Hello lovely pledgers!
This is slightly lengthy, but do please click through and read it, because it does affect you.
When I signed my contract with Unbound to write The Long and the Short of It, the delivery date for the manuscript was agreed as 29th March 2019. I thought little of that date at the time – it seemed a long way off. A date like any other.
And now there are just 36 days to go, and the manuscript is indeed on track to be delivered by that date. There’s just one problem: the project isn’t yet fully funded.
I’m going to push as hard as I can to raise the cash so we can hit 100% in time and so that you will get your lovely hardback copies of the book in due course. But we might not make it, and I’d like to explain what would happen then. Here are the possibilities:

• We reach 100% by 29th March. Hurrah! Job done, with everyone happy. The book goes into production and appears in the hands of pledgers, if the wind stays steady, in about 15 months.
• We don’t reach 100% by 29th March. Boo! What a shame! But DO NOT FEAR. We can switch the book to the Digital/Paperback list. The book as planned and budgeted would be a beautiful hardback, with flashy endpapers and a snazzy cover and as impressive a set of production values as you could hope for. My first book, Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear?, was made this way, and it’s gorgeous. But Unbound do paperbacks as well. Really nice paperbacks. There are advantages from my point of view associated with staying on the hardback list – briefly, the book will also have access to marketing and publicity services only available on that list. But there are advantages to paperbacks and ebooks as well – more people tend to buy them, for one thing. But most importantly I’m aware that pledgers, especially those far-sighted and generous early adopters, mustn’t be made to wait too long for their books, whatever format they end up in. And it’s already dragged on long enough. I’m keen to be as open about this as possible. No false jeopardy. No pretending that if we don’t hit the target then the whole thing will be cancelled. The book will be made, whatever happens, but its ultimate format is dependent on whether we can reach the original target, which I’m definitely keen to do. To that end (and I know you have already done more than your bit) if you felt able to spread the word about it so it can be seen by as many people as possible, you’d have the already existing undying gratitude PLUS an extra little bit of it.

You’ll notice that in neither scenario is ’No Deal’ an option.
Of course, if you’ve pledged for the hardback and feel hard done by at the thought of only getting a paperback, feel free to withdraw your pledge. This would be completely understandable.
So that’s where we are. Thanks for reading, and of course for your continued support.

All the best,

Lev