Despite potential rumors to the contrary, I have not been consumed by the black hole of grad school. I am two weeks in, have moved into my apartment, and am ready to get back on schedule. I’ll have an update on my adventures later. For now, I need to keep a promise to a friend.

WIth only 10 days left in his latest Kickstarter for Pariah, Missouri – Book 2, here’s a brief interview with my friend, Andres Salazar.

[CUE SUPER AWESOME THEME MUSIC]

1857.  Pariah, Missouri is a riverboat boom-town and haven for the unscrupulous.  The charismatic and foppish cheat, Hiram Buchanan is an undercover spy who creates a rag-tag team to ferret out evil, both an underground crime syndicate and the supernatural.

LP: What new and exciting things does Book 2 add to Pariah, Missouri?

AS: I consider this a horror story set in the frontier of the 1850s. Each book will have one of the classic horror tropes, so book one was a “vampire” story. Book two is a evil cult story, with maybe a little zombie-flare. We have some new characters in the story, and even some of the backers from the last Kickstarter are in the new book!

So that’s cool, if people want to be in book three, that’s an option for the current kickstarter. The objective to to continue to story of the town for these five books, so we ratchet up the action and Hiram gets closer to the Syndicate.

LP: You have gone to a lot of conventions this past year to promote your book. Do you have any favorite fan interactions or experiences?

AS:  I think some of the best experiences is meeting fans of the book, people who have read it and come up to me to say that they loved it. Of course they get on me to finish book 2 and I am doing my best! One time, a girl bought the book on Saturday and came back the next day on Sunday and said she read it that night and loved it. It’s great to hear that my story is connecting.

LP: This is your fourth successful Kickstarter campaign. What have you found makes a Kickstarter campaign work well?

AS: This is very difficult. It’s almost like, what makes a blockbuster movie. There’s no formula, but from my experience you need 3 things.

1. A good product.
2. Sell yourself, people want to connect to the creator, so they are buying you as much as the product.
3. Have fun! Show that you are having a party and people want to be a part of it. Lots of updates and videos and whatever else you can think of. Do it all, and then more. Don’t stop.

LP: Tell us a little more about the stretch goals and the Pariah, Missouri RPG game?

AS: This will be epic. The roleplaying game is a sourcebook that will be game system neutral. I will be including all the fluff and info for the world as well as stats for Savage Worlds, FATE CORE and maybe a few other systems, so you don’t need to learn a new system, you can plug-n-play this world into your game. it’s a ton of work, but I’m excited about it. I’ve ran 2 play-tests and I have scheduled 2 more and so far people are loving it. Even if you don’t like roleplaying its a great resource for the history and background of the characters.

LP: What is it like working with your Chairman Of The Board (as listed on the Kickstarter site)? Is he a hard task master?

AS: The CEO is a taskmaster. When he says jump, you jump. He is always giving me tasks that are unrelated to Pariah, and I feel sometimes that he doesn’t even care about this kickstarter. I wonder who’s team he’s on. he does offer good benefits and is a great talker, the type of guy you want to hang out with, but as a boss, not so much.

For more information, check out the Kickstarter Page here. It’s a great project, already funded, and with fantastic stretch goals.

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A quick update on myself: I love my program, I love the people in it, I like my roommates, and I’ve already had two cones of BYU ice cream. I just am running short on time. Going to the Salt Lake City Comic Con last Saturday may have something do with that… Hopefully, I’ll get this blog to a regular schedule. Until then, thanks for stopping by.