Howdy Herophiles!
Hero Games is proud to announce the launch of its first Kickstarter project:
The Book Of The Empress!
You can go to Kickstarter and pledge your support here:
Book Of The Empress Kickstarter.
Our goal is to raise $10,000 in pledges by January 29 to produce the book. We'd appreciate any support you can offer!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Kickstarter, here's how it works. Kickstarter is a form of "crowdfunding," in which people such as yourselves offer their financial support for a creative project to see it completed. You can pledge as much as you want, from $1 up to any amount. At certain pledge levels (such as $10, $25, and $50), there are special "rewards" you get for backing the project. For example, for the BotE Kickstarter, pledging $25 gets you a PDF of the book and thanks in the credits, while pledging $50 gets you all that and a copy of the hardcopy printed book.
When you pledge to back a Kickstarter project, no money is taken from you unless the project reaches its full funding level. If it fails to reach its goal (in the case of BotE, $10,000), then no money is taken from anyone and the project doesn't see the light of day.
But naturally, we hope that doesn't happen! Here at Hero we're looking at Kickstarter as an intriguing new way to continue to publish HERO System books the fans want. If this one funds successfully, then we'll plan and launch Kickstarters for other books. Please join us in leading Hero into a new and exciting era!
Comments
If you look at the link to the Kickstarter project page that Steve posted above, you'll see BOTE is loaded with info of interest and use to fans of the official Champs Universe, MMO and PnP alike.
And as with the Roin'esh in Champions Beyond, if the PnP book gets published, don't be at all surprised if some of its cool stuff makes its way into Champions Online before too long.
As some of you have no doubt seen already, The Book Of The Empress has reached its funding goal! We deeply appreciate the support so many of you have shown in backing the project.
We're now considering what we want to do in terms of setting secondary goals, and offering more Cool Stuff to all backers as a way of helping us meet those goals.
I'll leave it up to him if he wants to reveal his Secret Identity (I'm not sure if he follows the CO board or plays the game; I know he posts on the Hero Games message boards). I'm definitely looking forward to talking with him some more about what his gaming group's like and what sort of adventure they want me to run.
I'm so happy to hear it funded successfully. Good tidings for HERO games perhaps.
By the way, why does shipping to Europe cost 50 dollars? Does this mean I can expect the book be delivered by a delivery woman with heroic proportions? :eek:
Don't we all wish.
Steve mentioned on the Hero Games forums that many publishers are willing to write off a big chunk of the real cost of shipping internationally for customer satisfaction, but Hero Games isn't in a financial position right now to commit to that much for a Kickstarter project.
Of course it's possible to send books up to a certain size by regular mail much more cheaply; but as Steve observed, without more secure, bulky, and expensive protective packaging, there may not be much of the book left by the time it arrives.
That makes sense. Somebody has to pack the books, then ofcourse you want some good protective packaging if it's going to survive the trip.
Oh well, only a couple of months and then I'll get my grubby little hands on this book :cool:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/herogames/the-book-of-the-empress/posts
Would be awesome if You guys could get into closer cooperation with Cryptic so that i.e. supporting such project could result in some in-game costume perks. From a marketing point of view there are almost limitless possibilities to endorse both CO and PnP Champions.
We've only got about two days to go, and it looks like we're coming down to the wire on our secondary goal of $14,000. There's less than $900 to go to unlock five new characters and other goodies that will be provided to everyone who backs the Kickstarter and won't be available any other way.
If you've already made a pledge, thank you for your support! If you haven't yet, Hero would sure appreciate your support -- and so will your fellow backers. We still have two of our $150 "help Steve design a character" rewards and one of our superb $1,000 pledge rewards available -- get 'em while you can!!
Book Of The Empress Kickstarter
Thanx to all the HERO System fans who pledged their support of this book! Hero Games deeply appreciates it, and is looking forward not only to getting the book out to the backers, but to future Kickstarters.
For those who are interested, I posted a brief statistical breakdown of the Kickstarter in a thread on the Hero Games boards: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/88056-BOOK-OF-THE-EMPRESS-Kickstarter?p=2276140#post2276140
It's slightly thicker then my softcover copy of Champions Universe, making it thicker then expected. And of course, seeing my name mentioned makes it beyond sexy.
Excellent job :cool: