Community Book Program

Hi folks! The whole To Hell + Back team has been utterly blown away over the last couple of days by the response you guys have had to the launch of our Indiegogo campaign and the support you’ve shown our little (big) book–we’re 51% funded after less than 48 hours online, which is beyond our wildest dreams for a self-indulgent fan project we dreamed up in a backyard over some chocolate almonds!

(Not sure who we are or what this project is? Check out our Indiegogo page here!)

We are well aware that given current global events, many people are understandably concerned and/or uncertain about their personal finances, and may not have expendable income to contribute to our crowdfunding campaign while it’s running even if they very much want to own a print copy of To Hell + Back: A Destiel Anthology. With this in mind, we’ve had a handful of extremely thoughtful & generous members of our fandom approach us asking how they might be able to purchase additional copies of the print books through our fundraising campaign, and then have us gift them to fellow fans who are experiencing financial hardship. Amazing, right? We certainly thought so.

After much careful thought and discussion between ourselves about how best to make this happen while remaining totally committed to both fairness and transparency, we’ve worked a little behind-the-scenes magic and would like to present to you the To Hell + Back Community Book Program (or CBP for short)!

Community Book Program? “What is that?” you ask
Essentially, the Community Book Program has been set up as a special set of perks and add-ons right on our Indiegogo page that will allow people to not only buy Community Books to gift to other cash-strapped fans (that they may not necessarily know personally), but to pay for shipping to them as well by choosing a Community Ship add-on that allows the buyer to select whether that book goes to someone in Canada, in the United States, or somewhere else around the world. The Community Books perks and add-ons will be available for purchase until end-of-day Wednesday May 6th, 2020.

For buyers and donators, there are two different ways to provide Community Books:

Number 1: To access the Community Books perks directly, please gohere, select either the one or two book option with the gorgeous black-and-white promo art by @kayrosebee​, click “get this perk”, and proceed to checkout! Once you’ve clicked “continue to payment”, you will then be asked to agree to the Terms of Use, and click “continue to payment” again. The next page that loads is where you can choose add-ons. If you scroll down below the pink Checkout button, you will see a section entitled “Perks you may also like”, and you can select “add perk” for your choice of Canadian, US, or International Community shipping for the books you are donating. Please ensure that you are purchasing adequate shipping for your selected number of books!

'''Additionally, please note that in order to check out with option 1, you will be asked to put in your mailing address–don’t worry, we will know to disregard these ones for Community Books when it comes time to ship, and we will be creating unique shipping labels specifically for the lucky recipients. They will not ever see any of your information. Your privacy is paramount to us.'''

At this add-on stage, you may notice that you have the option to purchase either one or two more additional Community Books, as well as shipping for them. You can purchase up to 4 Community Books total this way, as otherwise Indiegogo will not allow you to check out with multiple regular perks at one time. If you would like to purchase more than 4 CBP books at a time, please contact the mod team directly so that we can assist you with this.

Number 2: If you would like to purchase a perk for yourself but also donate books to the CBP within a single transaction, please go to our Indiegogo page, select the perk you want for yourself, click “continue to payment”, and then follow the instructions above to get to the add-on screen! From there, you will be able to add on either one or two Community books and the corresponding Community Ship option of your choice. Again, please ensure that you are purchasing adequate shipping for your selected number of books!

If you are one of said cash-strapped fans who would like a chance to get a print copy of the To Hell + Back anthology that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to, we strongly encourage you to enter the Community Book draws (US residents link) (Canadian residents link) (International residents link) before Wednesday May 6th 2020!

Limit of one entry per person please–multiple entries for the same person will be deleted! We will randomly draw names and announce winners on Saturday May 9th, 2020. The number of names selected from each of the 3 draws will be based on the number of Community Books that have been purchased for each of the 3 shipping destinations by the May 6th deadline. If you are the lucky winner of a Community book, we will contact you via email to obtain your shipping information…yay!

Finally, please look below to read a little FAQ we’ve put together that we hope will help answer some of the most common questions we think we will get about the CBP!

Community Book program FAQ:
'Q: Why are the Community Ship options listed as costing $1.00? '

A: For a few reasons–first, because Indiegogo will not allow us to create a perk that costs zero dollars. If we could have, we would have!

Secondly, we wanted to find a way to make sure the considerable costs of shipping would be covered for Community Books in a manner that would a) not artificially inflate our fundraising total, as shipping costs are calculated separately, and b) not require the person donating to know the name or the address of the person the book will be going to, since they won’t have that information at the time of purchase. The shipping price of the $1.00 perk will be included at checkout.

Q: What if I want to donate a book directly to someone I know and not have them participate in the draw?

A: That is incredibly sweet of you! We recommend that you either:

1. Do a separate transaction: purchase a perk and put in your friend’s address 2. Purchase a perk that includes multiple books, or 3. Purchase a single-book perk for yourself and make use of the “one extra print book” add-on before you complete your purchase.

Please note that if you choose option 2 or 3, please be aware that all books included in your order will be shipped to your address, and that you will be responsible for any additional shipping costs required to get your donated book to its final destination.

'Q: Why can’t I just order a book for my friend and make special arrangements with you guys to ship it to them? '

A: Listen, we totally get how that seems like it would be a simple thing from the outside, but if this anthology project reaches its fundraising goal, we are already about talking 500+ physical books plus merch that our team (who also have full-time jobs! School! Other hobbies! One very cute kid!) will have to sort, pack, label, and ship come October 2020 (fingers crossed!).

In the best interest of getting our supporters their products in a relatively timely fashion, of our vital need for administrative organization, and of our general sanity, it is very important to us to be able to streamline that process as much as we possibly can. It is our sincere hope that the fewer exceptions we have to handle, the fewer mistakes we will make…and we just want everyone to be happy!

'Q: What if I’m looking to donate something in an arrangement/quantity that isn’t covered here? '

A: Please contact us directly to pitch your idea or concern! We are happy to chat, and the worst we will say is, “sorry, no, we can’t do that!” (And then probably say “sorry” three or four more times…have we mentioned that 6 of 8 of us are Canadian?)

'Q: What if your anthology doesn’t meet its fundraising goals? Do the CBP draw winners still get books?'

A: If To Hell + Back: A Destiel Anthology does not meet its fundraising goals, all money given to the campaign gets refunded directly back to our wonderful supporters, and the print books do not get printed. This means that if that is what happens, then no, unfortunately the draw winners will not receive print books. Nobody will, and we will be sad. That being said, at the time of writing we are already halfway funded! We are very hopeful that our crazy dream of a print anthology will become a reality!

Q: Can I purchase a Community Book without also purchasing Community Shipping?

A: Technically you can, yes. We’d like to strongly encourage you not to do that, and ask you to consider that we want to put these books directly in the hands of as many Dean/Cas fans as possible. Paying for shipping in tandem with the Community Books ensures that we can make that happen, and that more of whatever money is left over after all of the books have shipped and the project’s expenses have been paid can go directly to our charity of choice: WISH Vancouver. If any Community Books end up orphaned (ie, are purchased without shipping), they will likely become part of a giveaway that happens after the fundraiser has closed for good.

This FAQ may be added to as more questions arise, but in the meantime, your trusty mod @justholdingstill​ has thrown down the gauntlet by purchasing the very first Community Book with International shipping…woo!