Moving Forward with a Dream!

It’s been a while since I was able to focus on writing in my blog, but there is no better time than now. In January of this year, I had a conversation with my publishing company, Cosby Media Productions, more importantly with my brother in writing, Braxton Cosby. I let him know that I had an issue that I have never experienced before with my writing. I had a huge gap between my stories and I was having an issue connecting my fourth book with my upcoming fifth book in the Menzuo series. We sat and brainstormed for a while and he asked me, what was something that I always wanted to do with my stories? The lightbulb went off. I always wanted to create a comic book.

The origins of Menzuo was supposed to be in comic book form, but back in 1996, my best friend, Marcus McDowell passed away due to his battle with cancer and that dream fell to the wayside because I cannot draw. I ended up turning the comic book into a novel, which has done amazingly over the years, but in the back of my head, I always wanted to complete the dream that was started…create a Menzuo comic book. With the mustard seed planted in both of our heads, Braxton and I started to research how we could create comic books adapted from our novels. When you speak something into existence, it’s sure to rise when you have motivated people in your corner.

No less than a week went by and I’m on the phone talking to Braxton and he had already put the plan in motion. He met with several illustrators and studied how we could create a comic. To tell you that my mind was blown away would be an understatement. There was no turning back now, we had to do it. There was one obstacle in our way, paying the illustrators to do the work. We had to come up with at least $2,500.00 apiece, but as determined and motivated as we were, we knew that we could do it. As our excitement grew with our new journey, two other authors from CMP joined us on this journey, Laurence St. John and Daniel Peyton, they also had a dream of creating a comic book for their series. Our goal now went from raising $5,000.00 to $10,000.00, how were we going to do this? A Kickstarter campaign it is.

The plan was in place, the four of us sat down and discussed the sixty day roll out of the campaign and put it in place. We set a goal of raising $10,000.00 in sixty days…easy right? This was a daunting task to undertake, but in my mind, I wasn’t going to fail. I treated this like a football game. The ball was in my hands and I had to score. Each and every day, I set out to hit a goal of raising at least $250.00 by contacting people that I knew and generating as much buzz as possible about what was to come. I had to get people to believe in what I wanted to do and the product that would be completed once our goal was met. Low and behold, so many people started to donate to our campaign. We pushed and pushed and never looked back. Braxton tackled his people and Laurence and Dan did the same. This four-headed monster was unstoppable. Before the end of our sixty day campaign, we exceeded our goal...CONGRATULATIONS!

Because of this success, we helped to launch our new line under Cosby Media Productions with StarChild Comics. Our four comic will be the feature books that will be released in early 2022. I am truly blessed to have a publishing company that believes in me, and a friend who will keep you focused throughout the process. Braxton Cosby is a true leader and also a person who knows how to allow his authors to lead him down a road to success. What I have learned through this processes is that you have to be guided by faith, and you have to be willing to work for what you want. Being an author isn’t easy, it more than likely won’t make you rich, but what it will do is motivate others to be great and live their own dreams, I am living proof of it!

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