Great Opportunity for Aspiring Writers

The latest Kickstart campaign for The Gathering anthology and GrayHaven Comics is coming to an end with less than 3 days remaining. We smashed our initial goal but every pledge helps to create new opportunites for up and coming creators.

The Gathering started 18 months ago as a self published vanity project. With 5 issues under our belt, acclaimed reviews from sites such as Aint it Cool, Weekly Comic Review and Wired and contributions from pros like Gail Simone, Michael Lapinski and Sterling Gates the comic that started as off as a group of individuals trying to prove that they could make a comic to an ongoing series that affords new artists and writers a chance to get published, often for the first time.

The early success of our Kickstart fundraiser enabled us to add more issues to 2012's publishing schedule which transitions The Gathering into a monthly comic anthology.


55 hours to go and one more limited reward being offered. Glenn Greenberg, former Marvel Comics editor and writer and current editor at Scholastic Inc will review comic scripts, completed books or (for the non comic fans) submissions to Scholastic. Another great opportunity for writers but this is limited to just four so you have to act quick.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1429812861/the-gathering-comic-book-anthology

Gale Haut said:

What's been your experience with kickstarter? It looks like you've done extremely well.

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I wish I could find the article but there was one done a few weeks back heralding it as the #3 comics publisher behind Marvel and DC

This is our third attempt. Year One we were just starting out, had no book ready and no one ever heard of us. We fell waaaay short of our goal. Later that year after we had published the first book and were deep into book two we tried again and hit it.

This year with 4 books published and two more on the way people knew we weren't going to just burn the money, haha. And some of the more creative rewards like the professional critiques helped and we hit 500% of the goal

I think it's a great, great service. You're only funded if you hit goal and you choose the amount and time limit of the funding so it really is what you make of it.

But for the past 43 day I have felt like I was running a telethon haha

Gale Haut said:

Very very cool. And you can set the limits on how many per reward. Nice.

Thanks for introducing this to me. I'll probably get involved in it, maybe try a proposal for my zine.

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Yeah some of the rewards are 'unlimited', especially the lower money ones but when we got into the pro feedback ones they obviously couldn't review 20 or 30 stories so thankfully the option was there to set a limit.

And you should try it. Even if you don't succeed the first time you'll learn enough to make it go a second. Nothing to lose, really.

Gale Haut said:

Thanks for the tip. I'm definitely going to try it. And I'll let you know about the zine when it opens for submissions. It's all interstitial indie stuff. We will be actively seeking illustrators and original comics, and we're going to pay pro rates for everything as well.

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Sounds awesome. Do let me know and I'll do my best to spread the word and help find recruits. Lord knows I've had enough practice at it. I think by the time next year's volumes are out we'll have given over 100 different creators their first published opportunity. And as we'll announce at NYCC, in many of those issues there will be pro contributors as well so that's an extra perk.

Gale Haut said:

I wish i had the cash to help you out. I'm living on pennies and dimes right now. But I can facebook this for you. Good luck!

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I hear you. And if you're ever interested in submitting that's open to via the website.

Less than 12 hours to go for this particular reward and our Kickstart campaign.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1429812861/the-gathering-comic-book-anthology

And Kickstarter was actually down for a couple hours there. Yikes. Back up and less than 7 hours to go. What a wild ride it's been. I do encourage any self publishers looking for help in funding their own projects to test em out on your own.