The crowdfunding site, Kickstarter, is becoming very popular in the book business. Writers such as C.E. Murphy and Tobias Buckell have had a lot of success raising funds for novels there, and recently I have had news of two interesting anthology projects.

First up is Tales of the Emerald Serpent, a shared world anthology featuring (amongst others) Juliet E. McKenna, Lynn Flewelling, Martha Wells and Julie Czerneda. One of my favorite fantasy artists, Todd Lockwood, is also trying his hand at fiction in it. The stories will be set in the city of Taux from the Nameless Realms universe.

The other project is Scheherazade’s Facade: Fantastical Tales of Gender Bending, Cross-Dressing, and Transformation. To be honest from the title I’d be a bit nervous of this, but the contributors include Alma Alexander, Tanith Lee, Aliette de Bodard and Sarah Rees Brennan so I’m pretty sure it will be OK.

As always with Kickstarter, if the projects don’t meet their goals then your credit card will not be charged. Also both projects offer contribution levels that allow you to get ebook editions of the anthologies for prices comparable to or less than prices you’d pay for ebooks from big name publishers.