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LAST DAY FOR EERIE ANIMAL KICKSTARTER, and New Release: “The Offered Ones” by A. L. Heard

Today, as we release the last of our four “Eerie Fall” Kickstarter tie-in stories, we also enter the final 24 hours to back our crowdfunding campaign!

Love artwork by Aceriee (Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter)? Love enamel pins? Then don’t miss out on these gorgeous pins featuring Aceriee’s work! There’s currently only two designs unlocked – the Wolf and the Crow – but with a strong final 24 hours, we can unlock two more – the bear and the moose! Support a small business on this awesome Small Business Saturday, and help us reach the goal by checking out the campaign now!

Meanwhile, we have our fourth and final “Eerie Animal” tie in story, a perfect one for exploring the animals in the campaign, because in this story…all these animals are characters!

Title: The Offered Ones

Author: A. L. Heard

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: General Audiences

Trigger Warnings: body horror, harm to children

Relationship: found family

Character Features: animal, animal transformation (involuntary), bird, non-human character

Tags: animal point of view, body modification (involuntary), pov third person limited, sentient animal

Teaser:

There was a girl sleeping in Forest.

Fox didn’t know the girl. She was a human, that much was clear, though he hadn’t seen her kind in ages. They traveled this way and that like they owned the whole world—he had seen many before—but most stayed away from Forest. They were blind, deaf, dumb creatures, unable to perceive what was in front of them. Still, they sensed the magic of Forest, so they stayed away. If they did wander into the dense line of oak and pine, they spoke in hushed voices and didn’t linger.

They certainly didn’t sleep in Forest.

Length: 17 pages/6,400 words

Price: $1.99 US

Get it now!

Can’t get enough Eerie Fall stories? Check out the other three theme stories: “Widow’s Black” by Nina Waters; “Campfire Stories” by Nicola Kapron; and “A Shield For the People” by Puck Malamud.

Love what we do? Sign up for our monthly newsletter and get previews, behind-the-scenes information, coupons, and more!

Want to support the Press and get lots of our stories? Consider backing our Patreon or ko-fi monthly at a level that includes free stories, and read your fill!

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Eerie Animal Enamel Pins

What’s that noise? Is it the caw of something out of sight high overhead? A who-who-who echoing out of the darkness? A grrrr coming from the rustling underbrush? The crash, crash of something large moving through the trees?

No! It’s the sound of our latest Kickstarter launching!

Celebrate Fall with our Eerie Animal Enamel Pins!

Fall is the season of spook. Get your Autumn on—literally!—by donning one (or more!) of our eerie animal enamel pins! These realistically rendered, gorgeous pins feature different animals indigenous to northern areas of North America and Europe surrounded by elements of their natural habitats.

For our first merchandise-only campaign, Duck Prints Press approached the spectacular artist Aceriee (Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter) and asked her to let her imagination run wild. The results are gorgeous, unique, and perfect for the season: 7 animals at their spooky, creepy, scary best, depicted in the rich colors of fall. Seasonal enough to enhance any autumn outfit, classy enough for year-round wear.

All the pins for this campaign are 2 in x 2 in (5 cm x 5 cm) and feature black nickel metal with soft enamel color work coated by a clear epoxy finish. They have two attachment posts with silver butterfly closures and feature either 6 or 8 colors, one of which glows in the dark (which varies in each pin).

This is a tiered release pin campaign (and our first-ever art-only project!)

At our initial funding goal ($1,500), backers can pick the Crow and Wolf pins (buy one or both or multiples of either/both!)

If we exceed $3,500 in backing, all backers will be able to choose from among four pins: Crow, Wolf, Moose, and Bear.

If we exceed $6,000 in backing, all backers will be able to choose from among six pins: Crow, Wolf, Moose, Bear, Raccoon, and Owl.

If we exceed $9,000 in backing, all backers will be able to choose from among eight pins: Crow, Wolf, Moose, Bear, Raccoon, Owl, Fox, and the not-yet-revealed Deer.

At $10,000, we’ll offer another unrevealed option: Bobcat. And, if we reach $11,000, we’ll offer out tenth and last pin, which is—of course!—a Duck!

