Children’s and YA author Lee Wind, who is also chief content officer at the Independent Book Publishers Association, is creating a limited collector’s edition in hardcover format of his latest novel, A Different Kind of Brave. The YA novel, which Wind calls a “love letter to James Bond movies,” was published in March by Chicago Review Press’s Duet Books/Interlude imprint in paper and ebook formats.
Wind is releasing the hardcover edition as an incentive for donors to a Kickstarter fundraiser that he launched last week. The fundraiser aims to purchase at least 350 copies of the paperback edition of A Different Kind of Brave to donate to Brave Trails, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering LGBTQ+ teens and their allies. The paperback books will be provided free to readers ages 12-17 who will be attending Brave Trails’ overnight camps in California and in New York state this summer.
The collector’s edition, which Wind says is being released with the permission of his publisher, does not have an ISBN and is available only through Wind’s Kickstarter campaign. Every copy will be numbered and signed. The cover was designed by CB Messer, who also designed the paperback edition. Messer has also designed character trading cards to promote the hardcover edition, which Wind is giving away to donors. “I thought character cards would be cooler than a bookmark,” Wind said.
Chicago Review Press publisher Cynthia Sherry told PW that she was happy to give Wind permission to create a collector’s edition of A Different Kind of Brave for such a worthy cause. “I love the creativity of this Kickstarter campaign,” she said, “and I wanted to support Lee any way I can in his mission to empower and entertain LGBTQ teens who will see themselves in this novel.”
Describing A Different Kind of Brave as “a gay teen globe-trotting, high-stakes adventure with the heroic courage of the James Bond movies and the ongoing romance—and queer group of friends—of Heartstopper,” Wind maintains that it is the kind of read “that would have totally changed my life had I read it when I was a closeted gay teen; since I don’t have a time machine to send it back to my younger self, I’m paying it forward. It’s important, escapist literature that centers two queer teens who fall in love and try to save the world.”
The Kickstarter fundraiser, which launched on June 20, has raised to date more $3,588 of its $13,275 goal with more than three weeks remaining of the campaign. The financial goal has to be reached in full, Wind noted, “or it doesn’t happen at all. Kickstarter is conditional.”
Wind will be at the ALA conference in San Diego this weekend, in his capacity both as an IBPA representative and as an author. He will be giving away the character trading cards at the IBPA booth (1837) throughout the conference, and a sample copy of the hardcover edition will be available for perusal (along with 368 other books by IBPA members on display). He will also appear on Saturday, June 29, at 11 a.m. PT at the Chicago Review Press booth (632) to sign copies of the paperback edition of A Different Kind of Brave and will give away trading cards there as well.