Kickstarter – a Way to Finance Your Book?

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Photo Petr Kratochvil
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When I discovered KickStarter on the Internet and I became one of the people who funded a community garden / small park to transform an ugly, abandoned parcel of land in a hideous downtown area into a blooming paradise, I was hooked by the idea.

Other projects that I funded followed. Then I saw that a couple of writers use KickStarter to fund their book publishing projects.  Maybe you read about the fantastic success of “The Order of the Stick” and its Reprint Drive, a comics project by Rich Burlew. He managed to raise $1,254,120 (his initial goal was only $57,750).

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Paul Jackson Art

Paul Jackson Art

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Or a current projects such as the coffee table book “The Wandering Watercolorist“, by Paul and Marla Jackson from Columbia, MO. which is short of its $25,000 goal – they need to raise another $4,400 till the end of the week…  Kickstarter kicks only in when 100% of the amount is raised.  Otherwise card payments from the funders will not be processed.

However, the famous KickStarter is not the only “Crowd-funding Community” on the Internet, many other have been founded in the last years – is it an answer on a small scale to Wall Street? 

http://rockethub.org

http://www.indiegogo.com

https://www.buzzbnk.org/

http://www.causevox.com/

http://www.firstgiving.com/
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Crowd-funding became popular in other countries too:
Germanys answer to Kickstarter and IndieGoGo is STARTNEXT, a non-for-profit organization. Their Crowd-funding turns people into fans and supporters. Because their joy and their help allows the creation of projects that do not yet exist – but should be! Read more about STARTNEXT on our Publishing blog in German language.
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Crowd-funding pulls together a community over the Internet to fund a project, business or cause. Rules differ from site to site. Generally an idea is pitched, a fundraising goal and a deadline are set for raising funds. Potential patrons can review the pitches and decide if there are any they would like to support. They might be rewarded if the project comes to fruition, but will not own any part of the business or project.

Start with a pitch to launch your own project, describe your project, specify what rewards patrons will receive if the fundraising is successful, and create a funding goal and a timeline.  Pledges are made with a credit card, however, the patron’s credit card won’t be charged until the project is successfully funded. If you don’t reach your funding goal by the deadline, no money changes hands.
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Here are just some of many tips to help you secure funding:

  • choose the right crowdfunding site
  • know your target audience & leverage your social networks
  • plan ahead and prepare email blasts
  • create a compelling name, description, image and video to stand out
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“The Order of the Stick” success has shown that crowd-funding can provide funding for authors at a level, equal to or higher than traditional publishers’ advances. Right now is an exciting time to be an entrepreneurial author.  Authors who went through this crowd-funding process have almost a build-in readership / book customers due to the heavy promoting for the campaign. People who funded a book, will buy it for sure!
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book heavily promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only a “token” of $1 / day for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/    Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.
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