Posted in: Comics | Tagged: kickstarter, shawn speakman, skybound

Shawn Speakman's The King-Killing Queen, The Next Top 10 Kickstarter?

We told you last October that Skybound was partnering with popular fantasy author Shawn Speakman and his company Grim Oak Press to launch The King-Killing Queen.

We told you last October that Skybound was partnering with popular fantasy author Shawn Speakman and his company Grim Oak Press to launch The King-Killing Queen, which was meant to kick off a new fantasy trilogy that would also mark the company's first novel campaign on Kickstarter. It's a move that makes sense for Skybound, who have built a reputation for launching record-breaking campaign after record-breaking campaign after record-breaking campaign by partnering with diverse creators and original IP, no established licenses or celebrity actors needed.

The Kickstarter "Fiction" category is incredibly competitive and while it's hard to imagine any fiction projects surpassing the mind-blowing $42,000,000 raised by Brandon Sanderson last year, The King-Killing Queen already has raised nearly $195,000 in pledges and in 14th place on the all-time list after just one week. It also doesn't hurt that some of the biggest names in fantasy are talking about it:

So how high will The King-Killing Queen rise? If it wants to enter Top 10 Fiction Kickstarters of all time, that will mean dethroning Shannon Mayer's Urban Fantasy Novels: Special Edition Books, Tarot & Swag at nearly $325,000, which is doable given the lift that most Kickstarters see in their final week.

We'll keep an eye on The King-Killing Queen and see if Skybound – and Editorial Director Alex Antone – really does have another Top Ten hit on its hands. The campaign runs till May 10.

In this first book of a new trilogy author Anna Smith Spark calls "a dark love letter to high fantasy," a woman discovers her unknown past carries with it a terrible future.

When Alafair Goode lay wounded during his quest to destroy Mordreadth the Great Darkness, a witch magicked and saved the future High King's life to fulfill his destiny. Thereafter, the High King and all those born to his line may only be undone by natural death.

Decades later, Sylvie Raventress is the devoted apprentice to Master Historian Kell, stepbrother to the High King. It is a life of scholarly pursuit and privilege where one day she will take her instructor's place and write her own histories. But beside Alafair's deathbed, Sylvie and his scions learn a surprising truth—she is no orphan, but is the High King's heir. Worse, when he dies, the witch's curse is no more, leaving all the king's children vulnerable.

With her siblings loathing Sylvie's selection and vying for her throne, she must rely on a Fae guide, a disgraced former First Knight, and a cantankerous light-weaver to restore the fracturing kingdom and become High Queen. 

And yet the thing none of them know is destiny has its own part to play, too. For the witch saved Alafair Goode for her own reasons…

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