Thursday, October 10, 2013

Thank You

The Save Stonehell Fundraiser (which swiftly became the “pay what you want” release of Convention Specials: Revealed) is finished. Actually, it was finished two hours after it started, surprising the hell out of me. Due to your overwhelming generosity, my efforts to raise $300.00 to cover or defray the cost of getting my old computer repaired or replaced was met six times over. One hundred and nine of you contributed to meeting that goal, resulting in a total of $1889.63 in contributions and purchases of the limited-edition PDF. I am astounded.

In all honesty, I thought I’d be lucky to reach the $300.00 mark over the course of the week. You proved me wrong and for that I’m deeply appreciative. I now have 109 new bosses, so I’d better get to work on finishing that sequel.

As to dispersal of the money raised, here’s the anticipated breakdown: Half of it goes to replacing my ancient computer, upgrading the few programs I need, and purchasing a backup power-supply. I’ve not owned a computer that wasn’t second-hand since the turn of the millennium, and owning one without “quirks” is a new experience for me.

The remaining money is going towards two other goals. Firstly, I’ll cover some monthly bills with it. This means I can turn down a project or two and devote all my time to finishing Stonehell 2. Lack of time and breathing room has been the book’s greatest enemy and is largely the reason it keeps getting delayed. With the surplus raised, I can say “no” to another gig or two in the short term to finish the sequel. This will be both a boon to everyone who has been waiting patiently for it, and to myself, who wants to get the damned thing done and remove the millstone from around my neck.

Secondly, a portion of the remaining money is to be paid forward. Since I ended up with far more money than I anticipated, it only stands to reason that others benefit from my good fortune. There’s a number of worthy causes out there more deserving of assistance than my First World problem. I mean to do my part to help now that I can.

In regards to the two sets of original notes I promised, each of those has a new home. One is going to the North Texas RPG Convention. I’m not certain what plans Doug and Mike have for those pages, but I can’t think of a better home for them. There, they’ll either find a place of security or make their way into someone’s collection.

The second set goes to a very generous contributor who paid a few dollars extra to bump him into second place. That contributor will receive the remaining set of notes after NTRPG Con makes their decision as to which one they want.

Let me close by again thanking you all for contributing or buying the PDF. Your generosity and fellowship has both inspired me and humbled me. I will continue to endeavor to sustain your faith in my ability to produce interesting and entertaining material for your games.

Very sincerely,

Mike

3 comments:

Starving Orphans said...

We eagerly await hearing more about how you intend to pay it forward, after you pay those bills of course.

Timothy said...

Few things in life make me happier today, than knowing that Long Island's own Michael Curtis will continue creating these wonderful adventures!

Anonymous said...

Glad to have been able to help even a tiny bit and the pdf has been a fun read so it wasn't exactly charity. :)

As an aside, I'd strongly recommend an offline storage/backup service like Carbonite. $60 bucks a year and unlimited storage, or you can even use a free service like Google Drive and get 15 GBs of free cloud storage. Just a little bit of peace of mind so you aren't at the mercy of hardware imps.