John Biggs has been a writer his entire career. The Brooklyn based author and writer has written about iPhones, Android phones, Pebble watches, startups, ramp ups, and iPOs. Biggs was the guy behind the Crunchgear brand before they folded all things crunchy and tech into TechCrunch. Since then his passion for technology has been steadfast. If it’s new and it’s technology Biggs has had some kind of opinion, review or offering about it.

Biggs has written for the New York Times, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science and was also the Editor at Gizmodo. Biggs has also published two books Black Hat Misfits: Criminals and Scammers in the Internet Age and Bloggers Boot Camp: Learning How To Build, Write, and Run a Successful Blog. 

Throughout his career you can always find something related to technology, and let’s face it, Biggs has spent a lot of time writing about the cool stuff. But now he’s ventured on his own to write in an entirely new genre, for an entirely new audience, and to fulfill a goal of his, to get published on his own terms.  In this case that means crowdfunding.

Biggs has decided to write a young adult novel. Actually has decided to write three. The Mytro trilogy is about a boy, a girl and a secret underground train system. Biggs told techfaster that he was writing Mytro for his kids Kasper (7), Milla (4), and Guthrie (almost 2).

“Imagine if, right now, clattering underneath your feet was a secret train system that could take you anywhere in minutes. Imagine a trip full of mystery and excitement from New York to Barcelona to the wind-swept coast of Italy to the edge of space. Imagine dangerous strangers, amazing friends, and high adventure.” Biggs says on the Indiegogo page.

Last week Biggs reached his $8,000 goal which allows him to fund a copy editor, professionally print a hardback edition, create a softback edition, fund the next two books in the trilogy and hire Bryce Durbin to illustrate. With that goal reached he’s set up stretch goals of $10,000 and $15,000 saying he’ll sign every hardback copy at $10,000 and every softback copy at $15,000. At the time this article was written Biggs was over $9500 with more than 30 days to go.

Mytro Promo Video from JohnBiggs on Vimeo.

Biggs combines his life of travel, technology, sci-fi and riding the subway into an adventure that will definitely hold the interest of anyone in his target audience. In fact a nearly 40 I got sucked into the first five chapters that he’s giving away free. Warning though, if you’re not going to pay for the rest of the book you might as well not get the free sample, it’s that good.

As to the author himself, he could have used his “tech-celeb” credit to push this book to new heights but he didn’t. Biggs is just a genuine guy which is why I decided to write about it without his knowledge. Plus it gives you a break from the Justine Sacco saga.

If you’ve got young adults in the home, or if you want to take a mental break and read a really fun adventure story, then head over to Indiegogo where you can preorder  Mytro for the next 30 or so days.