Have you wanted Duck Prints Press logo merchandise? Have you missed one of our past campaigns and want to get some of the items? Have you been eying Patreon extras we’ve made and wanted to get your own? Have you wished you could get one of our past anthologies IN PRINT? Well, then – YOUR TIME HAS COME!
Today, Duck Prints Press is celebrating Merchandise Mass Release Day! We’ve gathered up leftovers from past campaigns, seconds and lightly damaged merch, and forged a relationship with Printify to provide print-on-demand shirts and other merchandise we can’t, for various reasons, keep in stock. The result is THIRTY-ONE new merchandise items available in the Duck Prints Press store!
Or, want some a grab bag of lightly damaged seconds? We’ve got that now – get yourSeconds Grab Bagto get two random stickers, one random enamel pin, and one other item (such as a key chain, patch, or bookmark!)
And all of this is in ADDITION to the other great merchandise we already offer!
So come on over to our webstore and get your dux on! Literally! With clothes and merch from Duck Prints Press!
Want to get the same great stuff, just – cheaper? Every backer on Patreon gets a coupon that can be used on their purchases from duckprintspress.com! Come support Duck Prints Press monthly AND get great discounts on awesome merch. Winning!
A memory-stealing cult. The ever-watchful City of Eyes. Making small talk. Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…
Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.
Many Drops Make a Stream, Adrian Harley’s debut novel, is the stand-alone first book in a series of related fantasy-mystery-heists featuring the shapeshifter Droplet and the friends and found family who work alongside her to fight the corrupt powers-that-be. Many Drops Make a Stream is rated general (adult) audiences and features shapeshifting shenanigans, a nascent f/f quarrelers-to-lovers pre-relationship, a wonderful extended cast of family and pseudo-family, necromancy and blood magic and spellwork (oh my!), and one (1) very angry goose.
You can learn all about the book, the author, the campaign, and our offerings by visiting the pre-order page NOW!
Want a chance to win a trade paperback copy of Many Drops Make a Stream? Help us spread the word about this campaign by liking and signal boosting our posts on any of our platforms that including “sharing” functionality (such as Tumblr, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook), and you can get up to 4 entries per platform where you share!*
Campaign backers will also get bonuses based on the number of signal boosts our posts receive! All the social media links for sharing are on the linked pre-order page, so help us tell the world about the awesome book, and who knows – you might win a copy! (But only if we fund, ’cause we can’t afford to print the book if we don’t fund, so help us make sure people who want to buy The Awesome learn that The Awesome exists!)
It wouldn’t be a Duck Prints Press pre-order campaign if we weren’t offering some absolutely awesome extras to go with your book purchase! When we open pre-orders for Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley TOMORROW, we’ll also be offering some merchandise – and you’ll be able to choose to buy a package that includes merch, or you can mix-and-match to get exactly what you want, or you can get just the book, if merch is just really not your thing. (You can preview the campaign deets here).
Wondering who Droplet is and why there are so many animals? This is a good moment for a refresher on the Many Drops Make a Stream blurb!
A memory-stealing cult. The ever-watchful City of Eyes. Making small talk. Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…
Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.
Shapeshift main character? A chance to show off lots of fun animal forms? Heck YES that’s the direction we went when planning out the extras!
So what have we got for you?
An enamel pin of Droplet mid-transformation from a tiger to her signature goose form, 2 in x 2 in/5 cm x 5 cm, with glitter in the background color, featuring art by Aceriee (Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter). (Manufactured by Alchemy.)
Goose!Dux, the Droplet books’ custom Dux, as a die-cut sticker approximately 3 in x 3 in/7.5 cm x 7.5 cm. Designed by Alessa Riel. (Printed by Vograce.) “Goose” is Droplet’s favorite form (for good reason!) so when Dux got decked out for this book, of course we designed a Dux-goose.
An art print of the front cover (8 in x 10 in/20.25 cm x 25.5 cm), featuring Roui Cris’s (Tumblr | Twitter | Artstation) gorgeous artwork of Droplet and Azera flying over Sacarus, the City of Eyes. (Printed by PrintKeg.)
Patreon-exclusive extra: a wooden coaster (4 in./10.25 cm circular) engraved with art TO BE REVEALED. (it. might be a goose. just sayin’. there’s a Theme.) The artwork is by Aceriee, and the coasters will be manufactured by E. Conway, who also works with DPP as an editor.
How do you get the Patreon-exclusive extra? Easy! You just have to do two things: 1. Back our Patreon at the $10/month or $25/month level; and 2. Support this campaign by buying at least one of the pre-order offerings.
We’ve also got some merch-related stretch goals – depending how much money the campaign raises, we may also make a bookmark featuring the front cover artwork, an engraved wooden pendant with the Eye of Sacarus (that’s the eye motif featured on the cover!), and a wooden key chain featuring Goose!Droplet. We really hope we’ll be able to make some of this merch, too.
