EASTERN OREGON — June 17, 2026 — Gilded Bard launched its first demo pages this week, offering an early look at a new way to give books a permanent home online.

Built for writers by writers, Gilded Bard fills a gap in online book infrastructure: a story-centered space where authors can bring together their book page, media, excerpts, shop links, fan support, and the story material usually scattered across half a dozen platforms. Gilded Bard is currently preparing for a Kickstarter campaign to fund writer accounts, page claiming, onboarding tools, and the next phase of development.

Gilded Bard is not another place to write a book. It’s the missing infrastructure around the book — before and after publication.

Founder Colton Lawrence self-published a middle-grade novel that was later acquired by Bantam and expanded into a five-book series — selling nearly half a million copies under a pen name. He returned to the landscape decades later to launch his first adult novel and found a completely different world.

Gilded Bard is where writers control the landscape. Build out what you want readers to experience — characters, music, world-building, merchandise — into a single cohesive space. Gilded Bard makes most of the build-out turnkey, but authors still have to feed the content beast. It’s their beast though — not someone else’s algorithm.

Gilded Bard connects to Asugoh, a reading system built for completed novels. Through that connection, writers can make their book available to readers in focused five to ten minute sections. No account required. All rights remain with the author. Gilded Bard is where stories begin. Asugoh is where readers enter the story.

To fund the next phase of development — writer dashboards, onboarding infrastructure, and the tools needed to open Gilded Bard to its first wave of authors — Gilded Bard is launching a Kickstarter campaign in July 2026 with one goal: give every story a home built by writers and for writers. Readers are obviously welcome.