These just in: desktop wallpapers and a screen saver from The Lair of the Clockwork Book, on the Downloads page at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.

Because after all these many months I’m down to the final stretch on the story’s illustrations, and I finally have enough pictures to pick and choose for the freebies!

Through the weekend you can take advantage of a couple of sales that are running on T-shirts, posters, calendars, books and whatnot (really, there’s a lot of whatnot) at Retropolis and The Celtic Art Works. And if you just can’t make up your mind, you can combine an order from both sites to make the minimum order.

For T-shirts (at either site, or both) you can get either $10 off a $40 order, or $25 off a $100 order, with the coupon codes PREMIUM$10 and PREMIUM$25. The T-shirt sale continues through February 7.

For the posters, calendars, books and boxes you can get $15 off an order of $50 or more with the coupon code ANN0126. That sale runs through February 9.

The Lair of the Clockwork Book will be reaching its conclusion in April. Like Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves, the whole story will be available then as a paperback book (in full color!)

But I’m hoping to release a limited edition hardcover version of The Lair of the Clockwork Book, too.

The hardcover edition will be printed on heavy weight archival paper. It’ll be bound in linen-covered boards with foil stamping on the spine and front cover, a handsome dust jacket and – just like the paperback version – it’ll have 126 full color illustrations in its 130 or so pages.

It’ll be pretty much the bees knees, with its retro bookbinding, a lot like a the kind of beautiful book that was an everyday thing a few decades ago – in those days when we were dreaming about The Future That Never Was. The first time around, I mean.

But this is a Kickstarter funded project: if enough people don’t sign up for the book in advance, it simply won’t happen. We’ve got to raise the whole amount before anyone can get their limited edition copy.

So I’m counting on you, your friends, and even that guy you always avoid at the laundromat to Tell Everybody, and I do mean Everybody, about this spectacular little book that won’t exist unless we make it happen.

I think that it would be just plain tragic if we fell short, and the limited edition hardcover did not happen. If you’re inclined to agree then I hope you’ll rush on over to my Kickstarter page and think about reserving a copy of your very own.

Once upon a time, some books were sold by subscription – in fact the Direct Market for comics works just about exactly that way now. A book would be solicited, and interested readers could sign up to buy one in advance.

Of course the way this differs from the Direct Market is that you’re not reserving a copy from a dealer. Kickstarter’s fundraising engine has become the middleman – but that doesn’t really affect the outcome. If enough of you reserve a copy, the edition will exist. If you don’t, it’ll remain an imaginary, though beautiful, book.

Bits that look a lot like this have been dominating the screens of two – no, it’s three now! – computers here in the Secret Laboratory for the past week and a half, as I try to work hard on the book (and Kickstarter) trailer for The Lair of the Clockwork Book‘s just-maybe hardcover edition; but in spite of my all my trying I’ve spent far too much time beating my head against dynamic microphones, USB microphones, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64 and 32 bit, buggy audio drivers, mysterious clicking noises, mysterious crashes, and – it seems – everything except making the spiffiest trailer I can get out of myself, because my entire computing universe would really rather blow up right about now, thank you, and then have a quick melt down after.

No, wait: that last part was me.

It really has been like that, especially over the past three days. But I think I’ve managed to mollify Premiere to the point where it will now crash after exporting a movie instead of while exporting a movie, and as annoying as that still is it’s just so very much better that way, isn’t it? I mean, you actually get the file you were trying to make before the great big explosion happens, so, you know, whew.

Except that Premiere just crashed again. Okay, sorry, gotta go.

 
 
So The Lair of the Clockwork Book is due to finish its run at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual sometime in April, if I can do the math – which I’ve often shown I can’t – and so this week I’m thinking about its print version.

In fact, I’m working on the print version. I’ve got over 50 pages laid out more or less beautifully, so far.

This is a real joy, compared to the layout for Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves. The interactive stories have a lot of constraints on page layouts so there’s very little room for the words to breathe. When its sequel is ready, I will probably do a second edition of Brain Thieves because I can see now how I can make some improvements.

But back to The Lair of the Clockwork Book. It is shaping up so very nicely that I’m thinking again about a Kickstarter promotion for a limited edition hardcover, in addition to the softcover book I’ve been planning all along. I think it’d make a very nice little book, with a foil stamped spine and front cover under its stylish dust jacket. The idea’s really growing on me. It would be quite expensive, which is why I mentioned Kickstarter just above.

One ingredient for a successful Kickstarter campaign is an attainable goal. Realistically I can’t be said to have a large, enthusiastic crowd of fans. (No, you’re not in Doctor Cyclops territory or anything, but… you know.) So what I’m thinking about is a very small limited edition hardcover – probably just 100 copies – with any excess funding going to a larger, unnumbered version of the same hardcover book.

There’s even more math involved in planning a Kickstarter campaign and its rewards… so who knows exactly how this would pan out. But that’s what I’m considering.

If I go forward with this it’ll need to start pretty soon. I don’t want to slow down the launch of the softcover book (in March?) if I can help it. Still, the Kickstarter campaign would need its own video, promotions, and a surprising amount of time and attention – judging by my last one.

Time? Attention? I’m not sure where I left those, come to think of it. But it would be so cool…..