delays, as I had hoped they wouldn’t happen. I am, however, only human. It is my sincere hope that the next time you hear from me, it will be to inform you all that the manuscript is in Inkshares’ hands.

Thank you for being patient with the process, and, as always, thank you for your unwavering support! The happiest of holidays to all of you, whatever you celebrate, and I will talk to you all in 2018.

If you have any questions or concerns at all about Mushroom and Anchovy or the campaign itself, please get in contact with me ASAP so I can put your mind at ease.

May your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting,

K. M. Cooper

Greetings, adventurers!

This will likely be the last time you hear from me for a bit as I delve into all the material necessary to help bring Mushroom and Anchovy to life. There’s a lot of work to be done, so if I don’t update for awhile, that’s why. I assure you that you will find out information as I do, so please don’t worry! 

Thank you for bearing with me last week while I took a little step away. Here are the winners of the draw:

Congrats to PAULETTE DIOTTE! You have won the $50 Amazon gift card! And congratulations to VICTORIA MARTIN and CAPRICE FRANCIS, the two winners of the Hub City Survival ebooks. Hooray!

I’m "going on vacation" next week, which really means I’m taking a week long break from social media and work that isn’t 100% for me. I’m going on my bi-annual Unicorn Cave Writer’s Retreat next week, as well, to try and gather some new creative energy, hike in the woods, sit by the campfire, and more. 

In the meantime, please join me over at my blog and my Facebook page! I just released a new post: What’s next? This regards the future of my other projects.

Thanks again for reaching this goal with me, adventurers! If you wanted to preorder but missed the campaign, you’re still welcome to do so as the book will be accepting preorders up until its release.  

I may not talk to you all soon, but it’ll be as soon as I can.

May your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting,

K. M. Cooper

Greetings, adventurers!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t update in the wake of exciting news! 

Guys... we did it. With just 2 days left in the campaign, we hit the 250 mark. Mushroom and Anchovy is FUNDED at the Quill level!

I’m at a loss for words, but the only two that come to mind are THANK YOU. I couldn’t have done this without everyone reading this e-mail. I’m so grateful for everything. 

Can I just say that I’m really feeling the Inkshares community love right now? You guys are awesome. Even if I don’t do another crowdfunding campaign in the near future, I’m gonna be sticking around. What a supportive group of fellow authors--a group of very talented people. I’ve learned so much from you all. 

If you want the chance at a $50 Amazon gift card, you still have time! I’m not closing the contest until the official end of the campaign--which is Monday. So, I will not count any preorders after 11:59 PM on Sunday (Sept. 10th) in the Amazon gift card draw. You’re automatically entered by preordering, but you can pick up some bonus entries. Take a look at the pinned post on my Facebook page for more details. 

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to be taking the next couple days off! I’ll get back to you all with the winner of the draw next week. I’m throwing in two ebook copies of my first book, novella Hub City Survival. It’s nothing like Mushroom and Anchovy, but hopefully the winners will enjoy it anyway!

That’s it from me for now, guys. This has been a real adventure. Thank you all for helping my biggest goal of this year come to fruition!

May your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting,

K. M. Cooper

Greetings, adventurers! 

 Some bittersweet news: we are no longer in the running for the Launchpad contest, as we did not make the top 75. A HUGE congratulations to those who did make the cut! Now I get the opportunity to follow several more exciting up-and-coming books. All in all, it was a good experience. Thanks to Launchpad and Inkshares for the opportunity!

 So now, to the good news! It’s been another HUGE week, so I have lots to share. 

 This was another exciting week for the campaign, and another huge milestone! In fact… we hit TWO milestones. Firstly, on Sunday, we hit the 100 preorders mark. Considering we were barely over 50 preorders at the beginning of the month, this was a pretty exciting number to hit. Then, yesterday, we hit the halfway point of the campaign! 

