I’ve been hard at work editing the essays for Death’s Garden Revisited all month. I think the final book will have 45 essays in it, exploring people’s relationships to cemeteries from every angle.

I plan to announce the Table of Contents next month, once I get all the contracts signed. I can hardly wait to share it with readers.

For the first time ever, I am planning to kickstart the book, as a way to expand beyond what Automatism Press could afford to publish on its own. With some crowdfunding, we can publish our first hardcover coffee table book. We can afford full-color photographs. If the funding goes well, I may be able to increase the payment for the contributors or even commission some essays specially for the book.

Since I’ve never done any crowdfunding before, I’m trying to learn as much as I can about the process. The most important thing I’ve internalized: I’ve backed more than 60 projects myself, but some of the things I’ve most wanted to see come to life never funded — or worse, funded and never got off the drawing board. I would hate to do that to my supporters, so Death’s Garden Revisited will be pretty much assembled before the Kickstarter begins.

This morning I made my first Kickstarter video. To be honest, the process was brutal. I rearranged my breakfast nook/office: rehung the art so that it’s all cemetery photos, dragged my favorite cemetery books in to style the bookshelf. I fancied myself up and even put on earrings! I’m confident in my script. But because I am so lame at video editing, I did take after take, trying to convey the right blend of excitement and authority and get the words out in the right order. I’ll never be an actress, which is pretty much why I became an author/editor in the first place. I think the video is ok. Hopefully, people will find my awkwardness charming.

I need to finish filling out the Kickstarter page. I’ve got the reward tiers figured out, but there are so many other details…

Really, this process is equal parts exciting and terrifying. I can’t wait for it to be over and the book to be at the printers, but there’s so much more to do before then.