Well, folks, we did it! The Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign ended at midnight, 203% funded at $10,147! Considering I was just hoping for a couple thousand dollars for materials, and a bit more to defray operating costs, and I wasn’t even expecting it to get funded in the first place, the final tally is pretty damned astounding. Almost 250 of you believed enough in the project to back it over a year out from release, and more of you have contacted me telling me that if finances and other factors had been different you would have jumped in, too. (Don’t worry, there will be other preorder opportunities in the future.)

So now what? Well, IndieGoGo needs to take care of all its behind the scenes magic, which means over the next couple of weeks they’ll be charging everyone’s cards and Paypal accounts. No doubt there’ll be at least a few that are declined, just from sheer statistics’ sake, so I don’t know whether they spend part of the time asking those folks to try again or not. And of course both IndieGoGo and Paypal will want to take their cuts of the money that’s raised, so I’m definitely not going to end up with the entire $10,147 in my account. But theoretically in two weeks I’ll have both the deposit that’s left and a final list of those who successfully backed the campaign. After that I can contact my backers to find out perks details (what books/etc. they want, etc.), any address changes, and so forth. I’ve already begun asking my sources to arrange the last skulls, bones and other materials I need for the rest of the assemblages, so once the money arrives I can place my orders.

In the meantime I’ll keep working on the assemblages. I have 37 done at this point, which means I’m almost halfway done! In fact, I made ten of them in a two-week period, which is just absolutely crazy–so I’m taking a few days off to work on a few other projects on my work bench. I can’t stay away for too long, so expect more assemblages soon!

And, finally, though I’ve said it many times over the past six weeks: thank you. Thank you to everyone who helped me ramp up the promotion leading up to the campaign, thank you to everyone who promoted it through podcasts and interviews and reblogs and shares. And, most of all, thank you to everyone who’s believed in me and the Tarot of Bones so much that you invested in a nascent project fueled by creative insanity and a love for natural history. I hope that when Summer 2016 rolls around and the deck and book are in your hands that you find it was worth it all.