Five Little Zombies and Fred purchasing information can be found here. If you are thinking of purchasing a digital copy of the book, I recommend purchasing the PDF, instead of the MOBI or ePUB versions. Because the book is a picture book, it doesn’t format well in MOBI or ePUB, nor does it look as nice.

Don’t forget, we also have Five Little Zombies and Fred merchandise.

We also have music!

At this time, I’d like to give one final brief thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for your support and the amazing feedback I have received and continue to receive.

Every time someone tweets me to say they love the book, or sends me an e-mail to say that they think it is fantastic, or say other really positive things about it, it really means more to me than I could say. This is the first creative thing I have done in quite awhile of which I am extremely proud, and with which I am completely in-love. I was so incredibly worried that people would not be enthusiastic about it, or would hate it. And this would have been even more unfortunate because this book was made possible thanks to people’s generous contributions. People took a chance on me, and thankfully, that chance paid off.

This is one of the few times that it would suck for people to not like it, just because of the emotional attachment I have to this book. It is a weird book. That is for sure. It is quirky and a little offbeat. One of my favourite reviews of the book says, “this is the weirdest kids book I have ever seen, which is pretty cool.” And it is those types of responses that I was hoping for.

The book was never suppose to be something serious. The intent of the book was to both mock and pay homage to the zombie genre; a genre that I don’t quite understand why it is so popular. And it isn’t because I think zombies suck. It is that I find all things zombies to be quite hysterical — even The Walking Dead makes me laugh. So, I was hoping that the book would translate some of my feelings about zombies to other people, while giving them something they could also love, plus adding Easter eggs to play tribute to other parts of geek culture. Let’s just say, the fact that Fred is wearing a red shirt is completely intentional.

I also want to give a HUGE thank you to my illustrator Matt Schubbe. Seriously, this dude is a FREAKING GENIUS!

When I approached Matt about the book, I gave him the text, gave him a TERRIBLE two-page drawing done via my iPad of what sort of look I wanted for the book, plus gave him a written storyboard for each two-page spread. It involved words like, “Happy little trees, and happy little flowers, a happy sun, happy little squirrels, every thing is so happy and then BAM, death and mayhem  But I want the death and mayhem to also look cute, cos dude! Wouldn’t that be hilarious!!” I also instructed him to go crazy and add any extra elements and Easter eggs he wanted, as long as every thing was happy, even the violence, and Fred has a red shirt.

Very quickly, he sent me the rough sketches of the book. It was as if dude crawled inside my brain and pulled out exactly what was in there. Again, FREAKING GENIUS!

This book would not be at all awesome if it were not for Matt’s ridiculous talent, and his ability to give me exactly what I want and more.

If you are ever looking for someone to do some design work for you, hire Matt. He’s super quick, and super talented. Matt’s website is here.

Many people are asking about a sequel. I will say I have ideas brewing in my head. But, before I commit to anything, Five Little Zombies And Fred  needs to sell better than it is. I need more people to know about it. I need people to talk about it. I don’t want to ask Matt to work on another project with me, only to be unable to pay him what he’s worth for his talent. Even if Matt were willing to do it again at pretty much the price of free, I am not comfortable asking that of him. He deserves to be compensated… I’ll get off of my soapbox now.

So, I have one more favour to ask of you completely awesome people. Tell people about our book. If you have a copy, share it. If you have the PDF, please do not be afraid to share it. Yes, I’d prefer people purchased the PDF, BUT I also want people to see my book. Blog about the book. And, if you would be so kind, leave a review on Amazon.

Also, telling people about the merch and the music album will help make more things possible.

If nobody talks about it — and not just once, but continually — then I won’t be able to create more pieces of what I hope will be awesome. And I would really like to create more.

Again, THANK YOU, YOU FABULOUS PEOPLE, YOU!