There is only ONE MORE DAY until this pre-order campaign launches on the Duck Prints Press website. Are you excited? Cause we’re hella excited. <3
(btw, in case you’ve been wondering when tomorrow, I expect to make the shop listings live sometime in the AM, EDT, and to make all the related updates to the Pre-Order Page and announcements on our social media shortly thereafter. Also, hi, I’m Claire Houck/unforth, the book’s editor and owner of the Press. I’m handling our marketing for this pre-order campaign! Nice to meet ya. 😀 )
The crowdfunding campaign for our next anthology, Aim For The Heart: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s “The Three Musketeers,”launches TOMORROW, June 15th, 2023! We’ve been thrilled by the excitement we’ve seen from y’all so far – well over 300 reblogs on our cover reveal, and we’ve topped 100 followers on our pre-launch page!
Ready to get MORE excited? Well take a look at the awesome campaign merchandise we’ll be offering!!
Aim For The Heart Bookmark: this gorgeous, high-gloss, two-sided bookmark (which will also have a lovely golden tassel after it’s printed!) is 2 in x 9 in (5 cm x 23 cm), and features art by Jagoda Zirebiec (ArtStation | Tumblr | Twitter), who also contributed two pieces to the book interior! The back has signatures from many of our contributors – we can’t get everyone to sign your book but we can offer the next best thing to people who buy this bookmark!
Coat of Arms Enamel Key Chain: love metal-and-enamel merch? Well have we got a spectacular key chain for you! This 3 in x 3 in (7.5 cm x 7.5 cm) piece features art by Aceriee (Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter), and will be in gold metalwork – and the red heart will have glitter! Aceriee also contributed an interior piece for the book, and did the art for our bonus patron reward magnet. You’re not gonna want to miss this beautiful, sturdy key chain!
Cover Art Magnet: Pallas Perilous made our amazing cover art, and it’s just too pretty to only put on the book. So, we’re putting it on a metal-wrapped high-grade magnet (3 in x 2 in, 7.5 cm x 5 cm), too!
Musketeer Dux Die-Cut Sticker: it wouldn’t be a Duck Prints Press campaign without an all-new Dux created by Alessa Riel! Musketeer Dux will be produced in merch form as a 3 in x 3 in (7.5 cm x 7.5 cm) die-cut sticker, perfect for adding to your existing Dux collection, or for starting with your very first Dux.
BONUS! Aim For The Heart Die-Cut Magnet: people who back this crowdfunding campaign at any level AND who back our Patreon at the $10/month or $25/month level will get this exclusive bonus – a die-cut magnet featuring more of Aceriee’s incredible artwork!
Curious about the cost? Our Book + Merch level will include the print book (A4 size!), the bookmark, the enamel key chain, the front cover magnet, AND the musketeer dux sticker for $55 USD + shipping as a special introductory early-bird rate available to the first 50 backers through June 19th! After that, the price will rise to $65 USD + shipping. Or, if you don’t want all of that, you can back for the book ($35 USD + shipping) and then add on the pieces you want – bookmark ($8 USD), sticker ($4 USD), key chain ($18 USD), or magnet ($10).
The bonus magnet is free to Patreon backers who support the campaign – but being a Patreon backer is the only way to get it, so if that’s what you crave, there’s no time like the present to become a backer!
THERE’S NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT TO FOLLOW THE CAMPAIGN! We launch tomorrow, June 15th, 2023, and we couldn’t be more excited – we hope we’ll see you there!
This week, March 19th to 25th, is World Folktales and Fables Week! Duck Prints Press is celebrating with two blog posts: today’s, which focuses on the folktales, fables, and myths that influenced us as creators, and tomorrow’s, about our favorite folktale-inspired fiction (queer and otherwise).
Love folktales and fables? Join us now and learn about the ones we love – some you may know, some you may not!
The first book that comes to mind is D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths (I had to look up the title, but the cover is burned into my memory). While there may be other collections of fairytales and folklore that struck me, this is one of the first ones I read, and it set the stage for my love of mythology in general.
I remember being really inspired by the genre of “a well-known story told from a different perspective” after reading the Jon Scieszka/Lane Smith books in 2nd grade, like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. I always really liked thinking about folktales and fables from the POV of the “villain.”
I was a Disney-loving child of the 90s, so I am still unpacking the ways that shaped my view of folk stories, stories as a whole, and the world—and reconciling the positive ways these stories shaped me vs. the harms of the Disney corporation.
The Onion Girl (and other stories) by Charles de Lint (an inspiration for Anonymous)
He did an amazing job of blending American and European folklore with ordinary life in all its highs and lows. I don’t know if I could point to a specific story that’s retelling any one folktale, but I can absolutely point to the author as a whole for his folkloric style and tender exploration of magic, queerness, and being outcast. He helped invent the Mythic Fiction subgenre. The Onion Girl lives in my head rent-free.
