Steampunk in America

I've been following Boston Metaphysical online for awhile now. It made me curious because not only is it steampunk and I love steampunk but that it is beautiful. It helps that not only is it in novel form but there are webcomics as well. To be honest this made me a little jealous. Gorgeous drawings and all in a genre I love and I wish I could do the same treatment for my own books. So I thought I would study to see what they did to get such an awesome opportunity.

See what I mean by just stunning images. The webcomic on their website is just as stunningly beautiful. You can find it on Boston Metaphysical Society.

Like many creative projects this was done with crowd funding. Like here at Kickstarter.

Lots of different levels and you can invest as little as $6. The goal wasn't extravagant so I assume they made sure they could provide the whole process at the smallest cost possible. I love this because that probably means it involved more than a little sweat equity to be viable. You have to admire hard work.

But Kickstarters don't get very far unless you do something about it. This is where I spotted them. An ad on Facebook or was it a friend who shared it with me. I can't remember but I know it was on Facebook. The quality was what caught my eye.

Interviews and posts on other sites litter any of the google searches on Boston Metaphysical Society. I know how those go. A lot of work and little traction. It isn't about sales when you do that but rather about name recognition. It feels like you are pushing stuff up hill because you can't see the outcome of all the work. You might see a couple of jumps in sales but it is usually minimal.

And we aren't talking just for a couple of weeks. It has been over a year that I've seen this comic and book doing the rounds. The book was published in 2018 so I think I only noticed when she was well into it. That makes complete sense as I am not in her usual circle. I'm a tiny fish in the sea. And she has been publishing since 2013 on Amazon not to count the other creative things Madeleine has been up to.

Madeleine has also published a book for creatives who need to crowd fund to get a certain project off the ground. I appreciate how everyone likes to share what we learn along the way. She also acknowledges that even a small cash injection can be all that is needed to spring board an endeavour.

Now what lessons did I learn. That this is possible for anyone. That hard work is a prerequisite to success. That you might not see the results straight away but you should keep on going. Research and finding the right artist is key to getting the quality needed. There will be hiccups along the way. You can't predict everything no matter how much you prepare for what you think will happen. There will always be something that comes out of the blue. I really do admire what Madeleine has done.

Could I do something similar. Maybe if I had more time. And I hate that it will be in the basket of "When I have Time". That is an awful basket as hardly anything gets done in there. But it has to exist as sometimes there are too many cool things that can be done that you have to priortise the ones that give you the most joy. I love art and I do my own covers but my mother is an artist and I see how it calls her like a siren. I have the same thing when it comes to writing but I don't have that same call when it comes to comics and drawings so I know that I'll lose the drive that is needed to see the project come to fruition. That is where the admiration comes from. I see the hard work and the wonderful things it has created.