 So, we’re now over 125 preorders, and we have less than that many to go with a little less than three weeks left. It’ll be tight, but I think we’ll be able to squeeze in the full 250. Thank you to everyone who has been preordering and spreading the word—there are a lot of you! 

 This week, I was featured on the front page of ThisWeek (see what I did there?), an arts-focused paper distributed weekly to my area. The multi-talented Margaret Eaton came by my house and interviewed me about my creative work, with a focus on Mushroom and Anchovy. Her article was very in-depth and I really couldn’t be happier. Thank you, Margaret! 

 On the same day Margaret came by, I recorded a little video to try and convince a few other people to preorder. It’s right here if you want to see me yelling about my book (because you haven’t seen that enough already).  

 I had a couple other points to make, friends, but this e-mail is long enough. I’m just happy I can present this much information for you, because it’s really exciting to me! I am 52% of the way to reaching my biggest goal for this year. Thanks for reading this far and joining me along the way. 

May your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting, 

 K. M. Cooper

Greetings, adventurers! 

 The past few weeks have been incredibly hectic for me, with traveling, visits from and with family and friends, my husband being on vacation, tying up loose ends, and much more. Now that the book is officially just one month today from the campaign’s end, it’s time for me to get serious about reaching out to others. Some have you may have heard from me already, but I’m going to be reaching out to individuals over the next little while. If you’ve already preordered, though, you won’t hear from me, so no worries there! An added note that the Canadian dollar is strong right now, so this is a great time to order! 

 An exciting note: Mushroom and Anchovy is currently being considered for entry into the SnarkyDarkSy syndicate! This alone is very exciting. The official selection hasn’t been made yet, but the fact that Mushroom and Anchovy is on the table at all is an excellent sign. 

 Since I’ve gotten several new preorders since the last update—thank you, by the way!—I feel this is a pertinent time to mention that I have a Facebook giveaway going on for ALL backers of the book. It’s the pinned post over on my page: K. M. Cooper, Writer and Freelancer. Check it out and, if you’ve ordered the book, PLEASE enter! All instructions are on the pinned post. Also, over at that link, I’ll be reading chapter 4 live next Wednesday, August 16th, at 9 PM AST! I hope to see some of you there! 

Lastly… surprise! Chapter 5 will be in your inboxes shortly. I hope this one makes you laugh, because it contains quite possibly one of the most ridiculous and immature scenes in the entire story. It also happens to be one of my favourites. 

 May all your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting, 

K. M. Cooper  

Greetings, adventurers!

A very quick--and early--update this week, since I’m going away tomorrow to visit family. I have some good news, and some bad news. Maybe not bad, but... let’s call it "deferred good news".

The good news is that we hit a big milestone! At 50 preorders, we’re now sitting at 20% of the way to our 250 goal. This is amazing and very exciting. We still have a little over a month to go, which should be lots of time to get 200 more preorders. I feel it! Shout out to Peter C., who got the 50th preorder. Thanks so much to everyone who has preordered so far.

The not-so-good/deferred good news is that I won’t be able to post up chapter 4 as early as I’d hoped. As I looked it over today, I noticed it needs a bit more work before I can send it out. I would be happy to spend the next several days reworking, but I’m going to be out of town and cannot make it a priority. I hope to have it taken care of by early next week, so please look forward to that! This week has been absolutely insane and I’ve been trying so hard to keep up, so I apologize if I’m not keeping up as well as I have been. 

A little note to my Canadian readers who have been biding their time: the dollar is pretty strong right now, so this is a great time to preorder!... just sayin’.

You’ll be hearing from me early next week, folks. In the meantime, may all your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting,

K. M. Cooper

Greetings, adventurers! 

We had our live reading on Wednesday night! It went really well, and you can review it here. I promise it’s much shorter than the other ones! If you want a reasonably dramatic reading of the first three chapters so far, you can view them all on my Facebook page.