A collection of eastern Russian folktales that really had a huge impact on me. 30+ years on from when I read them, I honestly couldn’t relate a single one of the stories, but they burrowed so deep into my psyche that when I imagine “folktales that really mattered to me” the first image that comes to mind is the cover. The art throughout the book is just absolutely gorgeous.
This is a Turkish fairytale that impressed me because it was cruel even for a fairytale. It‘s about a young woman who is blessed from birth to grow roses in her hair, cry pearls and grow grass wherever she walks and the cruel fate she is dealt because people are jealous of her gifts. It has a happy ending but only just.
It had a HUGE influence on me as a kid, for two main reasons. One, the events of a lot of European fairytales are told as happening to the same two kids and their parents, which creates a really interesting story structure. Two, it’s unabashedly mean and gory and cruel and well, dark and grim. It says that sometimes people are terrible and sometimes bad things happen to decent people. It’s one of the things that made me want to write fairy tales, or at least stories that are a bit gruesome and meant to be told to children.
This is a variant of the selkie tale as far as I can tell, only that the women don‘t turn into seals but beautiful swans. It was the version of the lore I first encountered and the unfairness of the women being forced to marry their captor and abuser and then also being cursed for abandoning the children these men forced onto them always resonated deeply with me.
In this fairytale a veteran soldier is unjustly treated by the king and then a witch sets him three challenges. The third one is getting her a blue light from a deep well. He refuses to give her the light and she drops him into the well along with the light. It turns out the light can fulfill wishes. Up to this part the veteran looks like a sympathetic person, but he uses those wishes to have the princess dragged to his room three nights in a row to do his bidding against her will. He is finally found out and sentenced to death for this transgression but manages to escape that fate by using the blue light and he gets the kingdom and the princess to boot. I always found this supremely unfair.
I think one of the first books of folktales, legends, or fairy tales I can remember reading repeatedly is a copy of Egyptian myths and legends I used to get out of my local public library when I was young. It was already an old edition in the 1980s and its pages were yellowed, but I would borrow it regularly and lose myself in the stories of life and (un)death along the Nile.
What are some folktales and fables that have inspired YOU? We’d love to hear about them, and maybe find some classical stories to add to our To Be Read piles!
Who we are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fanfiction authors navigate the complex process of bringing their original works from first draft to print, culminating in publishing their work under our imprint. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.Love what we do? Want to make sure you don’t miss the announcement for future giveaways? Sign up for our monthly newsletter and get previews, behind-the-scenes information, coupons, and more!
Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn about what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, and claim free stories? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi monthly!
Duck Prints Press’s anthologies He Bears the Cape of Stars and She Wears the Midnight Crown, featuring 34 stories by 34 authors exploring the potential for mlm and wlw relationships growing and changing during unusual masquerades, are now available! From science fiction to fantasy to modern to historical, these anthologies take the reader to many different settings, with larger-than-life characters exploring the world around them, the people they meet, and themselves! The casts are as diverse as Pride itself, and whether they’re looking for love, a second chance, a companion, or a friend, these books have a little bit of everything!
HE BEARS THE CAPE OF STARS, featuring 17 mlm stories, is available for sale on:
…and many other major e-book sales platforms! And you can request your library purchase it through the e-book lending program of their choice!
AND THAT’S NOT ALL!
Extra merchandise from the masquerade anthologies crowdfunding campaign is now on sale too! Did you miss the campaign? Are you dying for an amazing tote bag, a gorgeous bookmark, an aromatic candle, a glossy sticker or two, a new patch, or some lovely queer art for your walls? You can get this merch, and lots of merch from our past campaigns, from our website NOW!
Was there campaign merch you wanted that’s not available on our store? We have very limited quantities left of our enamel pins, and we have a whole heck of a lot of seconds (as in, damaged copies) of the print books! If your interested, feel free to drop us a line on any of our social media platforms or at info at duckprintspress dot com – we’d be delighted to hook you up!
Come now to the Duck Prints Press website and GET YOUR BOOK ON! You’re not going to want to miss these amazing collections or any of the gorgeous merch!
(and if you can help us spread the word by sharing this post, we’d appreciate it a lot, too!)
Who we are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fanfiction authors navigate the complex process of bringing their original works from first draft to print, culminating in publishing their work under our imprint. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.Love what we do? Want to make sure you don’t miss the announcement for future giveaways? Sign up for our monthly newsletter and get previews, behind-the-scenes information, coupons, and more!
Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn about what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, claim free stories, and get backer-exclusive extras when you support our crowdfunding campaigns? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi monthly!
