I Need Your Help
How you can support this author's dreams
Funding for my creative projects has stalled.
To be honest, how I’ve been able to sustain my creative projects over the past year has been a miracle. I credit prayer, the ancestors, and gospel music.
For most of my creative career, I’ve been focused on accessibility. Accessibility means a lot of things to a lot of people, but for me, it’s about giving as many folks access to my work as possible. That means reducing paywalls on Substack—allowing followers to get six months of free newsletters and putting the archive behind a paywall. In other words, if you’ve been a Substack subscriber since the beginning and have read every newsletter as it’s come out, it hasn’t cost you a dime. Thank you to my paid subscribers for paying anyway.
Being accessible means creating a seasonal podcast filled with free resources to guide people on their spiritual journey. While we have a Patreon, we mainly use it as a tool to support the financial cost of running a podcast. So if you enjoy the Hoodoo Plant Mamas podcast, thank our Patreon patrons.
Being accessible means creating a fair cost for my books. I’m well aware that money is tight for a lot of people, and I don’t want to waste your time or your money when you read my work which is why it can sometimes be priced lower than traditionally published books. The quality of my books are not less; I’m just not trying to price gouge you.
BUT being accessible often means that there is less money in my pocket. I’ve been yelled at several times to raise my prices by well-meaning folks when I complain about financial struggles, but I also know the outcome of it. We see today how credible news sources are behind a paywall, but misinformation is free. Look around at the impact that’s had on our social media landscape.
It’s so important for artists to combat this in whatever ways we can, and putting our work behind a paywall often means the people who need our message most can’t receive it.
On the flip side, not charging for all of my creative works means not having funding for my creative projects.
So I’m at a crossroads, and I need your help.
In May, I realized that I could no longer sustain self publishing my young adult series by myself. It hurts especially since traditional publishing rejected the series multiple times mainly for having a Black and autistic female main character (I had to pick a struggle) and for being a serialized romance series. Basically, the series is too ambitious for trad publishing. I can only self-publish.
Last year when I working with my illustrator on the cover of About the Boy, I had to stop in the middle of revisions because I was going through a divorce. My hope was that I could pick back up in a few months before the book released, but grief didn’t work that way.
I’m here now, a year later, hoping to finally finish the cover to About the Boy and to illustrate a cover for Book 2, Between Us. After consulting with a new illustrator whose work I admire, the cost will be $600 for both cover illustrations.
Again, I am out of funding, and I do not have $600 lying around, so I’m crowdfunding the money needed to keep publishing.
If you’d like to donate, feel free to donate any amount you feel comfortable either through IndieGogo or directly to me. There are certain perks like a tarot love reading or a signed copy based on donation amount. Refer to IndieGogo for details.
You can donate directly through:
Venmo: leahnicole321
Cashapp: $hoodooplantmamas
PayPal: paypal.me/lnw7420
Please use the memo “Leah” for your donation.
If you cannot donate at this time, there are other ways to support:
Share either this newsletter or my crowdfunding campaign.
Request my books, About the Boy and Apocalypse Still, at your local library. Many libraries have online request forms so you can request it from your phone.
I was so happy to see that Seattle Public Library has an eBook of About the Boy and of course my alma mater Millsaps College has a copy of both books in the campus library.
Additionally, you can checkout Apocalypse Still through Hoopla. I know Hoopla services is up in the air for many Mississippians, but for those of you not in Mississippi, check out the book, even if you don’t read it.
Rate and review my books on Amazon, Goodreads, Storygraph, Hoopla, Apple Books whatever platform you use if you enjoyed them. If you hated my books, please keep that to yourself. I will cry.
Buy the books. While I’m planning to change the cover to About the Boy, the inside of the book will remain the same. Feel free to grab an e-book. If you like the current cover of About the Boy, buy a physical copy because the cover will change. Buy my Black horror collection Apocalypse Still. Also if you’re not into any of the books I write, that’s fine. Buy them for your friend, neighbor, niece, cousin, co-worker, somebody.
My hope is that I will be able to crowdfund enough to release Between Us by January 2026. If I don’t raise enough money, the series will be delayed until I can squirrel away the money myself which will probably be mid 2027 at the earliest.
I hope you are able to help me, and if not, thank you for reading this far and for supporting my work.
Until next time,
Leah
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