Mix and match, pick your favorites, buy enough for all your friends, or just get one—you’re not going to want to miss this one chance to get these spectacular fall-themed animal pins!

The campaign is live now, and will run through Sunday, November 27th, 2022.

Ready to learn more? Check out our campaign page NOW!

Also—want an exclusive extra pin? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi at the $10/month or $25/month level and get a backer-only bonus!

Love what we do? Want to help us spread the word? We love signal boosts, so please share this on the social media platform(s) of your choice!

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Monthly Storygraph Giveaway: And Seek (Not) to Alter Me

Duck Prints Press returns to the second round of Storygraph giveaways with our second anthology And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakepeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.

What is Storygraph? The awesome independently owned-and-operated alternative to Amazon-owned Goodreads! Working with them as a publisher doing this giveaways has been phenomenal: they’re organized, receptive to feedback, interested in innovative, and responsive. We’re thrilled to continue working with them on giveaways. If you’ve wanted a Goodreads alternative for organizing your reading, posting your reviews, logging your book collections, and more, you should definitely check them out.

What is Duck Prints Press? We’re the indie publisher dedicated to helping creators transition from creating primarily fanworks to creating primarily original works! We especially focus on publishing works featuring LGBTQIA+ characters.

What is And Seek (Not) to Alter Me? 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.

Want your own copy of this awesome, innovative collection? Enter our giveaway on Storygraph NOW – or, if you don’t want to wait that long and leave it to chance, you can always buy your own copy immediately from our webstore!

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“And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing'” – Now Available in Our Webstore!

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.

And now, you can get your very own e-book copy from our webstore! Only $9.99 for 16 phenomenal stories and 20 gorgeous art pieces!

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!

Art Prints of the Front Cover

(featuring the gorgeous artwork by Gio Guimarães in all it’s colorful, queer glory!)


Art Prints of the Back Cover

(featuring even more of Gio Guimarães‘s wonderful work!)


“Taming My Wild Heart to thy Loving Hand” Bookmark

(with artwork by Alicia Matheson and the signatures of our contributors!)


Bard Dux Sticker

(created by Alessa Riel)


Don’t Miss Out! Visit Our Store Today!

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Merchandise Spotlight: Campaign Bookmarks and Pins!

The Seed&Spark campaign for He Bears the Cape of Stars and She Wears the Midnight Crown includes a lot of gorgeous merchandise options. Today, we’re taking a look at two of them!

Bookmarks

Our Bookmarks, one aligned with She Wears the Midnight Crown, the other with He Bears the Cape of Stars, feature the lovely artwork of Pippin Peacock.

Bookmark for She Wears the Midnight Crown.
Bookmark for He Bears the Cape of Stars.

With printing by UPrinting, who have also printed the campaign bookmarks for Add Magic to Taste and And Seek (Not) to Alter Me, our first two anthologies, we know that this merch will be gorgeous in high-gloss on quality, thick cardstock. The back of the She Wears the Midnight Crown bookmark will feature the signatures of the authors who contributed to that book; likewise, contributors to He Bears the Cape of Stars provided their signatures so we could share them on the back of that bookmark!

The bookmarks are each 2 in x 7.25 in (5 cm x 18.5 cm) and will have rounded corners, a 3/16 in hole at the top center, and gold tassels!

Enamel Pins

We’ve once again contracted Miss Aceriee to create artwork for our enamel pins, and the results are simply stunning. (In fact, Miss Aceriee produced so many lovely ideas that we had trouble picking – more on that later!). Miss Aceriee took our inspiration and ran with it, creating a design for two pins that are each lovely as stand-alone pieces, and even more amazing when paired!

Enamel pin designs aligned with She Wears the Midnight Crown (left) and He Bears the Cape of Stars (right).

For manufacturing purposes, we will be working with Alchemy for the third time – the pins they made for each of our previous campaigns have turned out fantastically. These pins will each be approximately 2 in x 1 in (5 cm x 2.5 cm), with two back-prongs to help ensure they attach securely. The metalwork is gold, with matching butterfly pin backers. The enamel work will be soft enamel with a clear epoxy coating, and one color (the dark green-blue) on each will have glitter to make it extra sparkly.

Bonus: Backer-Exclusive Reward!