<3 from,

Jules

At the moment, the paperback version of Five Little Zombies And Fred is only available via CreateSpace, for $14.95 USD, Amazon.com for $14.95 USD, Amazon.co.uk for £9.24, Amazon.de for €12.29, Amazon.fr for €11.67, Amazon.it for €11.67,  Amazon.es for €11.67 and Barnes & Noble for $14.95 USD.

Also, at the moment, the eBook version of Five Little Zombies And Fred is available as a DRM-Free PDF directly via this website, for $9.95 CAD, the DRM-Free Kindle version is available on Amazon.com for $9.95 USD, Amazon.co.uk for £6.32, Amazon.de for €7.81, Amazon.fr for €7.81, Amazon.it for €7.81, and Amazon.es for €7.81, the DRM-Free Kobo version is available for $9.95 CAD.

Even though Five Little Zombies And Fred is available as an eBook, the format is such that it doesn’t work half as well in eBook version as it does in a physical format. If I were to choose an eBook version, my preferred choice would be to get the PDF version and view it at 100% on my computer.

Within 6-8 weeks, Five Little Zombies And Fred will be available by special order at most major bookstores and retailers, both offline and online, for $14.95 USD.

Also, certified resellers, such as independent bookstores and book resellers, can now purchase Five Little Zombies And Fred, via their CreateSpace Direct accounts, at wholesale prices.

Thanks, again, to every one who helped make this happen! You are AMAZING!

Note: If you made a contribution to the Five Little Zombies And Fred IndieGoGo campaign, you should have your perks. If you have yet to receive them, first check your spam folder for information. If you don’t see anything there, please contact jules at contact@fivelittlezombiesandfred.com.

Even though the campaign was not fully funded and, as a result, there are still some pretty huge costs to cover — namely, paying Matt Schubbe for his BRILLIANT art, library distribution, and a couple smaller costs — the book will still be made! It will be available, by special order, via most book stores. People will be able to purchase it in paperback format directly through Amazon. And, as soon as we figure out the formatting issue for the EPUB version, it will also be made available, DRM-FREE, via Kobo eBooks. We’re not sure yet if it will be available in the Kindle store. That all depends on whether or not Amazon allows us to sell it via their store without DRM.

So, the book will be out there. Because of this, we consider this to be a success, even if not a complete success. We cannot thank you enough for your help!

In the next couple of days, you will be receiving the first of many e-mails. Please put the following e-mail on your safe list: contact [at] fivelittlezombiesandfred [dot] com. These e-mails will be about perk options, double checking names for the print acknowledgement in the book, and those who ordered electronic perks should receive them by the end of the week. Those who ordered physical perks should receive them mid-October to early-November. Also, as a special treat, all who contributed will receive a private look at the video that would have gone live had we reached our full goal — the entire book, narrated by Jules.

If you do not hear from us by Friday, September 21, 2012, check your junk folder. If our e-mails are not there, please e-mail us (contact [at] fivelittlezombiesandfred [dot] com).

As we said above, we are having an issue with formatting the book correctly for EPUB. Until that issue is sorted, all those who ordered the Electric Zombie Perk will receive the DRM-FREE PDF version of the book.

For those of who would have liked to get a mug, t-shirt, device cover, poster, etc., but could not afford it, no worries. We will be opening up a store on Zazzle that will include those things, and more. Also, after the songs have been released to those who received them via this campaign, the songs will be made available for purchase via Bandcamp.

We recommend that you subscribe to Five Little Zombies And Fred‘s RSS feed so that you’ll know when all of these things, plus the pubic release of the physical book, happen.

For the final time, thank you!

<3 from,

Jules, Matt, Errol, Andrew, and Chris.

We really need some sort of “miracle” over the next few days. At the very least, Jules would like to give Matt some sort of monetary compensation for his BRILLIANT art. He more than deserves it.

Once again, we would like to thank every one who has shared this campaign, both online and offline. We also want to thank the Functional Nerds podcast for many mentions of this project, over the last few weeks.

