Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction

I’m back on Kickstarter today, seeking to fund the production of an audiobook version of my latest novel. It’s a smaller project but one that is both near and dear to my heart, and also risky. But, let me start at the beginning.

Almost exactly a year ago, my funny urban fantasy novel The Middling Affliction was published. The book has done pretty well. It sold out the first print run, received some excellent reviews, and my wonderful publisher Arc Manor/Caezik picked up the sequel. Kakistocracy, book 2 of the Conradverse Chronicles is due to be published on October 17, 2023.

The audio version of The Middling Affliction was published by Orange Sky, a division of Spotify. They selected a wonderful narrator and the audiobook sold pretty well. But, unfortunately, not well enough by huge publishing company metrics to pick up the sequel.

I love audiobooks. Most of my pleasure reading is done in that format, while I reserve my screen and paper book time for reading anthology submissions, books to be blurbed, etc. So, I really wanted an audiobook of Kakistocracy to exist. I don’t have the overhead of a major corporation and so I could get this done at an affordable rate and then have total control over the audiobook, which would allow me to give away copies, run promotions, and do all sorts of things I couldn’t pull off under the watchful eye of a responsible publisher (and their even-more-responsible accountants), such as posting the entire first chapter on YouTube for free.

I reached out to Patrick Boylan, a very talented stage and screen actor who narrated The Middling Affliction, and was thrilled to learn that he’s 100% on board to narrate the sequel! So now, my goal is to offset some of the production and marketing costs of this audiobook.

So, why is this project risky? Traditionally, audiobook-focused campaigns don’t do very well on Kickstarter. People love physical books (ebooks are nice, too!) whereas Kakistocracy has a traditional publisher who has been very supportive and I don’t want to do anything that will hurt their sales or preorders in any way whatsoever. If anything, I’m doing this because I believe controlling the audiobook rights will help me promote the series and generate future sales for both myself and for them. And—again—because I adore audiobooks and really want this to exist.

So, would you please head over to the new campaign page, check out the book promo video and consider supporting this project? I’ve made a lot of my past books available as rewards alongside the audiobook itself, of course. I’m also offering copies of my upcoming 2023 anthology, The Digital Aesthete (read more about it in the campaign.) So there’s lots of goodies available.

Back this on Kickstarter.