Confessions of a Kickstarter Newbie

Let’s start with the beginning. As of 6 months ago, I had no idea what Kickstarter was. And, as of right now, I am guessing many of you are in the same boat. How about the term “crowdfunding”? That may be a bit more intuitive. Nonetheless, connecting the dots...Kickstarter is company/website that facilities crowdfunding for creative projects. In plain terms, it provides an easier way to bug a bunch of friends and relatives for money. (I jest. Your hope is that it is more than that.)

Now, in my case I started on a Kickstarter endeavor to essentially kickstart myself. About 10 years ago, I had some unexpected success with my first children’s picture book, Cranky Pants. At the time, I had a number of connections in the publishing world and was able to get some good publicity, in addition to a fairly large buy from Borders and Barnes & Noble. It was a great experience.

So....here we are a decade later. Life kind of gets in the way. I am guessing I lost my window with regards to carrying the momentum with Cranky Pants to put out the follow-up (unfortunately, most of my former fans may be seniors in high school now!). However, I made a promise to myself to get that next book out into the world. That book is aptly titled, Little Stinker.
 

My Kickstarter Adventure...

This brings us back to Kickstarter. The talented artist I had illustrate Little Stinker had suggested it. I was a bit sceptical, but I figured I had nothing to lose. It would force me to get something going - since there a number of things you really need to do.

We produced a fun video explaining the project. This is something highly recommended from Kickstarter. In the video I was able to realize my dream of actually interacting with my animated book characters. I was a modern day Walt Disney...sort of.

You also have to go through the process of deciding what “rewards” you give to funders. For a picture book, it is somewhat easy to start. You get a signed copy of the book, right? Who wouldn’t want that? After that, you have to be fairly creative depending on what your project is. I know there is somewhat of a trend that celebrities are getting in on the Kickstarter game. Zach Braff is producing a movie where for a mere $10K pledge on Kickstarter you can be a cast member. I can’t offer that kind of reward.

The toughest thing is determining how much money you actually want to raise for your project. There is a catch with Kickstarter. It is not like a telethon. If you don’t get the funding that matches or exceeds your goal - you get nothing. Nada. Nil. So you have to be realistic. I have frequent pangs of anxiety about my funding goal I have set.

As I write this, I am in the early goings of my campaign. I have emailed friends, relatives, neighbors, pets - basically anyone that had been saved in my Yahoo contacts.(Sorry). I have also been posting on Facebook as frequently as an adolescent girl. “Please like me?!” I seem to be saying on a daily basis. There is a risk that your pride could take a hit with this.

Ideally, people start to spread the word and you get folks pledging who you may have never heard of.  That seems to be the true spirit of crowdfunding - to leverage the Internet, social media, etc. to make folks aware of something that they may be interested in being a part of.

Will I be a succesful with my campaign for Little Stinker? We’ll see. But I am thankful for Kickstarter and the crowdfunding trend to help give me the boost I needed. For those that have a creative project that you have been sitting on. Give it a try.

My project can be found at: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/754410841/little-stinker