A press release from Bryan Thomas Schmidt:

Every Day Publishing is taking aim at a pretty high target with Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera for a New Age, in partnership with experienced editor Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Blue Shift, Space Battles, Beyond The Sun). This ambitious anthology packages 12 highlight stories from respected space opera magazine Ray Gun Revival’s six-year publishing run with 11 new works from some of today’s top science-fiction authors. Among those writing new stories for the project are two NYT bestselling Star Wars novelists and three Star Trek novelists, along with multiple Hugo and Nebula award winners.

Schmidt’s debut novel, The Worker Prince, book 1 of his space opera trilogy, The Saga Of Davi Rhii, received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011. Space opera is clearly one of his passions.

“I love space opera,” Schmidt says. “Especially the classic stuff with good versus evil and larger-than-life characters is what drew me to my passion for science fiction and for storytelling generally.”

Space opera is enjoying a surge of renewed popularity — commitments from headliners including Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, A.C. Crispin, Mike Resnick, Seanan McGuire, Allen Steele, Brenda Cooper, Robin Wayne Bailey and Sarah A. Hoyt should make the book stand out for fans of the genre, and cover art from the talented Paul Pederson is an additional draw. Schmidt has already demonstrated that he can package and sell a science fiction anthology — his previous crowdfunded science fiction colonist anthology Beyond The Sun releases from Fairwood Press in July — and Every Day Publishing has a proven track record for book production with five print books already released in both hardcover and paperback editions.

“I love editing for several reasons,” Schmidt said, “but chief among them is the chance to encourage writers and help them get paid well for what they do. As a fellow writer, I know how hard those opportunities can be to get sometimes. These anthologies allow up and coming writers to reach new audiences alongside more popular and known seasoned pros. It creates an opportunity for me as editor, yes, but my drive is more about creating opportunities for others.”

The catch is that the bigger names, the pro authors whose fans will be eager for new stories, don’t come cheap. In a world where small publishers operate under wire-tight budgets, a Kickstarter campaign (essentially to presell the book) is the only feasible answer.

In order to attract backers, the publisher has created some tempting rewards over and above ownership of the book itself, including an exclusive limited-edition t-shirt and a set of space-opera-themed bookmarks. Other rewards are only accessible to higher-level backers. The Raygun Chronicles Kickstarter has several reward levels, from tuckerization to signed copies and even a Skype chat with editor Schmidt and one of the headliners. The top level is a trip to Orycon in November for the book launch, with airfare, hotel, and con membership included.

“Tuckerization is always popular,” says Schmidt, referring to the practice of embedding someone’s real name or nickname into fiction, generally as a minor or incidental character. “For fans, it’s an opportunity to be immortalized. It also creates a since of belonging and an inside wink at fans who bond together to make such anthologies possible. I also offer professional story critiques too, which appeals to writers.”

Says Every Day Publishing’s Camille Gooderham Campbell, “the real appeal for space opera fans will be ground-level participation in making this project a reality — your name forever on the list of supporters in every edition of the book, with the knowledge that the stories in it would not exist without you. That’s powerful stuff.”

To check out the Kickstarter project page, view the video, author interviews or pledge, go to: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/601968027/raygun-chronicles-space-opera-science-fiction-anth

For more about Every Day Publishing, see: http://everydaypublishing.ca/raygunchronicles/

For more on editor Bryan Thomas Schmidt, find his website at http://bryanthomasschmidt.net/

[Editor’s note: at press time, with 29 hours left in the funding window, the project has $5,444 pledged of a needed $8,000.]