Guest Blogger, David Alderman on The Crossover Alliance and Kickstarter Campaign

Today I would like to allow David Alderman, author and founder of The Crossover Alliance to talk to you about this Alliance and its exciting new venture. But before I do, I would like to explain why I am doing this. 

Not too long ago, I came across a book, Black Earth: End of the Innocence by David Alderman and I was intrigued by the mix of genres: fantasy, science fiction, supernatural, alien invasion, demons, apocalyptic. Little did I know then that I was reading a book in a new genre, edgy Christian speculative fiction. I loved the Black Earth series and then realised I loved this new genre. Soon after, I was asked by David to join his new community, The Crossover Alliance, and this introduced me to more books in this genre. It has been encouraging seeing it transform "from community to website to, now, an online publishing company" to quote David below.

I have read some great books from the authors in this new company, such Mark Carver, Jess Hanna, Nathan James Norman and Donovan Martin Neal. This has motivated me to seek out others as well. This review blog contains a  lot of my reviews from this genre. Now, I am a strong supporter of edgy Christian speculative fiction from reading and reviewing these books and getting involved. I enjoy the real world content, the Christian worldview, the depiction of Christian characters being real, not being shy in showing their flaws, their failings, their struggle with faith, coping with real life situations and showing God for who He is and that He is still relevant in today's secular and humanistic world.

I will now let David speak about this new Publishing company, how it was formed, what it means for the future of Christian fiction and to encourage readers and authors reading this to consider supporting us in raising funds to get this Company up and running and making a positive impact in the world of Christian fiction and beyond.

The Crossover Alliance and Kickstarter Campaign

by David Alderman.

Publishing has come a long way since the dawn of books, and I’m not just referring to the method of publishing. Sure, we have digital e-readers now and we can print-on-demand. The beauty of those methods though is that they have opened the doors for self-publishing. And self-publishing has opened the doors for brand new genres that nobody thought existed before now. As readers, our options for obtaining a book in a genre that we’ve always wanted to read is no longer laser focused. And as writers, we have more freedom in finding our target audience. It’s a beautiful match made possible by technology and our ever increasing desire to make everything digital and everything easily accessible.

This being said, I think Christian fiction – both traditionally published and self-published - has been behind the 8-ball when it comes to breaking new ground in the realm of genre. Most Christian fiction has traditionally fallen into a handful of narrow categories, including romance, allegory, and apocalyptic. Until recently, science fiction and horror were never really considered ‘appropriate’ genres in the Christian marketplace. Authors are breaking that mold a bit by proving that Christ-centered themes can indeed be placed in edgier frameworks without performing a sacrilegious travesty.

When one gets beyond the genre issue, Christian publishing still finds itself almost always restrained by a specific set of rules that governs its titles: no cursing, no sexual content, no gritty violence, no ‘dark’ tales, no unhappy endings. Traditional Christian fiction has always been more prone to shy away from revealing the very ugly, very messed up side of life. Most stories are injected with redemptive themes – sometimes forced, and most Christian fiction stories tie up the end of their tales with a neat and tidy little bow that would more than likely never exist in the real world.

It’s not to say there’s anything wrong with these types of stories. There’s a market for them, and audience for them, and an obvious demand for them. But there are many readers out there who enjoy reading secular fiction but would like to see more Christ-centered themes, and many readers who enjoy reading Christian fiction but would like to see less ‘fluff’ and more real-world content. They want to see the rules be broken, not for the sake of breaking the rules, but for the sake of reading and creating real, unapologetic stories.

I broke the rules in 2009 when I self-published Black Earth: End of the Innocence, the first installment in my apocalyptic Christ-centered fictional series. I felt like a fish out of water when I wrote and self-published the manuscript, but many Christians and non-Christians supported my storytelling endeavors, stating that it was time for Christian authors to start writing edgier stuff. My isolation in this strange vacuum prompted me to find a unique name for this type of fiction. Edgy Christian fiction was already taken up by most of the romance genre, so I made a point to differentiate myself from the crowd and came up with edgyChristian speculative fiction.

At that point, I began networking with other authors who specialized in this homegrown genre and created The Crossover Alliance. 

TCA was originally started as a community for readers and writers of edgy Christian speculative fiction to gather and network with one another, but has since gone through a few transformations from community to website to, now, an online publishing company.

To this end, I just recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the first year of The Crossover Alliance’s publishing costs - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2054728317/the-crossover-alliance-first-year-fiction-catalog. 



This includes professional editing, cover design, and other various business expenses. If you want to support this type of fiction, please consider pledging to our Kickstarter campaign. You can score some awesome Kickstarter rewards, including subscriptions to our publishing catalog, unique bookmarks, and other goodies. Not to mention, you’ll also be responsible for changing the very face of publishing by opening up a market for edgy Christian speculative fiction.

David N. Alderman is an indie author of two speculative fiction series—Black Earth and Expired Reality. You can find all of David's work at www.davidnalderman.com. He is also the founder of The Crossover Alliance (www.thecrossoveralliance.com), a publishing company specializing in edgy Christian speculative fiction. He participates in National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org) each year. When he’s not writing or spending time with family, you can find David gaming on any number of different consoles.

Christian Fiction photo by Beatrice Murch https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/134916897/