We had so much trouble deciding which of Miss Aceriee’s designs to use as the campaign pins that we decided, first, to have a third/fourth pin offered as a stretch goal (if we hit $26,000 in funding, everyone who backed the campaign at level 5+ will receive one or both pins as extras!), and second, that we’d make the same design we chose for that into a die-cut sticker for some of our monthly backers. People who back Duck Prints Press monthly on Patreon or ko-fi at the $10 or $25 level, AND who back our crowdfunding campaigns, always get an exclusive extra. This time, it’ll be this design in one of these four colorways:

Want to know which of the four will become the sticker? So do we! Our backers can vote on their favorite for the next week, and their wish will be our command – and, if we reach the $26,000 stretch goal, the colors of their choice will also be made into two pins – the sun/crown mask and the star/beard mask, lovely as stand-alone, amazing as an interlocking pair!

So, if you’re a backer, go vote, and if you’re not a backer yet – no time like the present to become one!

You, yes YOU, can support us on Patreon or ko-fi!

And you can back the He Bears the Cape of Stars and She Wears the Midnight Crown Campaign HERE!

(Also, just sayin’ – it’s also the last 24 hours to have a say in the theme of our next Queer Fanworks Inspired By… anthology on Patreon or ko-fi – that poll is open to ALL our backers; the sticker poll is only open to backers at the $10 and $25 levels, since they’re the only folks who receive the exclusive campaign extra.)

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“He Bears the Cape of Stars” and “She Wears the Midnight Crown” Cover Spotlight!

When we commissioned @thefriendlypigeon to create the cover art these books, we had a lot of ideas that went in a lot of directions. Pigeon took all those thoughts and narrowed them into these two absolutely gorgeous pieces that we couldn’t be more happy with!

So, these are the covers – what are the books?

Welcome to Duck Prints Press’s newest project: two anthologies, entitled She Wears the Midnight Crown and He Bears the Cape of Stars, that explore wlw and mlm relationships developing, growing, and changing while the characters attend or participate in masquerades!

Our 36 contributors have stretched their imaginations to present innovative stories exploring what a masquerade can be…and, of course, tell rich, engaging tales of wonderful queer folk finding love, companionship, acceptance, the queer platonic relationship of their dreams, or the found family they deserve. The collected works feature characters in all the colors of the Pride rainbow, queer and genderqueer, and these diverse individuals inhabit worlds ranging from science fiction settings where everyone must be masked to breathe, to fantasies where no one wears a literal mask but everyone shows the world a false guise, to iterations of the real world where some people lean into deception.

This project, featuring two books and a load of gorgeous merchandise (include 8″ x 10″ art prints of these covers!) is crowdfunding right now on Seed & Spark – don’t miss your chance to get your own copies!

Read More About the Campaign NOW!

(and if you need an art commission you truly can’t go wrong with thefriendlypigeon – you should check out their website.)

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Now Live: Duck Prints Press’s Third Crowd-funding Campaign!

Duck Prints Press LLC is over the moon to share our next to anthologies with you: She Wears the Midnight Crown and He Bears the Cape of Stars!

These two anthologies share a common theme – masquerades – and each features different kinds of relationships. She Wears the Midnight Crown contains 18 wlw stories; He Bears the Cape of Stars contains 18 mlm stories. Both collections tell myriad stories exploring how these characters’ relationships develop, grow, and change while they attend or participate in masquerades!

Our 36 contributors have stretched their imaginations to present innovative stories exploring what a masquerade can be…and, of course, tell rich, engaging tales of wonderful queer folk finding love, companionship, acceptance, the queer platonic relationship of their dreams, or the found family they deserve. The collected works feature characters in all the colors of the Pride rainbow, queer and genderqueer, and these diverse individuals inhabit worlds ranging from science fiction settings where everyone must be masked to breathe, to fantasies where no one wears a literal mask but everyone shows the world a false guise, to iterations of the real world where some people lean into deception.

You’re definitely not going to want to miss it – you can buy one book or both books, some merch, or all merch – we’ve got 8 backer levels to help you get exactly what you want!

We’d love for you to attend the masquerade! Don your mask and read on…

The Seed&Spark Campaign for She Wears the Midnight Crown and He Bears the Cape of Stars runs from now through July 14th, 2022!

