Tomorrow, Tuesday April 14th, we’re going live with the Kickstarter campaign for “Sleepy Hollow, 1998.”

If you click here now, you'll find the pre-launch page; tomorrow, that same link will take you to the live campaign.

It’s been almost a year since the first inklings of this project began stirring in my mind. We’ve been building a lot of the groundwork since then: not just writing and designing the story but building financial models, production plans, fulfillment strategies.

Frequently, over the years, when someone would ask me what I was working on, I'd explain what combination of story and media formats I was developing and watch them lean back, look away, and say something like, “Huh. That sounds fun!” (Translation: “I don’t get it, but good luck!”)

This project has been different. From the beginning, whenever I talked about it, even before we’d really figured out how to do it, the reactions were different. People would lean in. Their eyes would light up. Something about this one just connects differently. For the past year, we’ve been using that signal as a compass, guiding us toward building something that fulfills those reactions.

Tomorrow, we get our first sense of how true that compass is.

Goals

Our campaign goal is $15,000.

If we break that, we've got a series of stretch goals at different levels that we’ll reveal along the way. If we reach the funding level for a stretch goal, then everyone who pledges will receive that item at no additional cost.

We’ve already gotten some positive feedback: Kickstarter has labelled us as a “Project We Love.”

We want to take full advantage of this and get out of the gate quickly. So if you have the ability to back us, at any level, we’d be grateful if you could make that pledge on the first day.

Here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll find tomorrow.

The main offering are the "Sleepy Hollow, 1998" Storyletters. This is the full story, delivered to you over six separate mailings. In each one, you'll find a letter from Ichabod Crane plus other pieces of the storyworld. These go for a pledge of $60, but for the first few days, the early bird price is only $50. You can choose to receive these letters once per week, or there's an option to get them delivered in a single package if you prefer to binge the story.

We’ve also got a Collector's Edition of the story. Everything in this one is turned up to eleven, with high-quality paper and inks and custom, artisan printing. We’re working with a local letterpress to produce this version, and it will be a real keepsake.

We've got a whole bunch of fun merch pieces, including a “90s Swag Bag” with stickers, iron-on patches, a slap bracelet and a branded mousepad from the tech company where Ichabod works.

We’ve got a few interactive rewards, including “The After Party.” When the letters go out, we’ll host a weekly Q&A video call to talk about each chapter, answer questions, and reveal behind-the-scenes secrets. You can also purchase one-on-one video calls with Megan or me, to discuss…well, anything you want really.

The Headless Horseman Diner plays a key role in our story, and they are famous for their pies. So naturally, we had to have rewards that include shipping a pie to your door.

We’ve also got a whole series of big ticket items that pair the Collector's Edition with unique experiences: like an online class in block printing, an in-person trip to the International Printing Museum in Los Angeles, a hands-on class in letterpress printing, and even a guided tour of the real Sleepy Hollow.

There’s a lot more. Seriously, a lot. We had to take out a whole bunch of other ideas to keep it from getting too unwieldy.

Community

While tomorrow represents the culmination of a lot of work, it’s also just the beginning. We’re relying on the community to help us get to the next step and make “Sleepy Hollow, 1998” a reality.

We’ve already gotten a lot of help, and there are a few people without whom we would have never gotten this far.

​Scott Walker is a writer, community builder, and passionate advocate for creators finding ways to bypass gatekeepers and go directly to their audience. He provided a lot of early kindling that led to this idea sparking.

​Zelda Devon is the amazing artist and illustrator we brought on to create all the imagery of Sleepy Hollow. No matter what oddball request we threw her way, Zelda turned it into something magical.

​Brendan Bradley is a multi-hyphenate creative who can do just about anything in front of or behind the camera. Even more impressive is how he shot our Kickstarter video and managed to make me not sound like too much of a blithering idiot.

​Ivan Askwith helped us figure out how best to utilize Kickstarter’s platform, not to mention providing constant encouragement

​Ross Pruden has been an invaluable resource in navigating the unruly world of online advertising. And he's a crack storyteller, too!

​And of course, I have to thank my partner in this endeavor, Megan Westerby. We’ve been friends for almost twenty years, but this is the first time we’ve collaborated on something. None of this would be happening without her.

So, tomorrow’s a big day. Please check out the Kickstarter page and back it if you can. We can’t wait to share more of “Sleepy Hollow, 1998” with you.