David David Katzman

Just a brief post today to call out two podcasts. I was interviewed for about 15 minutes about The Kickstarter Letters as part of the summer podcast at WordPlaySounds. I’m the first one in the session, and I read the first letter from my collection. Sounds quite nice, I think. Play it here. This interview was arranged for me by Lori Hettler, the publicist for the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography (CCLaP). Thank you, Lori!

My publisher, Jason Pettus of CCLaP, also had an hour long rambling conversation with me that covered bits about Death by Zamboni, A Greater Monster, The Kickstarter Letters, the Chicago lit scene, self-publishing, and more. You can hear it here.

Oh, here’s a tidbit of news, which was quite a pleasant surprise. I received an email from a Board Member of the Chicago Writer’s Association. (Check out their blog here: http://windycitywriters.com/) They have an annual Book of the Year writing contest, and she invited me to be a finalist judge of the competition. She said that she reached out to me because she had read A Greater Monster and thought it was “pretty awesome” and “such a good read!”

If you’d like to pick up the beautiful hardback edition of The Kickstarter Letters, it’s available at bit.ly/THEKICK. Or the ebook is “pay what you want” at the same location. Lastly, if any of you would like to follow me on Facebook, the page is facebook.com/DavidDavidKatzman. I primarily post pictures of street art and pop surrealists that interest me.

This week I launched my third book on Kickstarter. This one is a truly collaborative effort with Jason Pettus, owner and editor-in-chief of the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography (CCLaP) and Mike Wilgus, designer extraordinaire.

I launched A Greater Monster with a Kickstarter project that can still be viewed here: http://kck.st/daviddavid As a reward for all my contributors, I wrote each person a stream-of-consciousness email or a handwritten letter (at higher contribution levels) inspired by their name or a suggestion they wishes to make. I wrote 125 letters, and I spent anywhere from one to four hours on each one. So, roughly 300 hours of work! It was quite a task, but it was enjoyable as well.

I came up with the idea to select the fifty most interesting and unusual letters and publish them as a collection. Jason loved the idea and wanted to release it through CCLaP. What made me so excited about this is that Jason hand binds each hardback edition. All of Jason’s author’s books are beautifully handmade.

Mike was my book designer and cover artist for A Greater Monster. He came onboard to do the amazing cover art and 20 interior illustrations, four in color and 16 in black & white. I’m so happy with how the book came out. And I believe the letters will be entertaining even for those who don’t know me at all.

For my Kickstarter project, we shot a rather amusing video. Please take a look. I would much appreciate shares, Likes, and if you do find it intriguing, your support, of course.

http://bit.ly/KICKLETTERS

Visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daviddavid/the-kickstarter-letters-a-handmade-and-illustrated to watch the entertaining video I created to introduce you to my third book, The Kickstarter Letters.

The Kickstarter Letters is collection of 52 letters I wrote to the supporters of my A Greater Monster Kickstarter project featuring 20 illustrations, a music playlist and a fantastic cover by Mike Wilgus. It’s available as a limited edition, handmade hardback edition–signed and number–and as an ebook. Please visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daviddavid/the-kickstarter-letters-a-handmade-and-illustrated for details. The handmade edition, which will retail for $40 after the project ends, is available for $25.

Shortened URL version, handy for tweeting: http://bit.ly/KICKLETTERS