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Kickstarter

edited June 2015 in Writing
has anyone heard of kickstarter. It's a website that uses crowd funding in order to get a project completed. You say you want to make £1,000 for your project, and you can offer rewards - such as a signed copy of the book or a bookmark etc.

There seems to be a lot of cool stuff there - Arts, crafts, comics, games. I'm considering putting my project up and see if I am successful. :)

Comments

  • A friend of mine has used Kickstarter. It funded his project and he now has a flourishing business from it.

    Go for it, TWOTM!
  • I've heard of it, but not been tempted to try it. It's hard enough getting people to buy a book from an unknown author that I doubt many would pay up before it was published (though with an interesting enough idea and enough publicity they might).
  • I've heard of it and that it can work very well. But like everything, it has to be marketed.
  • look at Pubslush and Unbound too they are more geared to books.
  • Yeah, I think I might just go for it. If I'm unsuccessful I don't pay anything - It will give me an opportunity to get my marketing from uni into gear! I think it'll give me the extra push I need to get it done :)
  • Best of luck!
  • Not sure if I'm allowed to self promote here. But I've got it all set up! Going to spend the next 30 days finding new ways to market this. If I don't make it - I can always say that I tried and maybe try again :)

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1954394992/the-writings-of-the-moon-a-new-beginning-collectio

  • I think you need to make it clearer how you will use the funds - you mention you have a spreadsheet, but why not share that info on the page?

    Self-publishing can be achieved on a zero budget - what is the £500 being used for?
  • One of the tutors I had at an Arvon course recently used Kickstarter to raise funds to allow him time out to write and to travel for research for his next novel.

    He raised a fantastic amount, way more than he had expected to. He offered a quirky marketing strategy - postcards sent from the writing research location, each with an individual note from him, with the idea that they'll be worth a fair bit in the future!

    How much you donated determined whether your postcard came with a lipstick mark, a whisky stain, a bullet hole (and yes he chummed up a friend at a shooting range) and so on. Great idea and proved very effective for him, although he has been published previously.
  • What about paying for the cover art and the proofing, BB?
  • Do you mean that's what the fund would be used for? That is how it normally works for these projects.

    I know of several that have funded the various elements of a book and it can be very successful. At least one has won an award for their book and others have become best-sellers in their Amazon category.
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