If you'd told me pre launch that we'd be comfortably sitting at 22% with 140 backers after one week, I wouldn't have believed you. Crowdfunding is a difficult game, influenced by paydays, your audience, even the day of the week you launch, and having ran two Kickstarters for 3 of Cups Press before hand I knew the best thing was to expect nothing.

I couldn't have expected this. Not just the financial pledges, but the enormous amount of support we've had over the last seven days and most importantly, the amount of autistic people who've reached out and said this is a book they have needed. That's why I'm here doing this, after all. 

I had jokingly told a friend that I was aiming for 50% by the end of World Autism Awareness Week, which starts on Monday and to be completely honest, that doesn't seem like to wild a goal now.

If you're not familiar with World Autism Awareness Week, go check out the hashtag on Twitter or the National Autistic Society's rundown here. I also strongly recommend you check out Am I Autistic on Channel 4 on the 28th March at 10pm, which is an autistic-led show all about the realities of being an autistic person.

So, what can you do next?

Keep sharing the landing page. You will definitely know at least one autistic person in your life -- 1 in 100 of us are autistic after all -- and they will likely want to know about the book. And of course, this book isnt just for autistic people so tell your friends who enjoy reading, who enjoy finding new voices to read. The most important thing I've found is that people respond more to individual people saying this is why I want the book, this is what it means to me, rather than just a retweet or a link posted without context. This book will only happen if we hit that 100% mark, and I need your help to get us there.

In the meantime, I'm going to be firing off emails today to people I think will want to hear about Stim and gearing up for lots of tweeting next week. 

Thank you for all your incredible support so far.

Lizzie