As we go into the final weekend of this campaign, we’d like to reveal what would have been the video released at the 25% funding mark. And who knows, maybe some small miracle will happen over the weekend, and we will be able to release more. For best viewing, watch in full screen mode.

Also, we ask that you push extra hard this weekend and share the IndieGoGo campaign more times than you are probably comfortable with.

You all are awesome! Without your support, Five Little Zombies And Fred  would not become a soon-to-be-real thing!

<3 from,

Jules, Matt, Errol, Andrew and Chris.

We have a gift for you, but before we get to that, some special mentions.

Other Blogs Mentioning Five Little Zombies And Fred:

Mouldy Squid wrote some very nice words about Five Little Zombies And Fred and our IndieGoGo campaign.

Team Member Posts:

Errol, with the help of Matt, celebrated 400 Debs and Errol webcomics with a special comic featuring the characters of Five Little Zombies And Fred:

To thank everyone who has gotten us this far, we are giving you some free art. Please feel free to download the art and use it in anyway you like, whether it be as avatars on your various social networks, in blog posts, create a comic with it like Errol did, or just to keep. If you do use it in a comic or blog post, please be sure to credit the images to Matt Schubbe and link to the IndieGoGo campaign, and Matt’s website. Click on the images to view them in their full glorious splendour. You can download the images individually or download the zip file.

Thanks you all, once again, for both your contributions and your tweets, Facebook status, Google Plus updates, etc. Please continue to mention this campaign, and often. Not only will your contributions make this happen, but so will your mentions. If you happen to blog about about the campaign, please let us know so that we can include it in an update. Hopefully, soon, we will reach our next goal — 25% — allowing us to reveal another six full-colour pages!

<3 from,

Jules, Matt, Errol, Andrew, and Chris.

After the feedback we received on Twitter after last week’s request, we’ve decided that if things continue to go slow, we will release one video, for free. The see the rest of the book, contributions will be needed. We haven’t yet decided what “slow” means. We will see how things continue for the next week or so.

Aside from the release of the first video update, this week has been busy for Five Little Zombies And Fred.

Other Blogs Mentioning Five Little Zombies And Fred:

Jules wrote a guest post for the Hugo nominated SF Signal about Five Little Zombies And Fred and the people behind the project.

Jules was a guest on the Function Nerds podcast, hosted by John Anealio and Patrick Hester, to discuss Five Little Zombies And Fred.

Paul Weimer reviewed Five Little Zombies And Fred on the Hugo nominated SF Signal.

Jenny Williams wrote about the IndieGoGo campaign on Wired’s GeekDad.

Thanks you all, once again, for both your contributions and your tweets, Facebook status, Google Plus updates, etc. If we continue to promote it often, together we can make this happen!

<3 from,

Jules, Matt, Errol, Andrew, and Chris.

As a reward, and as promised, here is the first video update, revealing the first six full-colour pages of the book, narrated by Jules Sherred. Video by Andrew Edgar.

Want to see more? Help us reach 25% funding by telling every one you know about this project, and by sharing our campaign on IndieGoGo.

Other Blogs Mentioning Five Little Zombies And Fred:

James Aquilone and JP Frantz included the IndieGoGO campaign in Hugo nominated SF Signal’s SF/F Crowd Funding Roundup For 8/3/2012.

Tweets That Caused Us To Do A Happy Seal Clap:

New York Times bestselling author Steve Hockensmith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After, and more, called the book “hilarifab (hilariously fabulous),” when tweeting about the IndieGoGo campaign:

BTW, here’s the project I was supporting. I’ve seen some of the artwork, and it looks hilarifab (hilariously fabulous):

— Steve Hockensmith (@MrHockensmith) August 1, 2012

That is now three nods and contributions from individuals either working at Quirk Books, or published by Quirk Books; two of them zombie authors. This really pleases us and is a nice little ego boots.

