Sword & Sorcery magazine featuring short fiction, non-fiction, and gorgeous art. Made with love for the classics, and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling! Luxurious hardcover, classic softcover, and accessible digital formats.
This campaign funds three issues of New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine (#8, #9, and #10).
Hardcover Editions.
Each issue will hold approx. 45,000 words of Sword & Sorcery fiction, as well as interviews, essays, book reviews, and more.
WHAT IS SWORD & SORCERY?
A unique fantasy sub-genre known for outsider protagonists with personal motivations, often facing dark and dangerous magic in short episodic tales with historical inspiration and horror elements!
WHAT IS NEW EDGE SWORD & SORCERY?
A dynamic magazine "Made with love for the classics, and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling!"
Our double-headed battle-axe logo, looking back to the classics, and forward to an exciting literary future!
Our magazine pages are a spacious 8 1/2 x 11 inches, offset (traditionally) printed like a book, using quality, cream paper that is firmer and more durable than standard, floppy magazine paper.
Images of previous issues
Hardcovers feature lay-flat sewn-stitch binding, as well as ribbon bookmarks and custom design end pages color matched to the exterior.
Hardcover of issue five.
Treated carefully, issues of our magazine can last a lifetime! But could they last...until the end the sun has turned red?
This year's special issue expands upon a science-fantasy tradition begun by Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, William Hope Hodgson, Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories and more...
...to tell tales of futures so far they feel ancient; when magic & technology blur together; our home is transformed into a wondrously strange setting; where Earth's days are short yet still we lust and laugh!
Jirel of Joiry wasthe first Sword & Sorcery heroine, created by legendary Weird Tales regular, C.L. Moore.
Like Alice in Wonderland with a big f***ing sword, Jirel had compelling adventures in bizarre dream-logic realms, balancing a rich emotional life with terrifying struggles against dark forces!
In partnership with the estate of C.L. Moore, there will be a new Jirel story by Molly Tanzer. It's called...
JIREL IN THE FOREST OF NIGHT
And that's just one of 19 stories & 16 non-fiction pieces you'll receive! Let's meet our other authors, and artists...
We here at NESS have been fortunate in really connecting with readers, and we want to pay some of that good fortune forward by helping the newest S&S magazine get off the ground - SWORDS AGAINST!
This year our crowdfund is a collaborative crowdfund with SWORDS AGAINST!, but what does that mean?
THERE IS A SPECIAL REWARD FOR THOSE WHO BACK BOTH CROWDFUNDS
A TWO-SIDED 'ZINE WITH A STORY ON EITHER SIDE CURATED BY EACH MAGAZINE'S EDITORIAL STAFF
Like the ACE Doubles of yore, or our more recent DOUBLE-EDGE SWORD & SORCERY, this 'zine will hold two tales and two covers. Read one short story by a someone chosen by one magazine's editorial team, then flip it over to read a story chosen by the other!
Digital backers of both campaigns can also get this in ePub & PDF format, and physical backers will get their zine with whichever magazine ships first.
Most of the reward tiers are self-explanatory - digital, or print & digital, editions of issues 8, 9 & 10. But there are some wilder options...
GIVE ME ALL YOUR...: An easy way to get caught up on back issues and books, while taking advantage of crowdfund-exclusive discounts and saving on shipping!
ART TUCKERIZATION: Have us draw you into the magazine! Pick the artist, then you'll see yourself later as a pirate, a guard, a tavern barfly, a dead wizard...
PROFESSIONAL SHORT STORY EDITING: Oliver Brackenbury, our editor-in-chief who has worked with Michael Moorcock, Harry Turtledove, Molly Tanzer, and every other author you've ever seen in the magazine, will developmentally edit your story of up to 6,000 words.
At a base funding level, this crowdfunding campaign pays for the publication of issues #8, #9, and #10 of New Edge Sword & Sorcery. Additional money raised will be used to pay contributors more, improve the magazine, and make NESS more accessible to international readers!
Snail Knight is moving faster than we can make new graphics!
1. DOUBLE ART ($35,000) - UNLOCKED!
Most stories and articles get two original B&W illustrations, while each issue's novelette-length story will get four!
2. INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING DISCOUNT ($38,000) - UNLOCKED!
This stretch goal covers reducing shipping costs for all backers outside the United States: $5 USD off for Canadian backers, and $10 USD off for anyone outside of North America.
3. AUTHOR PAY RAISE ($41,575) - UNLOCKED!
+1 cent per word for contributing authors.
