Zainab Karim is writing her first novel, Asiyah. It’s a story of 2 worlds; one the world of technology and fashion, and the other of religion and belief. Asiyah searches for the meaning of happiness & self-acceptance while trying to maintain her Islamic identity in modern Western culture.
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Why would you be interested in reading “Asiyah”?
This novel uses a rather unique perspective. I designed the story in a way that it’s not just a pleasurable read, but its packed with realistic situations that we face every day and meaningful progressive ways that we can deal with them. As much as I am writing this story to entertain my readers, I also want to inspire young women who read it to shake free of the need to be proving themselves as normal, peaceful, fun and fashionable Muslims.
It is a very realistic story, with a lot of content drawn from real-life experiences. This is how I want to touch the hearts of my readers, and to transform their views on day to day issues to help us live happier and more liberated lives.
The novel is also filled with moments of poetic reflections that you can lose yourself in and is guaranteed to change your perspective on things that you encounter daily.
Who is the target audience for this novel?
My main target is young Muslim women, because the story largely discusses issues that we face in this modern society, such as extremist or terrorist stereotyping, and the ways that we choose to respond to those labels through our dressing and behavior.
This is not to say that non-Muslim women can’t read this book. If anything, I wish to arouse their interest in reading the story of Asiyah for the same reason that Muslim women read, say, The Princess Diaries. Encouraging non-Muslim readers to read books by Muslim authors is a great initiative towards helping us understand each other more and building grounds for compassion across all religions and cultures.
 What happens when the target of $6K is met?
If and when it does, we still hope for your support! We were very conservative with the funding target because of Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing condition. We will still be working like crazy to encourage backers to pledge should the target goal be met with time to spare. Here’s what we’ll do with the extra funding:
- Increasing the scale of publishing,
- Use a publisher to print the second edition,
- Hire a professional website designer.
So please do not hesitate to back my project at any time — any extra funding will go right towards taking “Asiyah” to the next level, post-Kickstarter :)
Are you wondering how much to pledge?
Please don’t get discouraged to pledge if the $6K is met! Remember, you can always pledge between or below pledge levels.
$1 or $5 pledges also go a long way in helping us reach or exceed our goal. Even though larger pledges are extremely helpful in reaching our goal faster, we tremendously appreciate the smaller amounts because it shows us that you are interested in the idea and are cheering us on! :D
Timeline
Risks and challenges
One challenge is definitely achieving the funding target. We tried to be very conservative with the number, to plan for the very basic funding needs. My team and I trying our best with marketing to make sure we reach the goal in time and hopefully exceed it, because there are still some things we would love to be able to do with extra funding.
A big but exciting challenge is definitely the estimated date for the delivery of the rewards. I have chosen April 2016, which means I have to have my novel completed by December in order to allow enough room for the editing, publishing and shipping to be done on time.
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