UPDATE 2: Franklin's writing another book!
Find out about it at our new Indiegogo campaign (ends December 15, 2014).
UPDATE: WE DID IT!!!
The book officially published on September 2, 2014.
Here's how to buy it:
In print:
As an e-book:
More Than Two is distributed by Itasca Books. Retailers and libraries may order through Ingram or Baker & Taylor, directly from Itasca (orders@itascabooks.com), or from Thorntree Press (orders@thorntreepress.com). Thorntree Press also works directly with international retailers.
We're planning an audiobook for the spring!
Practical Polyamory
Polyamory is the practice of having more than one romantic relationship at a time, with the knowledge and consent of all in involved. It's not swinging, and it's not cheating; it requires trust, integrity, communication and courage. If you're new to the idea of poly, we recommend you check out our essay, "What is Polyamory?," available at the bottom of our gallery page. It's a 101-level introduction for someone totally new to the topic.
More Than Two is a new book on polyamory that distills decades of experience in polyamorous relationships into pragmatic, hands-on advice for making ethical plural relationships work.
Franklin Veaux is a polyamorous writer and activist who has maintained a poly website and blog for over 15 years. Eve Rickert is a polyamorous professional editor and writer.
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This book will be unlike any other poly book on the market. Not a memoir, not a bird’s-eye overview, and pulling no punches, this book will be practical and matter-of-fact, confronting everyday situations and using real-world examples of what works and what doesn’t.
- Franklin’s website www.morethantwo.com is one of the oldest and most-visited polyamory websites in existence. Live since the late 1990s, it is the #2 hit on Google for "polyamory" and receives thousands of visits a month. Thousands of people have written to him to thank him for saving their relationships. His readers have been waiting for a book for years. (Video: See some of our endorsements.)
We want to help you get aligned with your own internal ethical compass and help you develop the tools you need to make relationship decisions with compassion and integrity.
Ethical, Deliberate Relationships
Polyamory is all over the news these days. It seems you can hardly turn on daytime talk television or pick up a magazine without hearing about it. So why does the world need another book about polyamory? More Than Two goes where other books on polyamory don’t, empowering people to build happy, successful polyamorous relationships. We focus on problem-solving skills, ethical decision-making, and compassionate relationship building. Rather than telling you what polyamory is, we offer tools to help you make it work.
"You can't go around building a better world
for people. Only people can build a better
world for people, otherwise it's just a cage."
-- Terry Pratchett
Our goal in this is ambitious: to equip people to build ethical, deliberate relationships that defy cultural norms. We believe that change happens not when we argue about relationship theory, but when people live their lives the way they see fit.
Both Eve and Franklin have been writing about polyamory, organizing and hosting poly groups, and facilitating discussion about polyamory for years. We are committed strongly to the idea of intentional relationships, and More Than Two draws on decades spent on the forefront of the poly movement.
Who the Hell Is the Dude with the Mowhawk?
Badass McProblemsolver was created by our buddy Edward Martin to help make our video entertaining, engaging, and with enough of a WTF? factor to make it worth sharing. (Plus, we may be great writers, but we suck in front of a camera--believe me, the last thing you want is six minutes of that.) And yeah, we may be playing a little off Franklin's reputation for being controversial and occasionally abrasive. Badass is intended to be, in part, an over-the-top exaggeration of how some people seem to view Franklin.
So you might be happy to know that the book will not be written in his style, but will be more of the writing you've come to love from Franklin--along with a fair amount of writing from Eve, which we hope you're coming to love, too (more at www.morethantwo.com/book).
Our First $6,000 Matched
We’ve had two generous sponsors, Dr. Kenneth R. Haslam, MD (curator of the polyamory collection at the Kinsey Institute), and Alan M. of Poly in the News, come forward and offer to match the first $6,000 we raise from this campaign. UPDATE: We've matched it! THANK YOU to everyone who got us this far!
We need $25,800 total, including Alan and Dr. Haslam’s contributions, so we’re raising $19,800 through this campaign. Here’s how the money will be spent:
$10,625 to allow the two of us to take time off from our businesses to write the book (17 person-weeks at $625 per week).
$5,800 for production costs (cover and layout, copy-editing, proofreading, indexing, ISBNs and CIP data, and printing account fees). (Video: Meet the production team.)
$6,867 for printing and shipping books and other rewards.
$1,383 for Indiegogo and credit card processing fees.
$1,125 contingency.
We’re writing the book no matter what, so we’ve selected the “keep what you raise” model for fundraising. If we don’t raise our full goal, we will still write the book, but we will take longer (if we can’t take as much time off), or we may have to cut back on some production costs (such as skipping proofreading or the index).
OMG Swag!
Note for backers outside the USA and Canada: for the $25, $30, and $50 tiers, please add $5 for international shipping. For the $75, $100 and $150 tiers, please add $20. You do not need to add shipping for perks at $15 and below or $250 and above, or for the $35 "International Supporter" tier.