4. ARTIST PAY RAISE ($42,890) -UNLOCKED!
+25% base rate for contributing artists.
5. AUTHOR PAY RAISE ($46,450) - UNLOCKED!
+1 cent per word for contributing authors.
6. ARTIST PAY RAISE ($47,775) - UNLOCKED!
+25% base rate for contributing artists.
And so forth, with no limit on contributor pay raise stretch goals!
New campaign exclusives and Add-Ons will appear over the course of the campaign, but to start we've got...
EXCLUSIVES
ALL BACKERS will receive a 11 x 17 inch glossy double-sided poster featuring these two images, one on each side:
Left side is the front, right side is the back.
RETURNING BACKERS will receive a 4x6 inch postcards featuring the cover art from issues eight & nine.
FIRST 48 HOUR BACKERS will receive a 4x6 inch postcard featuring the cover art from issue ten, as well as the new Jirel of Joiry art which will be used on the back of our issue nine softcovers.
These are formatted to USPC specs so they're safe to mail!
THE FIRST BACKER of the campaign will be mailed special print materials related to the production of last year's issues, materials suitable for hanging up or even framing - including an original piece of art from issue #2, by Saprophial.
THE TOP BACKER, meaning the backer who is most active in our Community tab, will receive softcovers of 8, 9, & 10 that have each been annotated (using post-its, not writing on the page unless you give him permission) by editor & publisher Oliver Brackenbury, providing special insight into the process of producing the issues.
Just two pages from one of last year's annotated issues. Our editor will be available for any handwriting translation you may require! Art on the left-hand page by Symon Heilögu.
ADD-ONS
PREVIOUS ISSUES: Get caught up! Issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of New Edge Sword & Sorcery are available in digital and softcover formats.
BOOKS: We now have a line of Sword & Sorcery books, all available in mass-market paperback dimensions, written almost exclusively by authors you may have already enjoyed in our magazine.
Novellas on the bottom row will all have been released by the time we fulfill this crowdfund.
RAINBOW METAL BATTLE-AXE PIN:
Every pin's coloring is unique.
These 1.5 inch pins of the New Edge Sword & sorcery battle-axe are made with soft enamel using anodized rainbow plating on a zinc alloy base metal.
Just three possible color gradients!
The rainbow effect is randomized, making each pin unique!
UNLOCKABLE REWARDS
Special rewards will be UNLOCKED and added to backers' orders, for free, when we hit different milestones!
Please take note of the estimated shipping charges, and understand shipping charges may change between the crowdfund and fulfillment.
Because they have to travel that much further, orders destined for outside of North America will get a bookfold mailer with bubble-bagged issues inside for added protection from whatever the world may throw at them.
Don't forget: If we make our International Shipping Discount stretch goal, then all orders from Canada will get $5 USD off their shipping, and all orders outside North America (”International”) will get $10 USD off their shipping!
During the fulfillment process, BackerKit will calculate any shipping that may be required when you fill out your delivery address.
Shipping costs will not be assessed and billed until then! You are only being charged for your pledge amount at this time. We hope this helps to keep the cost of shipping down due to current fluctuations in domestic and international shipping costs.
To further keep shipping costs down, we will be shipping all three issues together. Back issues purchased through our Add-Ons will also be shipped with those three new issues for the same reason.
Brackenbury Books, BackerKit, and our fulfillment partners are not responsible for any VAT, duty, or customs charges any packages may incur.
BackerKit surveys will be sent once all books involved in this campaign arrive at our fulfillment partner. Our current estimate for shipping is Q4 2026 (AKA somewhere in the last three months of the year). Estimates are not guarantees!
Thanks to everything we learned publishing our past issues, we're confident about producing issues #8-10 in a timely manner, and at the high level of quality our readers have come to expect.
We've successfully funded seven campaigns across two crowdfunding platforms, with six fulfilled and our seventh on schedule. Our editor & publisher has also successfully crowdfunded a webseries in the past, another project which requires collaboration between a large team of creatives while keeping within budget and on schedule.
To further mitigate risk we’ve brought on a crowdfunding & fulfillment professional, Sara McHenry (https://www.saramchenry.com), who did excellent work for us with our previous issues. Since 2013, she’s helped her clients raise over $3.5 million in crowdfunding money for their creative projects. Her specialties include setting budgets and timelines, structuring reward tiers, working with vendors, shipping logistics, and motivating the unmotivated creator.
Should any challenges arise with things we have no control over, such as supply chain issues, our backers will receive timely, detailed updates on the situation.