Request For Feedback

When we were first thinking about updates, the original idea was to post video updates either: 1) Once a week, revealing six new pages in full-colour; OR 2) Revealing six new pages in full-colour when a funding milestones of 12.5% was reached, whatever came first. Revealing both finished songs and source art, etc., was always going to be once we reached 100% of our funding goal.

Then we decided that there may be more incentive for people to fund the project, and share it on their various social networks, plus share it with their friends and family offline, if we turned it into a game and only revealed video updates based on funding milestones.

Now, we are not so sure. So we want to know what you think. Should we reveal video updates based on our first plan? Or should we continue with the funding milestone model? If we go with our first plan, that would mean that within the next couple of days, we will post the first two videos, allowing every one to see the first 12 pages in full-colour. If we keep with our current model, we have no way of knowing when the first video update will happen.

Leave a comment and let us know which of these two options you think will create the most incentive.

Thanks you all, once again, for both your contributions and your tweets, Facebook status, Google Plus updates, etc. We know that it can be tiring, but we still need more of them, and often. Also, thanks in advance for your feedback!

<3 from,

Jules, Matt, Errol, Andrew, and Chris.

]]> http://fivelittlezombiesandfred.com/2012/08/week-two-thank-yous-and-request-for-feedback/feed/ 2 231 http://fivelittlezombiesandfred.com/2012/07/week-one-thank-yous/ http://fivelittlezombiesandfred.com/2012/07/week-one-thank-yous/#respond Sat, 28 Jul 2012 17:18:11 +0000 http://fivelittlezombiesandfred.com/?p=222 We are at the end of the first week of our IndieGoGo campaign. Even though we didn’t meet our first 12.5% funding goal, like we were hoping, allowing us to reveal the first six pages in full-colour, we are still happy with the respectable 6.7%. We would like to thank every one who’s contributed during our first week, and have mentioned Five Little Zombies And Fred on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and those people who have mentioned it in their blogs.

We would like to make special mention of the following, either because a team member posted the following, or it made us do a little happy seal clap.

Team Member Posts:

Errol Elumir created the following comic in honour of the launch of the IndieGoGo campaign:

Jules Sherred wrote about it briefly on Geeky Pleasures.

 Other Blogs Mentioning Five Little Zombies And Fred:

Chaos Mandy wrote about the IndieGoGo campaign on Wired’s GeekMom.

Charles Tan mentioned the IndieGoGo campaign on the Hugo nominated SF Signal.

Tweets That Caused Us To Do A Happy Seal Clap:

Stacey Graham, author of The Zombie Tarot, called the book “genius,” when tweeting about the IndieGoGo campaign:

Help make it happen for Five Little #Zombies And Fred on @indiegogo igg.me/p/160261?a=908…#genius!

— Stacey Graham (@staceyigraham) July 22, 2012

Book Riot described this project as “From the Department of Awesome,” when tweeting about the IndieGoGo campaign:

From the Department of Awesome: a not-for-kids children’s book about the perils of a zombie apocalypse: ow.ly/ct1nV

— Book Riot (@BookRiot) July 24, 2012

Eric Smith, social media person extraordinaire for the fabulous Quirk Books, said, “Love this,” when tweeting about the IndieGoGo campaign:

Five Little Zombies And Fred: A not-for-children children’s book about the zombie uprising. Yes! Love this. ow.ly/ct0ly

— Eric Smith (@ericsmithrocks) July 24, 2012

Thanks you all, once again, for both your contributions and your tweets, Facebook status, Google Plus updates, etc. We still need more of them, and often. We know that it can be tiring mentioning the same thing over and over again, but without the mentions, we will not reach our goal. If you happen to blog about about the campaign, please let us know so that we can include it in an update. Hopefully, soon, we will reach our first 12.5%, allowing us to reveal the first six full-colour pages!

<3 from,

Jules, Matt, Errol, Andrew, and Chris.