THE ZINE...
...will be 5.5 inches wide by 8.5 inches tall, with black & white cover art on both sides, and two stories inside. The Swords Against! side will have a story by Bryn Hammond with cover art by Craig Brasco, and the New Edge Sword & Sorcery side will have a story by Milton Davis and cover art by Gary McCluskey.



Much like the Ace Doubles of old, or our Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery two-novellas-in-one-book (available as an add-on), this 'zine will have a "front" cover on both sides and you'll flip it upside-down to switch between them.



There will also be a digital version of this for those who back both projects in digital formats. If a backer chooses to get one magazine in digital and the other in physical formats, they'll receive the physical version whenever the magazine they backed in a physical format is fulfilled.


DIGITAL POSTER REWARDS
How will digital-only backers get the double-sided poster? Well, the answer is phone & desktop backgrounds.


These will be added to all pledges by all backers!


SECOND BONUS STORY UNLOCKED, ON TO POETRY!
Our launch day Bluesky post has been shared over 200 times, meaning there will now be a second bonus story in this year's issues.



Only six more shares to unlock a poem by Bryn Hammond, with two more after that...

The post - https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:lsqlgpbbnvulxnqzgx7bcgcx/post/3meo2e2ttuu2e


FINALLY



So you may as well call dibs on whatever issues & books you want. Issue one has sold out in physical formats, and Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery's hardcover is down to the last few copies...

Keep your swords sharp and your sorcery numinous,

If you've already pledged for a bundle that includes issue one in softcover or grabbed it as an add-on, you're good.

Otherwise our first issue is now only available in digital formats. There are two ways this might change...



1) If someone who has a copy of issue one in their pledge cancels that pledge, then the copy will re-appear and you'll see the Add-On listing's "0 remaining" count go back up to "1 remaining".

2) We are trying to get a few dozen absolute final copies from the print run returned to us by a distributor. This is currently being negotiated and we are being cautious - we won't add them to our inventory until they are safely in our fulfillment center. It'd be rough to sell them first, then have the package lost in the mail or destroyed or...

If this happens, we will contact anybody who has pledged for one of our new "Issues two through ten" pledges so they have the opportunity to complete their runs, then make an update so everybody knows.

And we have correspondingly created new versions of Gimme EVERYTHING You've Got! (SOFTCOVER) & Gimme EVERYTHING You've Got! (MOSTLY hardcover)

NEW AUTHOR & ARTIST RAISES UNLOCKED, AND NEW REWARDS FOR BACKERS AS WE UNLOCK MORE

Oliver is still scrambling to make a big cool stretch goal map but in the meanwhile you've now unlocked three author and three artist raises. Wow!

The next author raise will bring their pay up to 8 cents a word. This is a very important number to authors & publications as it is what the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association recognizes as a professional pay rate for SFF authors.

To celebrate that unlocking the next author pay raise will unlock one reward for all backers, and another for the person whose pledge gets us over the line.

Everybody will get digital backgrounds sized for their computer & phone featuring Jimmy Makepeace's excellent art for issue 8.


The person whose pledge gets us over the line for the next author raise will win a short story critique from Molly Tanzer herself! The story can be up to 5000 words, and if you don't want a story critique this can be gifted to a friend or the backer who pledged just before you did.



SWORD & SORCERY ASK ME ANYTHING LIVESTREAM TONIGHT


Molly will also be joining Oliver Brackenbury for a Sword & Sorcery Ask Me Anything livestream tonight at 7pm EST for one hour....and there may be other special guests as well!

The stream will be viewable right here on the crowdfund page, and you're welcome to put advance questions in the comments of this update.

See you then!

Keep your swords sharp & your sorcery numninous,

And we're less than $400 from cracking open a third Author Raise! These first few days of the crowdfund have been the best we've ever seen by far, and we really appreciate it.

Soon we'll have a proper new stretch goal map, and on that map will be something we've never tried before...
 

From now on our stretch goals are unlimited author & artist raises, and it's so cool you've already made it possible to pay our contributors 50% more.

BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU, THE BACKER?

This is where Stretch Goal Riders come in. As we unlock special pay raises, special rewards will be unlocked - sometimes for all backers, sometimes a particular treasure will go to the backer whose pledge unlocked the raise.

More on this in our next update!

We are very few backers from the devil showing up. At least we think that's what happens...seven more backers until we find out...

By sharing the original launch day post on Bluesky you've also unlocked two bonus stories!



Here's a direct link to that post in case you'd like to get in on this and help unlock some Sword & Sorcery poems: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:lsqlgpbbnvulxnqzgx7bcgcx/post/3meo2e2ttuu2e

We'll have a proper update on all this stuff, and more, soon. What can we say, you just moved too fast for us!

Keep your swords sharp and your sorcery numinous,

It...it's only been a few hours since our last update, announcing how you unlocked Double Art.

Uh

How are you doing?

Keep your swords sharp & your sorcery numinous,