Today is Thesaurus Day! To celebrate, we asked our crew of blog contributors to share their favorite common word and synonym of it. Take a walk through some fabulous words with us…
Our first synonym was offered by Hermit.
slubberdegullion (noun): a dirty rascal, scoundrel, wretch
Our second synonym was offered by Nina Waters (it’s me!).
bemused (adjective): confused, bewildered
Our third synonym was offered by Tris Lawrence.
ubiquitous (adjective): omnipresent, widespread
Our fourth synonym was offered by EC.
holler (noun): a shout, a cry; a small valley (dialectical)
Our fifth synonym was offered by Sebastian Marie.
harangue (noun): a rant, a lecture
Our sixth synonym was offered by Alessa Riel.
epiphany (noun): an illuminating revelation.
Our seventh synonym was offered by annabethlynch (@annabethlynch).
pulchritudinous (adjective): beautiful, alluring
Our eighth synonym was offered by boneturtle.
fell (noun, adjective): a moor (n.); sinister (adj.)
Our ninth synonym was offered by R. L. Houck (who has a story coming out this Saturday, by the by…).
rebuke (verb): reprimand
Our tenth (and, sadly, last) synonym was offered by Adrian Harley.
rapscallion (noun): rascal, ne’er-do-well
What are your favorite synonyms? We’d love to hear!
Did you miss our crowdfunding campaign for And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”? Was there merch you wanted that you didn’t get? Have you been eagerly awaiting it’s arrival in our webstore (haven’t we all been?)? Well YOUR TIME HAS COME!
In And Seek (Not) to Alter Me, 16 authors and 16 artists have come together to create an exquisite, full-color collection of artwork and stories inspired by William Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. We encouraged contributors to stretch their imaginations, think outside the box, and put their own unique—and queer—twists on Benedick, Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Don Pedro, and the whole gang! In true Shakespearean fashion, our creators utilize gender, sexuality, romanticism, and a host of costume changes to tell unique artworks and stories—some featuring original characters, some characters from the play—that show Shakespeare’s work in a whole new light.
We’ve also listed four merchandise items from the original crowdfunding campaign that we have extras of – if you want ‘um, you’d better grab ‘um, because once these extras are sold out, we will never be making more!
A week ago (Sunday, August 28th, 2022) we held our second-ever all-server meeting – a now-monthly event inaugurated in July, where everyone involved with Duck Prints Press (authors, artists, designers, ko-fi/Patreon monthly backers, etc.) is invited to jump into a channel on our Discord, listen to some updates on our current projects and upcoming plans, and ask questions, comment, make suggestions, and generally get more involved! At the meeting, many people indicated that they wanted a better idea of what the Press staff are actually doing, on a day-to-day basis, and @hermit-writes (WordPress) suggested it would be easy for us to set up a public-facing Trello board, especially because we already use Trello to do most of our behind-the-scenes task organization/management. We opened that up to a general vote and the response was overwhelming, YES WE WANT TO KNOW! So, with Hermit’s help, the thing is now done – and y’all can see too!
This Trello board includes all of our current projects and short-term plans (roughly the next quarter-or-so), and the status of individual tasks associated with the project. You do not need a Trello account to view it. We expect to add a calendar component to it too (transferring our existing, rather bare-bones, Google Calendar into the Trello so that everything is in one place). We encourage you to take a peek and keep an eye on what we’re up to and how we’re progressing!
As always, we’re here to provide information to our contributors, staff, readership, curious public, really everyone involved in the Press in anyway – so always feel free to let us know if you have questions, comments, feedback, etc.
(and – want to support what we do? we heart our monthly supporters on ko-fi and Patreon, and we’d love to have you, yes YOU, on board too!)
Relationship: alpha/omega, dom/sub (subtext), established relationship, implied dom/sub switching, mlm
Character Features: alpha character, bipoc character, omega character, omega in heat
Tags: anal fingering, anal sex, blow job, comeplay, dirty talk, emotional hurt/comfort (mild), frottage, hand job, heat sex, knotting, mating cycles, orgasm delay, past tense, pet names, plot what plot, pov alternating third person limited, praise kink, rough sex
Word Count: 4,101
Teaser:
Desperation and not a small amount of panic had Soren pounding on the door of Quinn’s apartment at ten-thirty in the evening. He was sweating under the softest pair of pants he owned, and his shirt felt like it was slowly strangling him. The plans that he’d had for Quinn to come over to his house the next morning was gone, replaced by the need to have the alpha wrap his arms around him and never let go.
There was no answer at the door.
*
Uh oh, sounds like Soren is in trouble! Will Quinn be able to help with his problem? (Yes. The answer is yes. No twists here, just really hot A/B/O established relationship heat sex.) You know you gotta read it!
Get your e-book copy now (ePub and PDF both included) – only $1.99 US!
