Why Miscellany?
Unlike most other kinds of essays, the personal essay is voice-driven, making for extraordinarily compelling reading. Miscellany is full of voices, from the full-throated to the purposefully understated voice. The one thing they all have in common is they are young(ish) American voices narrating the experiences of those who people the fringes of society.
The idea to put together a collection of personal essays has been a pet project at Run Amok Books for some time. Many a lunch hour has been spent in the Run Amok office (more like room) scouring the nonfiction sections of e-zines, looking for the right voices for this collection. It became readily apparent that although these essays were similar in the singularity of their voices, the subject matter one encountered while submersed in them ranged far and wide; thus, giving rise to our title Miscellany.
Where We Go From Here and How We Get There
Miscellany will be published September 1, 2018. We feel a great sense of pride and achievement in bringing this book to life. As a small press, we have designed/edited/formatted the book in-house; it is how we keep our costs down. Keeping costs down allows us to publish more worthy books, which is an integral part of the Run Amok mandate. Unfortunately, the budget for pet projects such as Miscellany is virtually non-existent. In order to pay our contributors we need to raise funds. And paying contributors will make publishing Miscellany, Volume 2 next year that much easier.
That's Where You Come In
By supporting our Miscellany campaign, you will be directly supporting the authors of this collection. To say that making money as an author is difficult is the granddaddy of all understatements. We want to do our part to change that, and you can help us. A small donation from you will not only help us to pay the authors but also help ensure that further volumes of Miscellany will see the light of day. For that you will have our undying gratitude. Of course, we will also provide perks as a way of saying thank you to our supporters, mainly books and coffee mugs and the like. Have a look and see what tickles your fancy.
The Numbers Crunch
The numbers are simple for this campaign. The first $550 dollars we raise will go directly to the authors. Eleven authors contributed to Miscellany, which means each will receive a payment of $50 each (certainly not an extravagant amount considering the hours that go into authoring an essay). Whatever is raised beyond $550 will be used for promotional purposes, specifically, to take out advertisements in the very e-zines where our authors were first discovered. Although online ads are generally more reasonable than print ads, they are still not cheap, running from $300-750, depending on the size and placement of the ad. We would like to raise at least $950 in this campaign, approximately 75% of the funding that we believe we need to pay the authors and do the advertising that we would like to do. Please consider supporting our Miscellany campaign, and help us to get this project off to a running--or at least trotting--start.