If you don't mind reading something for a LONG time, you could maybe give the web serial Worm a try. It's a 1.7 million word epic about a fourteen year old girl who gains the super power to control bugs. It starts out dealing with bullying and moves onto the more uplifting setting of a bombed out city in the aftermath of a massive battle where everyone is doing their best just to survive day to day.

It's one of those stories you either love or hate, but I rather enjoyed it.

Is "Mother of Learning" your own writing?

And you're right, Anathem isn't exactly whimsical by any stretch of the imagination. Except perhaps at times in that disastrous 3rd act... And during the Lucasian romance...

And... holy , someone raised $.3 million on Kickstarter to write a children's book?

No



Write, illustrate, layout, print, deliver. Seems about right.

Or if you mean surprise on the demand side, this guy is behind Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. He has an audience.

Currently reading the Privateer Tales books by Jamie McFarlane. They're very good and the first book is currently free for Kindle.

I wrote an award-winning children's book -- I made about $7000 on it over its lifetime. I also self-published a book. That set me back about the same amount...

$300,000 still seems a bit mind-boggling to me...

How much did the publisher spend on it, gross?

Anyway, it sounds like you got soaked.

No, that's actually very good for publishing. It's a very small minority of books that ever make any more than that. There's only a handful of bestsellers each year out of thousands and thousands of books published.