Go Forth, and Back It Now!

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24 Hours to Go!

Well, technically there are twenty-five hours left in our Kickstarter, but! TIME IS ALMOST UP!

We’ve reached our first stretch goal, and we’ll be able to commission art for our back cover! Every single e-book will come with the graphic for the front and back cover, every print book will have full-color illustrations on the front and back, and backers at Levels 3, 4, 5, and 6 will get an extra art print featuring the back cover art! Gio Guimarães (Facebook (giovannabcg) | Facebook (giosdoodlesandartworks) | Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter) is the artist. Gio and DPP have already signed a contract, and once we have sketches to share we’ll give y’all an update!

We’d love to reach our next stretch goal, at $16,500, so we can give our authors and artists a raise which doubles how much they earn for their contributions to the anthology. You can help! Check out our merch, help spread the word about the campaign on social media, and – if you want a copy – make sure you buy your own!! This is your only chance to get And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” in print, and we’ve got a host of amazing merchandise for our backers too, so don’t miss out!!

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Free Coloring Page!

Have you seen our awesome notecard image created by Miss Aceriee (Instagram | @aceriee-art on Tumblr | Twitter) for our current Kickstarter campaign, And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”?

Well, I doubt it’s surprising to learn that we put a lot of thought into which flags to represent with each flower, and which flags to include. We wanted to make a bouquet as diverse as our queer communities, as inclusive as impossible, and to reflect the range of queer identities featured in the book and among our authors and artists. It was really great to research the different flags and decide which ones we wanted, and where. Do you recognize them all?

Yes? WAY TO GO!

No? Here’s a quick key – listed in counter-clockwise order, starting at 9-o-clock:

Gerbera daisy – Pride flag (we opted for the Philadelphia flag – the brown and black are in the center, as a representation of how central BIPOC are to queer communities and history; we’d have used the Progress Pride flag but since we were already separately including the trans flag and intersex flag, we went with the Philadelphia flag instead)

Violet – genderqueer flag

Lily – asexual flag (these are also the colors of the demisexual flag)

Tulip – bisexual flag

Gladiola – has flowers for the lesbian flag (pink/orange – there are multiple lesbian flags, we use this one as it’s generally considered the most inclusive), the gay men’s flag (blue/green), the trans flag (white/blue/pink), and the aromantic and agender flags (both are green/black/grey)

(No longer only blue)bell – has flowers for the genderfluid flag (pink/blue/black/white), non-binary flag (yellow/purple/black/white), intersex flag (yellow with a circle), polyamory flag (red/blue/black), and pansexual flag (pink/yellow/blue)

We couldn’t include every Pride flag – there are far too many for that! – but we tried to incorporate all the most commonly used and most widely recognized. We wanted as many members of this community to see themselves in this arrangement as possible – but in the end, we’ll never be able to include everyone.

That’s where you, yes YOU, come in!

Do you wish the flowers had been assigned flags differently? Is there a flag not represented that you wish was? Would you have handled the coloring of the image in an alternative manner? Do you love it exactly as it is but like to play with colors?

YOU ARE VALID AND WE SUPPORT YOU!

AND, we’d love to see your work! This is your moment – because we asked Miss Aceriee to make a coloring page version of our note card! All the line art, none of the colors, so you can let your imagination go wild!

So, here you go – a lovely blank version of our note card art:

Or, you can download a high resolution, *enormous* version, in a zip from our website – here.

If you choose to draw with our coloring page, we’d love to see – and share – your work! @ us on the social media platform of your choice – we’re duckprintspress on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Pillowfort, Dreamwidth, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Archive of Our Own (…okay, you can’t ping us there, but if you post there, give us the link and we can make a collection of works!) – and show us how YOU’D use this gorgeous bouquet of flowers to celebrate the rainbow variety of queer identities!

(Use a different social media platform and wish Duck Prints Press had a presence there so you could follow us and ping us in your creations there? Let us know, we’ll see what we can do to add the platform of your preference!)

Have a wonderful, and very queer, weekend, everyone. And happy Trans Day of Visibility (…slightly belated, but we think trans folk deserve many many days of visibility, and we hate April Fool’s day, so. Two day celebration!)!