I’m hoping to be able to do live a reading of chapter 4 in the coming weeks. I’m just waiting to hit that 50 preorders milestone! We’ve been at a standstill for a bit, but I do believe we still have time to make magic happen.   

We’re getting close to crunch time. At just a little over a month to go before the end of the campaign, it’s time to ramp it up a little bit. So, if you’re following along here and haven’t preordered yet, you will probably hear from me personally over the next few weeks. 

Thank you so much to those of you who have preordered so far, and thanks to all of you who are following along in the journey. A reminder that backers can enter a contest to win a $50 Amazon gift card on my Facebook page, so please enter if you haven’t already! And if you want a stab at winning that gift card, all you need to do is preorder, then like and share the post.

May all your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting, 

 K. M. Cooper

Greetings, adventurers! 

I haven’t had many updates lately because I’ve been doing a lot of background work. I’ve been putting up posters, writing blog posts, submitting press releases, and even more. This campaign has kept me very busy, and I’ve learned a lot! I’m learning more about self-promotion and crowdfunding every day. There’s still over a month and a half left of the campaign, and I imagine I’ll learn even more during that time.

As I mentioned last week, local radio hosts Scotty and Tony talked about and did a writeup for Mushroom and Anchovy, and that was awesome! 

This week, I did a guest post on world-building for John Robin’s collaborative blog, Epic Fantasy Writer. There’s a writeup at the end about #MushAnch as well. I really enjoyed collaborating with him, and hope to do so again in the future! If you’d like me to write for your blog, please get in contact with me. 

Hubcity Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park this year is Hamlet, and, as I used to act with them and have been in many Shakespeare in the Parks in the past, I decided to sponsor the show and slip an ad for #MushAnch in there. Congratulations to the cast and crew of Hamlet for a spectacular opening night! If you’re in Moncton, you can take in the show this Friday and Saturday at Victoria Park at 6 PM, or next week on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the same time and place. I was able to go last night, and they put on an amazing show!

(Also, that’s my husband Brad Butland at the top there. Not that I’m proud... or anything...)

A little reminder as well that I’m going to be doing a live reading of chapter 3 next week, Wednesday the 26th, on my Facebook Page. This reading will be strictly a reading, not a live Q&A--unless, of course, anyone has any questions during--so it should be much shorter than the last few streams. This will be taking place at 9 PM AST. Also, if you’ve preordered a copy of the book and haven’t entered the contest on my page, please be sure to do so! You could win a $50 Amazon gift card!

There’s no real update on numbers at the moment, but hopefully I’ll have gotten a few preorders over the weekend and will have an update for you next week. I really want to get you guys chapter 4 to read, and have another surprise if we get to that point soon, so if we can get just three more preorders I will be able to deliver that to you ASAP! 

Thanks for following along with the campaign, folks. 

May all your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting, K. M. Cooper

Greetings, adventurers! 

A very brief update today with some great news: we got a local news plug this week! Thanks to local radio hosts Scotty and Tony of XL 96.9, who mentioned the book both on their show and on their blog. They were very supportive when Hub City Survival first released, so it’s no surprise that they’re supporting #MushAnch as well. Thanks, guys!

I’m thinking I may drop down to just doing a weekly update. I liked the bi-weekly, but I’m finding there’s not as much to say these days other than "please buy the book and tell friends about it"! So, this will be the final Monday update for a little while. This will likely pick up again as we draw nearer to the end of the campaign. 

If you’re in the Greater Moncton Area, please be sure to check out Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, running from Thursday-Saturday this week and Friday-Sunday next week. My husband, actor Brad Butland, will be playing the role of Hamlet, and the show is free!

I should have some more exciting news for you this Friday, adventurers. I have been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work for the campaign lately, and some of it should be coming to centre stage very soon. Keep your eyes on your inbox!

Until Friday, may all your adventures be fraught with wonder and just enough peril to keep them interesting.

 K. M. Cooper