Bad News About The SJS DIRECT COVER KICKSTARTER

Bad news:

The SJS DIRECT Cover Kickstarter did not get enough donations to get funded.

I want to take a moment to thank all those who donated to the Kickstarter for their support and Bill Walko for taking the time to offer his support to partner with me on the project.

In spite of this setback, the titles for the 2016 SJS DIRECT catalog will be going to print as scheduled.

Thanks to the support of some of my YouTube viewers, and a Google ad payment from YouTube, I’ll be able to put one of Bill’s covers on Isis: Bride of Dracula and finish the John Haynes story arc in the Isis series. Isis: Bride of Dracula is a follow up to 2015’s Isis:Night of the Vampires and will be released this April as the headliner for this year’s titles.

All four of the books with Bill’s covers are actually part of what I call the John Haynes story arc. Those include Isis: Wrath of the Cybergoddess, Isis: Night of the Vampires, E’steem Undercover, and Isis: Bride of Dracula. In this arc, Isis meets John Haynes from The Temptation of John Haynes and the storyline in all the books builds a floor on the foundation of the SJS DIRECT Universe.

The Man Who Rules The World will be released this May with the concept cover that got a positive impression on Facebook a few weeks ago.

The Man Who Rules The World is a follow up to 2011’s critically acclaimed The Temptation of John Haynes. This one is a BLOCKBUSTER. If you liked movies like The Avengers, Avengers Age of Ultron, and Captain America: Civil War, and comics like The Infinity Gauntlet, you’ll definitely enjoy this one. Almost every character in the SJS DIRECT Universe appears in this story, and it has an epic feel like an event comic or a big budget movie.

All those readers who asked me to write that book for young Black boys need to pick up The Man Who Rules The World. This one features one of the strongest Black male heroes I’ve ever written and presents an extremely positive example of Black manhood and Black masculinity.

E’steem: The Witches of Eastland will be released this June and will feature a new big print cover format. Not what I wanted to put on the cover, but I’m hoping E’steem series readers continue picking up her adventures in spite of the cover. There’s a MAJOR revelation at the end of E’steem The Witches of Eastland that will impact the E’steem character and future E’steem series stories in the future so readers have to pick that one up!

Unfortuantely, Isis: Imitation of Life will be delayed until I can find a way to pay for its cover. I believe that book is too important to not release it with a quality cover. The story of African-American heroes set in the Golden Age of superheroes and Pulp fiction is one I want people to read and take notice of. While my concept is strong, I can’t use that art. The subject matter is too important to have the book this book to be attacked by literary elitists and book snobs who only judge books by their covers.

I wrote Isis: Imitation of Life not only to show the struggles a Negro heroine like Isis went through during the tense time of the 1930s with Jim Crow and discrimination, but to also pay my respects to those Men and Women who put their lives at risk during the pre-Civil Rights to fight for the rights and freedoms we have today. I’m going to make every effort to put a quality cover on that book before I release it.

In Isis: Imitation of Life’s place will be Isis: Samurai Goddess, a story set right after the events of Isis: Bride of Dracula and The Man Who rules the World and puts the Isis series back on track after all the events of the John Haynes arc. Like E’steem: The Witches of Eastland, Isis: Samurai Goddess features a Big letter cover, the interim standard for the SJS DIRECT trade dress.  

Again, I’m sorry I couldn’t put quality covers on all four titles of this years’ books. And I’m hoping everyone continues to come out and support SJS DIRECT titles. I appreciate all your support and I’m making every effort to keep raising the quality of SJS DIRECT publications until there’s no difference between them and those produced by trade publishers. If I could get a full-time job to pay for the expenses like art for book covers I believe I could actually produce publications that could compete with trade houses.

I’m going to keep persevering and keep publishing. And I’m hoping you continue to support SJS DIRECT publications. While the failure of the SJS DIRECT Cover Kicksarter is a setback it doesn’t discourage me. It just makes me work that harder towards my goal of having a bestselling book.