Kevin J. Anderson Breaks A Personal Record With Massive Launch To Terra Incognita Fantasy Kickstarter

Kevin J. Anderson set a new personal record for crowdfunding with his Terra Incognita: Epic Fantasy Trilogy and Rock Albums Kickstarter launch.

Best known for his work on the Star Wars Extended Universe, and continuing the Dune franchise, Kevin J. Anderson has been doing a lot of work in science fiction and fantasy over a tremendous career. His Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series has become a cult success through a long history of publication, and he’s had an epic space opera of his own with The Saga Of The Seven Suns, which garnered a Hugo Award nomination in 2015.

He's also the publisher of WordFire Press which has put out works by dozens of authors over the years.

Over the last several years, he’s joined many authors in turning to Kickstarter for new editions of his works. Dan Shamble has had multiple incredible successful campaigns, and a collection of all of his short fiction has done extremely well for Anderson as well, but none of them have had a launch quite as robust as Terra Incognita.

The current Kickstarter offers a trilogy of fantasy novels described as an “epic seafaring fantasy” that are accompanied by three rock albums. In addition to his work on novels, Anderson is a huge music fan and worked closely with the band Rush on a novel tie-in to their Clockwork Angels album. He’s worked with some incredible musicians to add music to these novels and produce albums that go along with each book. The music features work from some big names from the progressive rock scene.

Kickstarter launched to a resounding success, garnering nearly $45,000 on its first day of sales. Anderson spoke with Fandom Pulse to confirm this is his biggest launch ever, saying, “This is by far my biggest day 1. In fact, in 12 hours it is already bigger than the max of several of mine (which were still big successes).”

He continued, “Of course, with the special editions and producing/recording the new rock album I've sunk a lot of up front costs into this one. The original publisher a dozen years ago didn't release the books the way I had hoped and didn't take advantage of the companion rock albums. This time I get to produce the project the way I want to.”

The Kickstarter offers books in multiple formats, audio editions, and albums, but a deluxe leatherbound set’s garnered a large portion of the funds. Many authors are producing high-end editions of their books like this for crowdfunding as readers increasingly are looking for premium collector’s products. So far, those sets have more than sixty backers for the premium edition tiers as his fans are passionate about Terra Incognita.

The Kickstarter is described as: “The Terra Incognita trilogy is my fantasy masterpiece—it took me more than fifteen years to develop and write. A huge tale of two continents at war—sailing ships, sea monsters, and the Crusades. With a giant cast of characters, it is a tale of love and revenge, the Age of Discovery, and the mystery of what lies beyond the edge of the map. And all the books are finished!”

Terra Incognita can be backed here.

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