We have some amazing perks on offer, and we want to especially thank Christopher Ryan, Dr. Elisabeth Sheff, Louisa Leontiades (author of The Husband Swap), and André Olivier for providing some of them. They’re all listed in the sidebar, of course, but here are some highlights and details:
A signed, first edition hardcover of The Polyamorists Next Door by Dr. Elisabeth Sheff, the first book ever to explore in-depth the reality of polyamorous families.
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A signed paperback copy of Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá, the book Dan Savage has called “The single most important book about human sexuality since Alfred Kinsey unleashed Sexual Behavior in the Human Male on the American public in 1948.”
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An e-book edition of The Husband Swap, a personal memoir of polyamory by Louisa Leontiades.
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A poly charm or silver poly pendant from Abzu Emporium.
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(charm)
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(pendant)
A copy of Franklin’s original poster “Relationship Principles I Wish I Had Learned Early On.”
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Franklin’s poly dragon T-shirt (men's or women's style), or poly dragon tattoos or stickers.
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A Sex at Dawn T-shirt (design by Levi Greenacres).
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A handmade pair of ears (like the ones in the video, kitty or bunny) and a tiny hat handmade by Franklin’s partner Maxine (see some samples of her work in her gallery). They look fabulous together! (For more on the ears and the hats, watch our update video: "What's with the ears?")
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At the highest levels, you can have Franklin hand-select a bag of toys to suit your tastes, or even make you a custom toy, either made from solid turned aluminum or equipped with a motor driven by a programmable Arduino-compatible microcontroller. (You know what kind of toys.)
We expect our books to ship in May or June 2014. All other merchandise rewards will ship by mid-December 2013, in time for the holidays. Custom rewards and rewards involving our personal time will be fulfilled over the course of the next year, completing (we hope) by October 2014.
Other Ways You Can Help
Please help spread the word! The more tweets, visits, likes and contributions (even small ones) we get, the more Indiegogo will promote our campaign. Here are some ways you can help:
Use the Indiegogo share tools on this page to tweet, like, G+, or email our campaign to your friends. That raises our “Gogo Factor” and could land us a spot on the front page!
Talk about the More Than Two crowdfunding campaign in your blog.
Tell your friends about us!
Visit www.morethantwo.com/book, check out what we have to say, share your views with us in the comments, and share our posts.
Thank you so much for joining us in this project!
Update September 10: Stretch Goal - BOOK TOUR!
We've hit 50% just 40% of the way into our campaign, so we're announcing a stretch goal! See a video about it (with kittens!) here.
A few people have asked about a book tour. The answer has always been: depends on how the fundraising goes. We hit 50% of our goal in the first 40% of our campaign, so we’ve announced some stretch goals to let us come visit our readers:
At $23,000, we’ll go down the West Coast, returning through the western US, plus all our backers at $50 and above will get a poly dragon sticker.
At $27,000, we’ll head across the southern US, returning through the US Midwest and western Canada. Plus all our backers at $25 and above will get a poly dragon sticker.
At $29,000, we’ll extend our trip to New England, returning via Canada and the US Midwest, and all our backers at $50 and above will get three poly dragon temporary tattoos.
At $32,000, we’ll pay a visit to the UK, and all the paperback books will be a signed, limited-run offset-print first edition, mailed before the books are publicly available.
You can see tentative maps of our route here.
We’ve set up a survey where people can offer to organize readings, signing, meetups with local poly groups, and other events, and to host us. We’ll be basing the final routes and destinations on where we have the most interest, so even if you’re not on one of our maps right now, we may still come to your town!
Update September 14: Referral Contest!
To celebrate the halfway point of our campaign and being close to 60% of our goal, we're announcing a referral contest!
Here's how it works: Indiegogo tracks referrals for each user if you use the share tools on the campaign page.* So make sure you're logged in to Indiegogo, then look for the icons right below our video. There's a URL there with a number unique to you, and if you use any of the buttons--Facebook, G+, Twitter--related activity will be linked to you, too. We can then access a list of referrals: not who's clicked your links, but how many people have clicked, and how much they've contributed.
Four people will win: the two who refer the most people, and the two whose referrals result in the most contributions. Each of the four winners will get to choose one of the following prizes:
And yes, you can win in more than one category (though oddly enough, the two don't seem to be correlated right now).
Remember, most people will visit the campaign more than once before they contribute, many people need to see the campaign several times before they'll even visit, and many people only scan the recent items in their social media feeds. So you can share multiple times and in multiple places.
*If you don't want your referrals tracked, just share the campaign using this shortlink:http://igg.me/at/morethantwo.
Update 10/3: Spend time with us!
By popular demand, we've created two perks that let you get time with us at the sub-$500 level. Both require that you back us at $25 or higher before selecting one of these perks:
- Buy us dinner! For $25 you can get the opportunity to take us to dinner at your choice of location--one or both of us, you pick. Must be in OR, WA, BC or somewhere along our book tour route.
- Brainstorm with us! For $25, join us in one of two Google hangouts during the third week of October to brainstorm about the book--or just ask your questions about it.
(charm)
(pendant)
